Queen Letizia yesterday undertook her first public engagement since the royal visit to Majorca for the Easter celebrations went slightly wrong. A young woman heckled the Queen as she was leaving for an event in Madrid. The woman told reporters that she had called the Queen impolite for what she had done to her mother-in-law.
This was a reference to events on Sunday following mass at Palma Cathedral. The Queen is facing something of a PR nightmare because of the vast publicity given to two incidents involving her daughters - Leonor and Sofia - and the Queen Mother, also Sofia.
In the first, the Queen is seen to intervene when the Queen Mother attempts to pose for a photograph of herself with the two girls. It would appear that the Queen Mother asks the Queen to "leave it, please". The Queen strokes Leonor's hair and the princess then tries to push her grandmother's arm away. King Felipe is clearly alarmed at what is going on, while the ex-king, Juan Carlos, looks on with astonishment.
The second incident, outside the Cathedral, appears to show the Queen wiping Leonor's face after the Queen Mother has kissed her. The Queen once more seems to prevent a photo of the girls and their grandmother. Finally, there is a photo of the whole family.
Since then, it has been said by friends of the Queen that she was "devastated" by what happened. Various interpretations have been given of the events, one of them being that the princess threw a slight tantrum and didn't want to be photographed. Another is that the Queen is very protective of the girls' image. A further one is that the relationship between Letizia and the Queen Mother isn't very good and in fact never has been.