Queen to miss thanksgiving service citing ‘discomfort’

THE Queen last night announced “with great reluctance” that she will not attend a service of thanksgiving celebrating her reign at St Paul’s Cathedral, after suffering discomfort during the first day of her jubilee celebrations.

Despite “immensely” enjoying Trooping the Colour and the flypast, the Queen decided the journey to St Paul’s and the length of the service today would make it too difficult to attend.

The last-minute decision was announced by Buckingham Palace after a day of glorious celebrations, which saw the Queen take a salute from the balcony of the palace, and standing for the flypast by the Armed Forces.

Hours afterwards, a spokesman said: “The Queen greatly enjoyed today’s birthday parade and flypast but did experience some discomfort.

“Taking into account the journey and activity required to participate in tomorrow’s National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, Her Majesty with great reluctance has concluded that she will not attend.”

The Queen was still due to participate in last night’s beacon lighting event at Windsor Castle. A source added that, while Her Majesty had “immensely” enjoyed the first day of jubilee celebrations, she had also experienced the return of the episodic mobility issues she has suffered from recently.

It is the latest event the Queen has pulled out of for mobility reasons, following the State Opening of Parliament, the Maundy Day church service and the Commonwealth Day service.

Last year, she was unable to attend the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday or Cop26, and she has recently called an end to her hosting of garden parties.

Concessions to the Queen’s mobility problems had already been made during the jubilee weekend, such as not taking the Trooping the Colour salute at Horse Guards Parade. However, she

‘Taking into account the activity, Her Majesty with great reluctance concluded that she will not attend’

also recently used a golf buggy to navigate the Chelsea Flower Show and unexpectedly opened the Elizabeth Line in person, raising hopes that she would be able to enjoy more of the jubilee than the palace had let on.

Last night’s decision, described as “regrettable but sensible”, was taken owing to the length of the journey and service at St Paul’s, which starts at 11.30am this morning and runs for an hour, with a procession to depart.

The Queen is not confirmed to be at any further events during the jubilee weekend, although may yet delight the public with an appearance or two. It is hoped that she will be able to take part in a grand finale royal moment after the pageant on Sunday, likely to be on the Buckingham Palace balcony again.

The palace had already announced that the Duke of York would miss the St Paul’s service, having tested positive for Covid. The Duke, who has seen the Queen in the last few days, was yesterday discovered to have coronavirus during a routine test.

It meant he pulled out of his only planned public appearance of the jubilee, avoiding the controversy and criticism of the Westminster Abbey service of thanksgiving for the late Duke of Edinburgh earlier this year, in which Prince Andrew sat next to the Queen to help her in and out of her seat.

Despite stepping down as a working member of “The Firm” over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, before he made a financial settlement with Virginia Giuffre over sex abuse accusations, he was still intended to be at the St Paul’s Cathedral because it was deemed a private event.

Today, the service will go ahead in full, in the presence of the remainder of the Royal family. The Prince of Wales, who was due to accompany the Queen in a short procession to her seat, will instead represent her.

The Prince, Duchess of Cornwall and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be the only members of the Royal family in the procession, with the Wessexes, Sussexes and Princess Royal arriving earlier to take their seats along with the Queen’s wider family.

We expected the musical portion of the National Service of Thanksgiving to be deeply traditional, and so it is. The only surprising thing is that the Queen’s own musical favourites that many expected to find in the Order of Service aren’t included. The hymns Praise my Soul the King of Heaven and The Lord is my Shepherd are not there, nor any of the pieces heard at the Diamond Jubilee service, nor any of the pieces commissioned by the Royal Household during her reign, such as Britten’s Te Deum in C. The only personal touch is the inclusion of Rhosymedre, one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Three Preludes founded on Welsh Hymn Tunes, which was played at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. Her Majesty won’t be there to see it, having pulled out after “discomfort” last night.

One gets the sense that the aim has been to produce something festive, with the occasional reflective note, but also grandly impersonal, with everything in its rightful place. Some might discern another theme in the music – a desire to salute musicians whose devotion to duty has been (almost) as impressive as the Queen’s own. One of the organ pieces Homage to Elgar is by the 89-year-old Martin Howe, while Pageant and the anthem Oh all ye Works of the Lord are by Francis Jackson, who died earlier this year at the age of 104.

As always with important royal church ceremonies, the resident choir of the “hosting” church, in this case St Paul’s Cathedral, will be joined by the monarch’s “own” choir, the Chapel Royal. The numerous fanfares to welcome the Royal party and dignitaries will be performed by bands from all three of the Armed Forces: the Royal Marines, the Coldstream Guards and the Central Band of the Royal Air Force, plus the State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry. As the guests arrive, after a burst of that uniquely English tradition of complex “change-ringing” on the bells of St Paul’s, the first music anyone will hear will be Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music played on the organ – what could be more festive than that? Vaughan Williams’s English Folk Suite and Holst’s First Suite in D will strike a very English note, followed by Rhosymedre – surprisingly the only musical representation of the non-english nations of the UK. The organ Prelude and Fugue by Mendelssohn will be a reminder that he is still a favourite of the British monarchy, as he was in Queen Victoria’s time.

As for the service itself, the musical moment that might bring a tear to the eye of older viewers will be at the very beginning, as the Queen’s Procession makes its way up the nave. At that moment, Charles Hubert Parry’s anthem I was Glad will ring out, complete with resplendent brass fanfares and choral acclamations of “Vivat Regina!”, just as it did on that day in Westminster Abbey in June 1953 when the 25-year-old Elizabeth was crowned.