Elizabeth II, 95, will not attend an official ceremony in London on Sunday as she intended to, due to her state of health, Buckingham Palace has announced. “The Queen, having hurt her back, has decided that she will not be able to attend today’s Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph. Her Majesty is disappointed to miss the ceremony“, said the palace in a statement reported by AFP.
Buckingham Palace said Thursday that the monarch had the “firm intention“to participate in this ceremony in tribute to the victims of wars, after having had to give up participating in several events in recent weeks on the advice of her doctors. She was to attend from the balcony of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
His son Prince Charles, heir to the throne, who turns 73 this Sunday, will lay a wreath in his mother’s name at the Cenotaph, a war memorial located in central London, as he has been doing since 2017. It is on this date Elizabeth II began to entrust some of her functions to other members of the royal family.
The cancellation risks reigniting British concerns over the state of health of the Queen, who spent a night in hospital last month after undergoing medical tests. On the advice of her doctors, the queen was asked to rest after this brief hospitalization and her agenda was greatly reduced: Elizabeth II notably canceled her trip to COP26, in Glasgow (Scotland), where princes Charles and William represented the royal family. She also had to forgo a two-day trip to Northern Ireland.
Several signs suggested that the widow of the Duke of Edinburgh, who died on April 9, 2021, was doing a little better. She was notably seen driving alone on her grounds at Windsor Castle.