Queen Camilla Will Take a Break From Royal Duties

Following the announcement last month that King Charles III had been diagnosed with cancer, the expectation was that Prince William would step in to handle commitments that his dad’s treatments might preclude. But William is managing his own family health challenges, as his wife, Kate Middleton, continues to recover from a “planned abdominal surgery” performed in January. 

Instead, it’s Queen Camilla who’s been front and center, handling the royal duties the rest of the family cannot (even if that means hitting the road in inclement weather). But even the indefatigable-seeming 76-year-old has her limits, and it appears she’s hit a wall, as her calendar for the next week has been cleared.

According to the Sunday Times, Camilla will be skipping all engagements until March 11, when she’s expected at Westminster Abbey for the annual Commonwealth Day service. She will “represent Charles and lead the royal family” at the event, an occasionally controversial celebration of an alliance of 56 independent member countries across “Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Americas, the Pacific and Europe,” its website notes. The service is typically attended by the full royal family, though Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been notably absent in recent years.

This year, not only is Charles expected to skip the ceremony, but Middleton will also abstain. As Buckingham Palace has said for several weeks, she will be recovering from that surgery until Easter, which this year will be on March 31.

Now it’s on royal siblings Princess Anne and Prince Edward to pick up the slack, Page Six reports. In the coming days, it’s they—not Camilla—who will appear at events at spots including the “Rising Brook Community Church, Savoy Chapel, the Right Stuff Amateur Boxing Club, National Equine Forum” and others.

Meanwhile, Camilla will spend her week with the king and her own family, before getting back on the horse next Monday. “Although she was not expecting to find herself in the position of leading the family, the Queen is absolutely prepared to do whatever needs to be done for the institution,” a royal source told the Times. 

“She has found reserves of energy that even she didn’t think she had,” the source said, “and the estimation of her by those inside the palace has soared as she has put her shoulder to the wheel.”