Brave Queen battles on with bloodshot eye

THE Queen welcomed the President of Colombia to Britain yesterday with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony, despite sporting a severely bloodshot eye.

The 90-year-old monarch, who undertook a gruelling day of engagements including an official greeting on The Mall, lunch and a state banquet, did not appear to be suffering any discomfort from the condition.

It’s not the first time the Queen has appeared in public with a bloodshot eye. In 2006, on an official visit to Belfast, the monarch’s right eye was completely bloodshot and so swollen that she could open it only halfway.

Buckingham Palace failed to respond to requests for a comment yesterday but sources who had been with the sovereign during the day said she had appeared ‘just fine’.

At last night’s glittering state banquet, guests including ten- nis star Jamie Murray – who has a Colombian wife, Alejandra – and Theresa May dined on Dover sole with Morecambe Bay shrimps in a light saffron cream, followed by pot-roasted Windsor estate pheasant with pickled cabbage, port and truffle jus, broccoli and potatoes.

Earlier President Juan Manuel Santos gave Prince Philip a pen made from a bullet as a symbol of Colombia’s move towards peace. Mr Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end one of the world’s longest-running civil wars. The Queen was presented with a silver filigree clutch purse.

Mr Santos is known to be a big fan of Sir Winston Churchill, and the Queen and Philip gave him a bound album of ‘Churchilliana’, including facsimiles and photographs from the Royal Archives.