But many see the beginning of a bid for succession that has long been expected, despite Gamal Mubarak's flagging popularity and a five-year-old campaign against hereditarysuccession that has resonated widely.
Her sophisticated soldier husband, the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, taunted her with a succession of mistresses, and she took disconsolately to religion, and to trumpeting the superiority of her native land.
The Commons meets at 2.30pm on Monday for Home Office questions, after which the Conservative Mary Macleod proposes to follow-up the Succession to the Crown Bill by removing male preference in the inheritance of hereditary peerages and estates.