Queen ‘cool and calm head in a crisis’ says expert

Instead it will be duty as always, going through at least one red box of official papers from the Government, Parliament and her private secretary – as she does every day except Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. There may be time to walk her one remaining dog, a dorgi called Candy. Then she will spend part of Accession Day in solemn reflection, as she remembers the sad event that brought her to the throne – the death of her beloved father George VI. He died from a blood clot in his heart on February 6, 1952, aged just 56.

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Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine and a longtime royal observer, said of the Queen: “It might just be her and a member of the clergy saying a few prayers in memory of the King and maybe the Queen Mother as well.”

This is an annual ritual, usually observed at Sandringham, for the monarch. This morning, at her favourite royal residence of Windsor, she will think back to the day on which the burdens of the state were thrust upon her at the tender age of 25 while she was in Kenya with Prince Philip, standing in for her father on an international tour.

In a normal year she would have been at Sandringham since before Christmas, entertaining family and friends and hosting low-key receptions for local dignitaries. She would also be contemplating a return to public duties in London a week or so after today.

But although she and Philip were given their first dose of the Covid vaccine on January 9, they remain in lockdown.

Aides say the Queen is likely to begin online engagements the week after next but any hopes they had of getting her back meeting the public and undertaking her normal duties are pretty much nil due to the risk of people mixing.

Mr Little said: “The Queen, I would say, is still a prisoner in her own castle until a time when most people have had the vaccine.”

Crowds are expected again in 2022 to mark her Platinum Jubilee.

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