Queen's dinner rule: Item she bans grandchildren from having at table – 'she won't allow!'

Members of the Royal Family must position their cutlery in the correct way to reveal they’ve finished eating, according to Mr Hanson.

He claimed: “When a member of the Royal Family is finished eating, they place their cutlery together.

“If you imagine the plate as a clock face and the cutlery as the hands of the clock, when finished eating in Britain, the cutlery is positioned at 6.30 with the tines of the fork facing upwards.

“The cutlery is placed together in such a finished position to alert the staff (and other diners) that you have finished so they can clear your plate without having to ask whether you are finished or not.

“It always amazes me when in supposedly good restaurants, when there is no scrap of food left on the plate and your cutlery is together in the internationally recognised finished position, servers still ask, ‘are you finished?’.”