- Her Majesty just wrote her first ever Instagram post to The Royal Family’s 4.6 million followers.
- The Queen wrote the post during her visit to London’s Science Museum, where she discovered a letter written to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert dating back to 1843.
- The Royal Family’s Instagram account was set up in 2013, but the Queen has never personally posted on the account until now.
The Queen just wrote her first ever Instagram post, and royal fans are freaking out.
On Thursday, Her Majesty visited London’s Science Museum, where she discovered a letter written to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert from Charles Babbage, the world’s first computer engineer.
The Queen said it was “fitting” that these letters feature in her first Instagram post as a celebration of how far technology has come in recent years.
On the official Royal Family account, she posted two photos of the letter and wrote: "Today, as I visit the Science Museum I was interested to discover a letter from the Royal Archives, written in 1843 to my great-great-grandfather Prince Albert."
http://instagr.am/p/ButJtIMnBrV
She added: "I had the pleasure of learning about children's computer coding initiatives and it seems fitting to me that I publish this Instagram post, at the Science Museum which has long championed technology, innovation and inspired the next generation of inventors."
The Royal Family's Instagram account was set up in 2013, but the Queen has never personally posted on the account until now.
Fans were quick to give the Queen a warm welcome to the social media platform, with one person commenting: "Welcome to Instagram, Your Majesty! Looking forward to more posts from you personally!" While another simply wrote: "Wow, such an honour!"
It also seems Her Majesty's post was an etiquette lesson to her younger fans, as one person commented: "We should all write Instagram captions as equally polite and thoughtful as this one (just in case our great-great-grandchildren decide to republish them."
The post comes just days after the royals released official social media guidelines in an effort to prevent the angry and racist comments it has been receiving on its posts of Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton.
The guidelines suggest social media users must not be "abusive" or "hateful," among other things.
In a statement sent to INSIDER, a spokesperson for the Royal Family said: "To celebrate the visit of The Queen to the Science Museum, Her Majesty formally opened the new Smith Centre by sharing an archive image on the @theRoyalFamily's Instagram account.
"The Queen's Instagram post was published when Her Majesty touched the screen in the Smith Centre before invited guests.
It went on: "As part of the visit to the Science Museum, Her Majesty had an opportunity to view iconic communications objects from throughout history, including an enigma machine and the computer on which the World Wide Web was created."
The spokesperson added that The Queen has "long been a supporter of digital communications tools," and upon her last visit to the Science Museum in 2014, she sent her first tweet.
"In a similar act, The Queen launched the first British Monarchy web site in 1997," the statement went on. "Her Majesty sent her first e-mail in 1976, during an engagement at a military base."