A man who entered the grounds of Windsor Castle, where the Queen is spending Christmas, has been arrested and is being held on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, police say.
The 19-year-old from Southampton in southern England did not enter any buildings on Christmas Day and security processes were triggered within moments, Thames Valley Police said in a statement.
Elizabeth (95), who has spent much of the Covid-19 pandemic at Windsor Castle, was celebrating Christmas there with her son, Prince Charles, his wife, Camilla, and other close family.
"The man has been arrested on suspicion of breach or trespass of a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon," Thames Valley Police Superintendent Rebecca Mears said.
She added that members of the royal family had been informed about the incident and police did not believe there was a wider danger to the public.
The incident took place at about 8.30am on Saturday.
Charles, Camilla and other royal family members were pictured later in the morning arriving for a Christmas church service at St George's Chapel within the Windsor Castle complex.
There was no suggestion that any of the royal family's plans had been disrupted by the incident.
Security breaches at royal residences are rare. The most serious one in the Queen's reign happened in 1982, when an intruder climbed a wall to enter Buckingham Palace, her London home, and wandered into a room where she was in bed.
In 2016, a man with a previous murder conviction pleaded guilty to trespass after scaling a perimeter wall at Buckingham Palace and asking if the British monarch was at home.
The royal family normally spend Christmas at the queen's Sandringham estate in eastern England, but that tradition has been disrupted by Covid. She spent Christmas of 2020 at Windsor also.
The Queen made no public appearance on Saturday.
In a pre-recorded Christmas message to the nation, she spoke of the loss of her husband, Prince Philip, who died in April aged 99. The couple were married for 73 years.
