Queen Elizabeth returns to the scene after almost six months of absence from any public appointment. And the subjects and fans, worried about his health conditions after the infection from Covid , a rare 24-hour hospitalization for unspecified investigations and various continuous defections , breathe a sigh of relief.
The sovereign, 96 years old in April and forced to lean on a stick due to openly admitted movement difficulties, attended a liturgy in the aisles of Westminster Abbey in memory of Prince consort Philip : life partner for over seven decades , who passed away just a year ago - on April 9, 2021 - at the threshold of the century of life.
The queen was accompanied, on the 40-kilometer journey between Windsor Castle and the abbey symbol of London, by the most controversial of her 4 children: the third son Andrea, Duke of York, forced to leave his royal offices after being was involved in the sexual and child exploitation scandal linked to the figure of the suicidal American fixer Jeffrey Epstein.
A decision that is debatable and that according to veteran Peter Hunt, former BBC observer of real things, is a message that Elisabetta wants to send to the detractors of her favorite son: Andrea "has not been convicted or confessed to anything", despite having closed a civil lawsuit in the US only through a multimillion-dollar indemnity granted to the accuser Virginia Giuffre. And therefore he does not deserve to be marginalized.
With her all the leaders of politics and the state, from Prime Minister Boris Johnson down, and all the members of the family with the exception of the rebellious nephew Harry: who remained overseas, as widely announced, in the golden self-exile that he shares in California with the wife Meghan and little Archie and Lilibet Diana. Dressed in dark green, like her daughter-in-law Camilla and second-born Anna, in honor of a color dear to the memory of the Duke of Edinburgh, the elderly monarch attended the service from a small throne, listening to the sermon of Reverend David Conner, rector of Windsor and spiritual adviser in the last years of Philip's life, once again centered on the "out of the ordinary" figure of the deceased, on his "sympathy", the availability "to sacrifice in service" to the nation; and above all on his "devotion and loyalty to our Queen".
(Unioneonline / D)