Queen Elizabeth will reportedly speak of her husband Prince Philip in her traditional Christmas Day speech. Meanwhile, a service of thanksgiving for the Duke of Edinburgh—who died last April—will take place in the spring, Buckingham Palace has announced.
The Daily Mail said sources had indicated Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would be invited to the occasion, in a very public attempt to “break the ice” between the couple and the rest of the royal family.
The palace also released a picture of the queen taken in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, where the Christmas Day speech was recorded. A picture beside the queen shows her and Prince Philip in 2007 at Broadlands country house—where the couple had honeymooned—taken to mark their diamond wedding anniversary. The speech will be broadcast on Christmas Day at 3 p.m., British time.
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This year, the queen is breaking with the tradition of big Christmases at her country home, Sandringham, and having a small gathering at Windsor this year, owing to concerns over the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
The palace has has been at pains to discourage speculation about who will be joining her, but Prince Charles’ office confirmed Thursday that he and his wife Camilla would celebrate Christmas with the sovereign, with a spokesperson saying: “The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will be with Her Majesty The Queen on Christmas Day.”
It is highly likely that her disgraced son, Prince Andrew, will also make an appearance, with his children, purely because he lives so close by.
Prince Edward lives under half an hour away by car and may be expected to visit, however Princess Anne will not be able to attend because her husband, Sir Tim Laurence, has contracted Omicron.
That Christmas 2021 is ending with the queen sequestered at Windsor, as she also was last year is adding to a “Groundhog day” feel at the palace. When she was confined to Windsor Castle last year, it was the first time she had skipped her traditional Christmas at Sandringham in over 30 years.
Indeed, the Queen’s Christmas Day address for 2020, in which she spoke of how all that many people “really want for Christmas is a simple hug or a squeeze of the hand” could easily be repurposed for this year.
It is a miserable symbol of just what a dreadful year the queen has had that she will be with a small bubble of relatives instead of being surrounded by her extended family and hosting sporting parties at the famous Sandringham shoot.
It may also be a harbinger of a grim year ahead.
The official narrative is that 2022 is the greatest year of the second Elizabethan age. And it is quite true that 2022 marks a remarkable achievement for the iconic monarch: 70 years on the throne, in which time she has scarcely put a foot wrong.
Several members of her family, however, have let her down terribly. Andrew’s alleged sex crimes, Charles’ aides involvement in the cash for honors scandal and Harry’s disloyalty to the institution by giving an interview condemning it to Oprah Winfrey have all stung the queen, and damaged the reputation of the royals for maintaining a united front.
It all rather seems, as 2020 draws to a close, as if Her Majesty has lost her grip on her unruly brood.
Indeed, the increasingly chaotic and rebellious goings-on among the younger generations of the House of Windsor can be largely dated to the August 2017 retirement of the family enforcer, Prince Philip, who Sarah Ferguson once told a friend of this reporter “ruled that family with a rod of iron.”
And Philip’s death at the age of 99 this year means the queen’s retreat into the Windsor bubble will be an even more depressing experience than it was last year. Looking to the year ahead, Andrew, of course, and the seemingly unlimited potential for shame that his legal woes will bring, is one stand-out problem for 2022—but the other is the great wheel of time itself.
The queen seemed to get a lot older very quickly this year. Although she was remarkably resilient in the weeks immediately after Philip’s death, back on public duty and public show with alacrity, her health apparently collapsed in the autumn.
She was hospitalized (although Buckingham Palace has remained secretive as to the exact nature of whatever was wrong with her) and then wiped her diary for the rest of the year.
Almost all of next year’s engagements have now been canceled as well, in the hope that she will be able to attend the key events relating to the platinum jubilee. But given concerns over her own health, Harry and Meghan-related drama, and Prince Andrew’s ongoing legal struggles, the new year is not shaping up to be a happy one.
A notable silver lining of coronavirus for the queen has been that she was able to conduct much of her business via video link in 2021 without raising an eyebrow.
It seems likely that Buckingham Palace will seek to counter the grim “death watch” narrative that the media are now following with the release of further tightly controlled video calls.
Even if they do look a bit like “proof of life” hostage videos at times, they play well on social media and have allowed the queen to put a new spin on her old adage, “I have to be seen to be believed.”
Of course, the ultimate moment for the queen to be seen by her subjects is the Christmas Day address. This is still beamed out to the British nation at 3 p.m., by which time Christmas lunch was once safely finished, but these days is barely getting started.
Incredibly, despite the manifold anachronisms of this custom, British bookmakers confidently expect it to be the biggest ratings draw of the day.
Rupert Adams, a spokesperson for William Hill, told The Daily Beast said: “The odds firmly suggest that the queen’s speech carries increased significance this year and certainly isn’t falling out of favor. Her broadcast has been backed into 1/3 from 1/2 as we build towards the 25th.”
“1/3” means that if a British gambler bet £3 and won, they would receive £1 winnings back (plus their stake).
The continuing importance to many British people of watching the queen speak on Christmas Day shows just what an extraordinary part of national life and identity, despite all the scandals her children have become mired in, she remains.
That said, however, the year ahead looks enormously challenging on so many fronts—family, health, personal—that it’s hard to imagine Her Majesty pondering the events of 2022 with anything other than a grim determination to keep calm and carry on.
