The corgi is a small Welsh herding dog with a long body, short legs and upright ears, and thanks to seventy years of royal ownership it is now impossible to see one without thinking of Elizabeth II.
What they actually are
Working cattle dogs. The name is Welsh — cor gi, meaning dwarf dog — and the low build is functional: a corgi drives cattle by nipping at their heels and is short enough for the kick to pass over its head. They are herding dogs in a compact package, with all the energy and opinions that implies.
There are two breeds. The Pembroke is the familiar one, with a docked or naturally short tail. The Cardigan is older, larger, and has a full bushy tail. The Cardigan is now genuinely rare.
Susan
Princess Elizabeth was given a Pembroke corgi called Susan for her eighteenth birthday in 1944, and the attachment was immediate — Susan was smuggled along on the honeymoon in 1947, hidden under rugs in the carriage.
Every royal corgi that followed descended from her, through fourteen generations. The Queen bred them herself, kept detailed records, and was closely involved in the whelping. She owned more than thirty over her lifetime.
Dorgis
An accidental crossbreed that became a royal fixture. One of the Queen’s corgis mated with a dachshund belonging to Princess Margaret, producing a dorgi, and the Queen kept them thereafter alongside the pure-bred corgis.
Life at the palace
The dogs travelled with the Queen between residences, slept in a dedicated room in raised wicker baskets, and were fed a prepared diet served by a footman — meals were reportedly assembled to individual requirements and the Queen frequently served them herself.
They were also, by many accounts, thoroughly indulged and inclined to bite. Palace staff over the decades recorded a number of nipped ankles, and the corgis had a considerable reputation among visiting dignitaries.
Stopping and starting again
The Queen stopped breeding in 2015, reportedly because she did not want to leave young dogs behind. By 2018 the last of Susan’s line, Willow, had died, and it was widely reported that the era was over.
She was then given two corgi puppies during Prince Philip’s final illness in 2021, and had corgis at her death in 2022. Two of them, Muick and Sandy, went to Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, who had given them to her.
The image
Corgis appeared alongside the Queen in the 2012 Olympics opening film with Daniel Craig, in innumerable official photographs, and in the animated sequence at the Platinum Jubilee. They are on tea towels, mugs, biscuit tins and shortbread packaging across Britain.
Kennel Club registrations of Pembroke corgis had fallen to the point where the breed was classed as vulnerable in 2014. Interest revived sharply after The Crown, and numbers have recovered substantially since.