Queen Elizabeth will not attend the summer’s traditional royal garden parties, Buckingham Palace has announced, in the latest development to fuel fears over the 96-year-old British monarch’s health. The parties typically involve the queen standing for protracted periods of time greeting guests, and the palace has said in recent months that she is struggling with pain in her back and general stiffness. The queen herself quipped that she was unable to move, while gesturing towards her foot, during a recent in-person audience. The queen’s non-appearance at the four garden parties—three in London and one in Scotland—the first since the pandemic, will inevitably deepen wider concerns about her health and her ability to attend key events of the Platinum Jubilee, which starts in just four week’s time. Buckingham Palace has been briefing journalists that the queen is unlikely to attend many events, and it has even been suggested that she may not make an in-person appearance at all. The Palace said other family members will stand in for the queen, but a palace source told The Daily Beast that “the format of the parties in terms of length of time they last and the traditional amount of time standing” were “key factors” in other family members attending on her behalf.
