Devout Queen, 95, ‘misses church’ as her recovery continues

The Queen was forced to miss church yesterday after spending a night in hospital last week – but wants to resume official duties within days, a royal source has said.   

The 95-year-old monarch could carry out some of her engagements this week, though there are no public duties in her diary after she dramatically cancelled a two-day trip to Northern Ireland to mark the 100th anniversary of the partition on doctors’ orders.

Aides insisted that the tests were purely ‘precautionary’ and the sovereign has been resting at Windsor after her stay in King Edward VII’s Hospital in London. 

Her priority remains to be able to lead the Royal Family at the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow from next week, where more than 120 world leaders including Joe Biden will gather at the Scottish Event Campus from October 31 to November 12. 

Palace insiders told The Sun that the Queen missed prayers at Windsor’s All Saints Chapel in Windsor on Sunday. It is thought that Her Majesty received private prayers with a chaplain inside the castle. The head of state is unlikely to be seen this week as she is under orders to carry out only light duties. Investitures are expected to be carried out by other royals.  

Buckingham Palace said she ‘remains in good spirits’, though a royal source told The Sunday Times: ‘She is knackered.’ And an insider told the Mail last night: ‘Her private office will constantly look at her diary and tweak it as and when is necessary.’  

The Queen, who will celebrate her Platinum Jubilee next year, has had a busy schedule since returning from Balmoral. Including her return from the royal estate in Aberdeenshire, where she spent the summer, the Queen has travelled nearly 1,000 miles this month.

Two weeks ago she was forced to start using a walking stick in public for the first time – a stark reminder of her advancing years. And last Tuesday she was on her feet for almost an hour when she held a lavish reception for guests including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and US climate envoy John Kerry, where she looked bright and cheerful.  

She had reportedly agreed a secret sign with aides so they could whisk her away if she felt fatigued, but the coded signal was not needed and she was said to be on ‘sparkling form’.

But the following morning, when she was due to travel to Northern Ireland, she was told to rest by doctors and ‘reluctantly’ accepted their advice.

It is highly unusual that any major engagement would be cancelled at the last minute, suggesting that staff are taking no chances with the elderly head of state’s health.   

She has faced a tumultuous 18 months, including the death of the Duke of Edinburgh as well as the acrimonious departure of Prince Harry and wife Meghan. 

The Queen still keeps a busy diary of events and audiences and deals with her daily red boxes of official papers. 

Since she returned to Windsor from her summer break at Balmoral, the Queen has carried out 15 engagements, listed in the Court Circular, including her audiences, plus an additional trip to Ascot. 

Senior aides at Buckingham Palace are scrambling to devise a strategy for managing the Queen’s workload after being accused of misleading the public over her health.

Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary, last night faced calls to ‘be ruthless’ and purge the Monarch’s diary of functions not central to her role as head of state.

Officials are understood to be drawing up a ‘core’ list of key events that the Queen will prioritise in the next 12 months, including the Platinum Jubilee to celebrate her 70-year reign in June.

It comes amid reports the Queen will be accompanied by one of her children or grandchildren when she appears in public in the future to avoid having to cancel and let down the public in the event of future health scares.

Another member of the Royal Family will be on hand to step in should she need company or assistance, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Meanwhile, the Palace’s communications team is under pressure to be more candid should the 95-year-old Monarch require further visits to hospital.

The Queen’s courtiers faced extensive criticism last week for failing to inform the public that she had been admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Wednesday and stayed there overnight for tests.

The media was told that she was resting at Windsor Castle and aides revealed the hospital stay only on Thursday night after news leaked out.

The controversy has shone a spotlight on the growing challenge faced by the Palace in balancing the Queen’s desire to be an active head of state with needing to protect her health.

Royal sources say the easing of Covid restrictions has resulted in a logjam of public events, adding pressure on the Queen’s diary. According to Buckingham Palace’s Court Circular, she has held 13 separate audiences or meetings, attended seven major events and travelled almost 900 miles since leaving Balmoral on October 1. In addition, every day she still reads Government papers, delivered to her in red boxes, and has a long list of private meetings.

‘They have to find some kind of balance,’ said Sally Bedell Smith, who has written a bestselling biography of the Queen.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, said the Queen’s autumn schedule had been more crammed than expected, but last-minute cancellations were inevitable in the future.

‘Every now and again there will be this reminder that she is 95 and she can’t do what was expected of her 10, 20 years ago,’ Mr Little said.

