For the first time in more than 70 years, the queen has missed a key event. And he is asking questions about Her Majesty’s health.
Sometimes real life is too banana for words. For more than 70 years, the queen has been an unchanging presence at that annual horsemeat and frippery festival, Royal Ascot, with millions of pounds betting each year on the color of the cape that Her Majesty would wear.
This is the money that must be won with this one bet that in 2019, the dress and best friend of the queen, Angela Kelly, revealed that hats are made to prevent the employees of the palace from having an internal track of the bets .
Think today of Ascot bettors whose tickets were much lower this week later, a dramatic break here, His Majesty skipped the entire race for the first time in 70 years.
Although the 96-year-old woman may have missed the state opening of Parliament three times during her stay on the throne, she avoided Remembrance Day at the cenotaph and handed over the duty of partying to Buckingham Palace Garden. to the royal youths who had never, ever jumped. every five days of the horse feast. Always.
You have to understand here, this is not just another happy knee, a chance to have a glass of champagne at lunch and a long gossip about slits and bloodlines with your race director, instead of having to wade through his red box or listen to him. to Boris Johnston complaining about Brussels. Her Majesty is a woman obsessed with all things equine, and though she may have committed herself to a lifetime of stubborn gift duties, she has devoted herself almost equally to all things four-legged and hay-lovers.
Look no further than the fact that, although the Queen may never have given a single interview in her life, but in March, despite ongoing health issues, she agreed to take part in a documentary for ITV Racing with pictures showing her feeding carrots happily. foals on his Sandringham estate.
In the same book sanctioned by the Queen in which Kelly revealed the shin of the señu hat, she also said that “only in extreme circumstances would Her Majesty not attend” Ascot.
The “extreme circumstances” have clearly arrived.
Ascot now joins the growing list of formally sacrosanct events that have been removed from the Queen’s calendar as she continues to experience what Buckingham Palace calls “episodic mobility issues”.
Even during his platinum jubilee celebrations earlier this month, launched to mark a truly historic milestone, he was only able to appear in public for a total of 27 minutes for four days.
Whatever makes him sick, at present nothing more and nothing less than a miracle (and considering that he is the head of an entire religion should be supposed to have a direct line with God) no noticeable improvement will be seen here. .
The sad truth is that we now have a limbo queen, a monarch who rules only by name and has hidden in a Gothic monstrosity as her children and grandchildren go out into the world and represent the house of Windsor.
We may not see her in public again for months now, possibly until mid or late September.
July would normally see the Queen heading north to Scotland, first for Easter, her annual stay at her palace in Edinburgh, along with the annual garden party held there and for the biennial service for the service of the Order of the Card, the oldest Scottish cavalry. order.
Her Majesty then normally moves further north for a couple of months of R&R and mosquito bites on her 50,000-acre Deeside estate only to go public again in September.
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is more likely to show up at her next official hot pants engagement for Her Majesty to take part in any of these previously non-negotiable Scottish events next month.
Of course, the courtiers have probably planned a few engagements with Zoom from now on and when the nineteen-year-old begins her annual summer vacation in Balmoral, if only to prove to the world that she is still alive, if not exactly giving feet. , but everything seems so unfortunate. .
Seeing his reign erupt in a series of canceled events is an exercise in raising levels of pathos and dismay.
What the UK and the Commonwealth now face is this uncomfortable No Man’s Land between kingdoms. Obviously, the queen is still technically sovereign, but she can’t really make any queen walk away from the couch and Prince Charles is opening things up with gusto, but technically he’s still just a prince.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting in Rwanda begins this week and the Charles flag is flown there along with Camilla, just the latest in a growing list of incumbent events now acting instead. her mother.
He may not be the most popular member of the royal family, but he has become, especially in the last year, the public face of the monarch, on the world stage, at the state opening of parliament, on Garter Day. in Ascot and now CHOGM as well.
The center can’t stand it.
This battered co-sovereignty situation does not inspire much faith as the monarchy is in a particularly dangerous place right now.
In February, Prine Andrew paid Virginia Giuffre about $ 22.5 million to settle the case of civil sexual abuse she had filed against him in an attempt to draw a line in the face of the sordid crisis. (She has always vehemently denied her allegations that she sexually assaulted her three times as a teenager.)
However, the consequences of Andrew’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continue. Over the weekend, the Mirror U.S. Attorneys are ready to subpoena the 62-year-old man for a statement from him, claiming he was at Epstein’s mansion in New York the night the financier raped a woman. young.
Meanwhile, in California, the restless Duke and Duchess of Sussex have shown no indication that they have ended their offensive to tell the truth. He, of course, has some memories in the process while they are both filming a “home” documentary series for Netflix.
Will they be able to fill hours and hours of content without once delving into the real trauma they claim to have suffered? Perhaps the best question is, what kind of succulent details or revelations that capture the headlines might be waiting for the reproduction giant in exchange for the $ 140 million he is paying them for this and other projects?
My point is here, after years of suffering the crisis of public relations after the catastrophe of public relations, what the institution of the monarchy needs right now is clear and decisive leadership.
Instead, the whole outfit feels rudder-free.
What seems likely is that the Duke of York will continue to attempt attempts at a comeback, interspersed with possible new legal dramas related to Epstein; the Sussex will at some point produce content that may or may not be in the royal family; the queen will continue to disappear from view and Charles will do things to make himself look positively king.
How will the Palace go next year, with a royal autobiography, the Sussex reality show series and any new hell related to Andrew, if they don’t have it? any kind of constant public presence at the top?
Would anyone invest in a company in the top 20 in ASX if the CEO was so upset that he had no choice but to move to rural solitude and only appear briefly by video call once a month? This is an unsustainable situation that seems unlikely to be resolved any time soon, potentially to the detriment of the monarchy.
So where was the queen last week if she wasn’t in Ascot, you may ask?
He was at home in his apartments inside Windsor Castle watching the five days of racing on television. (Given the Queen’s famous care with money, I guess she still has a squared color with rabbit ears and a footman in her permanent hand to move them to ensure the best signal.)
Here we hope to put at least a pound here and there to some winners to cheer.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with over 15 years of experience working with Australia’s leading media headlines.