Buckingham Palace announced on Friday that Queen Elizabeth is bowing out of an Easter week event and that Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, will attend in her place.
The palace said that the 95-year-old monarch would not attend the Royal Maundy Service at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on Thursday, ahead of Easter Sunday.
The palace did not specify the reason for the queen’s cancelation. Reporter Victoria Murphy of Town & Country said that it was understood the queen “was unable to commit to this event in advance and was keen to avoid overshadowing the event on the day.”
The queen’s health has been called into question over the past few months. She was hospitalized in October and tested positive for COVID-19 in February.
Though she has continued to maintain virtual audiences, the queen has cut back and sometimes, depending on her health, canceled in-person audiences and events as she hands off more responsibilities to Charles.
Despite her health setbacks, the sovereign was able to attend last month’s service of thanksgiving dedicated to her late husband of over 70 years, Prince Philip, marking the queen’s first public outing in over five months.
The Duke of Edinburgh died in April 2021, and was given a pared-down funeral due to the constraints of the coronavirus pandemic. It was not known until the day of the thanksgiving service whether the queen would attend.
While she ultimately did appear, the occasion was marred by her entrance accompanied by her son, Prince Andrew, only weeks after he settled a sexual abuse lawsuit in New York stemming from his association with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.