The Queen held two audiences this week via video link from Windsor Castle, greeting the Japanese ambassador Hajime Hayashi and the EU ambassador Joao de Almeida, followed by the investment summit in the evening.

Among those at the Windsor reception for billionaire business leaders, presidential envoys and tech entrepreneurs were Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, US climate envoy John Kerry, Poppy Gustafsson, chief executive of cyber security firm Darktrace, and Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. 

Royal sources had insisted there was no cause for concern, and stressed that the decision was made purely as a ‘precautionary’ measure. 

There was no suggestion that the Queen had fallen ill and it was understood that her decision was not linked to Covid. It is understood she has received her booster jab.

But the monarch, who will celebrate her Platinum Jubilee next year, continues to stoically meet hundreds of work commitments each year – 30 years after most people have retired – and does suffer from recurrent back pain.

On Tuesday she hosted a summit for global investors and politicians at Windsor Castle, standing and shaking hands for around 40 minutes, the Mail was told.

A source said she was on ‘sparkling form’, welcoming guests including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and US presidential envoy John Kerry, telling Mr Kerry: ‘I saw you on telly the other night doing [Prince] William’s Earthshot Prize thing.’

As part of her planned trip to Northern Ireland, she had been expected to stay at Hillsborough Castle and undertake a series of public engagements there, staying overnight to attend a service to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland.

It is highly unusual that such a major engagement would be cancelled at the last minute, suggesting staff are taking no chances with the head of state’s health.

Royal commentator Joe Little said the Queen’s age meant last-minute cancellations might become more frequent. The managing editor of Majesty magazine said: ‘When you get to the age of 95 and you have a role such as the Queen has, there is an inevitability about last-minute cancellations. Unfortunately, I think this is just how it’s going to have to be from time to time.’

He added: ‘Mentally, the Queen is pin-sharp as ever and when she makes speeches she speaks well. Every now and again there will be this reminder that she is 95 and she can’t do what was expected of her ten, 20 years ago.’

Mr Little said he believed the Queen would carry out fewer public engagements to mark her Platinum Jubilee than she did for her Diamond Jubilee.

And he said he did not believe she would agree to allow Charles to take over duties as a prince regent unless there was a ‘sharp deterioration’ in her health.

Her doctor’s advice will strengthen calls for her and her advisers to reconsider the number of engagements she undertakes. She has made schedule ‘tweaks’ and has handed over more arduous public duties such as investitures to other senior royals.

But there are some duties that only the reigning monarch can conduct. In recent weeks she has travelled to Holyrood and Cardiff to attend the opening of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, taken part in a tree planting at Balmoral and launched the Commonwealth Games baton relay at Buckingham Palace.

Last week she used a walking stick for the first time at a public event – at a service for the centenary of the Royal British Legion. She has also taken part in several audiences at Windsor.

A royal source said: ‘With her Platinum Jubilee on the horizon, many are thinking that perhaps her private office needs to look at the diary again.’

Another source said: ‘No one is saying that she should take a step back, but perhaps another slight step to one side might be in order.’

At the weekend, the Queen enjoyed a day at the races at Ascot, and on Monday held a virtual audience with the new governor-general of New Zealand. Last week, she travelled to Cardiff to deliver a speech at the ceremonial opening of the sixth Welsh Senedd in Cardiff. 

The monarch has been pictured out and about at the Royal Windsor Horse Show and Ascot in the months since, and still enjoys riding her own ponies. 

Security sources had speculated whether the health scare was something of a ‘smokescreen’ with the centenary event becoming a ‘political hot potato’ after details of the Queen’s itinerary were leaked by Irish newspapers. 

The Irish Times previewed the Queen’s visit at the end of September and a leading security expert pointed out that details of the trip had been widely reported in Belfast. He said that revealing where the Queen would be ‘was as dangerous as it gets’. 

In the past, details of Royal visits to Northern Ireland were kept under wraps until the last moment. Off-record briefings would be given to the media on condition that the news would be embargoed until the visit was underway.  

There had also been confusion over the last-minute nature of the trip’s cancellation, especially as President Higgins’s invite rejection and the leaking of the Queen’s visit took place several weeks ago. 

The Queen’s husband of 73 years the Duke of Edinburgh died in April at the age of 99.  As well coping with the duke’s death, the Queen and the royal family have endured some of their most turbulent times in modern history in recent years. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex plunged the monarchy into crisis with their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March, while Philip was in hospital.

Harry and Meghan accused an unnamed member of the family of racism towards their son Archie before he was born, and the institution of failing to help the suicidal duchess.

