For her traditional Christmas address this Saturday, Queen Elizabeth II delivered a very personal speech, referring to her late husband Prince Philip, who died at the age of 99 this year. In this speech recorded at Windsor Castle, the Queen said “to understand” why Christmas, “for many a period of great happiness and cheerfulness” could also be “difficult for those who have lost loved ones”.
Elizabeth II thus confided that her “Loved Philip” him “lack”. “That gleam of playfulness and curiosity was as brilliant at the end as when I first laid eyes on him.”, she assured, sitting behind a desk on which was a framed photo of herself and Philip holding each other’s arms, smiling, in 2007, as the royal couple celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. During this address, the queen, wearing a red dress, sported the same sapphire chrysanthemum brooch that she wore during his honeymoon in 1947.
Although I miss him, and my family miss him, I know he would like us to enjoy Christmas
The 95-year-old monarch claims to have “derived great comfort” of the many tributes she has received since the Duke of Edinburgh’s death in April. Evoking fondly Philip with whom she was married 73 years old, she quotes “his sense of duty, his intellectual curiosity and his ability to have fun in any situation”.
“Although I miss him, and my family miss him, I know he would like us to enjoy Christmas”, added the queen, seated near a large sparkling tree, insisting on the “joy” of the party despite its “familiar laughter that we miss”. For the second year in a row, Elizabeth spend Christmas at Windsor Castle, west of London, thus breaking with a well-established tradition. A palace source said the decision was made for health reasons, due to the rapid spread of the novel Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
His eldest son Charles and his wife Camilla spend Christmas by his side but not his daughter Anne, who has been isolating herself since her husband tested positive for the coronavirus. Prince William, Charles’s eldest son, his wife Kate and their three children are spending Christmas in the East of England. Usually all Windsors get together for Christmas at one of their residences, the Sandringham Estate in the east of England.
“Even though due to Covid we cannot celebrate (Christmas) quite the way we would have liked, we can still enjoy many happy traditions” like singing a Christmas carol or decorating a tree, suggested Elizabeth II in her address. The sovereign did, however, no mention of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who distanced themselves from the royal family in 2020 and now live in California, although she was delighted with the birth of four children to the royal family in 2021, including Lilibet, the couple’s second child.
The year 2021 will have been a difficult one for the nonagenarian sovereign, who after losing her husband had to give up most of his commitments. Her doctors put her to rest after spending a night in hospital in October for unspecified reasons. And those first end-of-year celebrations without Philip, whom she had described as “rock”, are darkened by the meteoric resurgence of Covid-19 cases UK.
His upcoming platinum jubilee
During her speech, the Queen also referred to her Platinum Jubilee, which will begin in February and will mark her 70 years of reign since her accession to the throne on February 6, 1952. Elizabeth II is indeed the longest reigning monarch in British history, having broken in 2015 the record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria .