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#Defiant Queen drives to church at Windsor as Royals bring in lawyers over Nazi salute row

THE QUEEN broke cover this morning to make her first public appearance since archive footage emerged claiming to show her performing a Nazi salute as a young girl.

16:39, Sun, Jul 19, 2015 | UPDATED: 17:17, Sun, Jul 19, 2015

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The Queen made her first public appearance since the Nazi salute row broke

Driving herself to a church service at her estate in Windsor, the monarch looked pensive following a 48 hours that has rocked the Royal Family.

Tourists looked on in astonishment as she whisked by at the wheel of her green Jaguar X Type estate, accompanied by a smartly dressed member of staff.

Elegant in a pink hat and coat, the 89-year-old monarch drove down the Long Walk from Windsor Castle, Berkshire, with her window slightly open, making her way to the church near the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.

It is the first time she has been seen in public since The Sun published black and white footage, shot in 1933, which purports to show the Queen and other members of her family performing Nazi salutes.

However, serious doubts were cast on those aspersions today after an expert lip-reader insisted the group were actually making a playful royal wave.

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The monarch took the wheel of her Jaguar estate herself as she drove to church

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Palace officials are said to be considering legal action over the row

Stills from the 17-second silent film show Prince Edward, the Queen Mother, the six-year-old future Queen and her three-year-old sister, Princess Margaret, playing in the gardens at Balmoral.

In the video the future king, Edward VIII, is seen teaching his nieces how to perform the salute.

Royal insiders have said the Queen is "livid" that the footage has been leaked from her personal archive.

Buckingham Palace has launched an investigation into how the clip ended up in the hands of a national newspaper and is said to be considering legal action against whoever leaked it.

It is possible that the film was handed over to film makers inadvertently, but palace officials have not ruled out the possibility that it may have been copied and then sold on by a member of staff at the Royal archive.

Royal commentator and the Queen's former press secretary, Dickie Arbiter, said: "I would like to think it was released inadvertently as a bit of harmless 1933 footage without anybody really knowing what was on it."

However, there are now serious doubts over whether it does indeed show the Queen performing a Nazi salute after an expert lip reader said the dialogue between the young royals reveals that they were simply waving to a figure off camera .

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It has been a tough 48 hours for the monarch, who is said to be 'livid' that the footage was leaked

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The footage was printed on the front page of The Sun

Jessica Rees, who freelances for the Metropolitan Police and FBI, said: This film is definitely not about Nazi salutes.

The Queen Mother and Prince Edward are encouraging the children to wave the Queen then encourages her sister, Margaret, to wave.

I viewed this footage 23 times, and I am in no doubt about what they are saying to each other.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with any Nazi salute. Anyone who says the contrary is simply wrong.

Even if the Queen was performing the hated 'Sieg Heil' gesture, which is synonymous with Nazism, at the age of just six she would not have understood what it meant.

The young Edward was known to be in favour of appeasing Hitler before the Second World War however, when the footage was shot in 1933, the Nazis had not committed the atrocities for which they would later become infamous.

The Queen s cousin, the Rt Hon Margaret Rhodes, said: It is no secret Edward VII was pro-appeasement but that was before the War. But we then had George VI on the throne and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), who were very good throughout the war. And we know perfectly well she s not a Nazi sympathizer.

People will reflect on that and think these suggestions to the contrary are an outrage.

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Photos also show Edward, often seen as a Nazi sympathiser, performing the salute

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The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp last month

Royal author Margaret Holder, director of a documentary on the Queen Mother, said: It just would make no sense for the family to be sharing a Nazi salute. They are clearly waving at someone or something. Perhaps it s a kite or a balloon.

Let s not forget that, at the time, Edward was just the fun uncle who had no responsibilities and who would come to play with them.

She added: The Queen Mother s sympathies were wholeheartedly with Britain and her allies against Nazi Germany Hitler even called her the most dangerous woman in Europe, because of the way she pulled together the national spirit.

She was pictured knitting blankets for troops in Buckingham Palace. They would walk around London after a bombing raid.

At one stage the thought was that the she and her daughters would move to Canada, but she said if the King stays, I stay and my daughters stay . It was one of the things that helped pull the nation together.