The pair quit as senior working royals in 2020 in favour of more freedom and the ability to earn their own money in the US.

Harry said he felt let down by Charles and that ‘there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened’ in their relationship, and his long-standing rift with William has continued.

In the aftermath of the Oprah broadcast, the Queen issued a statement saying ‘while some recollections may vary’, the issues would be taken ‘very seriously’, but dealt with privately as a family.

The scandal that engulfed the Queen’s second son the Duke of York, who was forced to step back from public duties in November 2019, moved up a gear this year.

Andrew had faced mounting pressure and calls to answer the FBI’s questions following his ‘car crash’ Newsnight interview about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein

His friend Ghislaine Maxwell is to go on trial, charged with recruiting girls for Epstein. Maxwell denies the charges against her. Then in August 2021, Virginia Giuffre, who says she was trafficked by Epstein, started legal action against Andrew for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was 17 and still a minor under US law.

Lawyers for Ms Giuffre filed the civil suit seeking unspecified damages at a federal court in New York.

She alleges she was sexually abused by Andrew at Maxwell’s home in London, Epstein’s New York mansion and at other locations including Epstein’s private Caribbean island Little St James.  Andrew categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre. 

Despite the royals’ problems, there have also been times of celebration, with the Queen welcoming a host of new great-grandchildren.

Princess Eugenie gave birth to her first child, a son called August, in February 2021 and Zara Tindall welcomed her third, Lucas, who was born at home on the bathroom floor the month after.

Harry and Meghan’s daughter Lilibet, who the Queen has yet to meet in person, arrived in June, and Princess Beatrice, who wed during the pandemic in a secret lockdown ceremony, had her daughter Sienna in September. 

On Tuesday evening, the Queen welcomed billionaire business leaders, presidential envoys and tech entrepreneurs to Windsor Castle for a reception. 

Mr Gates was among the guests invited to the Queen’s Berkshire home after the day-long conference in London aimed at encouraging foreign funding by showcasing the best of British innovation.

The Queen was joined by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge at the reception, and met some of the leading figures in the castle’s green drawing room before the royals mingled more widely. Neither the royal family nor the guests were wearing masks. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to be introduced first, but he appeared after the Queen began welcoming her guests and took his place at the end of the line.

In a foreword for the Global Investment Summit’s official brochure, the Queen said she was ‘proud’ of how the UK is moving towards a sustainable future but ‘there is still much more to do’.

The head of state also urged nations to ‘rise to the challenge’ and avert the problems associated with climate change.

It comes after the monarch appeared to suggest last week she was irritated by a lack of action in tackling climate change.

In an overheard exchange following the opening of the Welsh Senedd she appeared to express her exasperation just a few weeks before world leaders gather in Glasgow for Cop26.

‘Since when has she been answerable to Nicholas Witchell?’ Public backlash against ‘infuriating’ BBC man after he questioned whether Buckingham Palace undermined public trust by not revealing the Queen was in hospital

The BBC’s veteran Royal Correspondent Nicholas Witchell faced a backlash after questioning whether Buckingham Palace undermined public trust by failing to reveal the Queen had been admitted to hospital.

In forthright comments, Mr Witchell said that journalists and the public had not been ‘given the complete picture’.

He added: ‘The problem, it seems to me, is that rumour and misinformation always thrive in the absence of proper, accurate and trustworthy information.’ But his remarks provoked criticism online.

‘Nicholas Witchell is honestly so infuriating,’ one Royal watcher wrote on Twitter. 

‘The Queen is 95 and like most her age, she’ll be in and out of hospital for various tests because that’s what happens at that age no matter how fit you are. She doesn’t need to disclose her every move, let her have some dignity.’

Another Twitter user wrote: ‘He’s a pompous a***, full of his own self importance. Bring back Jennie Bond. She was classy.’

A third asked: ‘Since when has the Queen been answerable to Nicholas Witchell?’

A BBC stalwart, Mr Witchell, 68, famously provoked royal displeasure in 2005 when, during a press conference in the Swiss ski resort of Klosters, he asked Prince Charles about his forthcoming marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles.

Under his breath, Charles was heard to mutter to Princes William and Harry: ‘I can’t bear that man. I mean, he’s so awful, he really is.’

One Twitter user this weekend joked: ‘I don’t agree with Prince Charles on many subjects – apart from Nicholas Witchell.

‘I bet they’ll be setting a room aside in the Tower before they’ve minted a coronation coin.’