Prince William pulls out of memorial service due to ‘personal matter’

Prince William has sparked further concern for the state of the royal family after pulling out of a scheduled church service due to an unspecified “personal matter”.

Queen Camilla was left to lead the royal party at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle for a solemn thanksgiving ceremony, held in honour of Greece’s late King Constantine, on Tuesday morning, local time.

William’s absence was all the more notable because King Charles, whose surprise cancer diagnosis recently rocked the royal family, had also left before the service.

The Prince of Wales was due to give a reading at the event. Instead Prince Pavlos, King Constantine’s son, was tasked with doing the honours. William reportedly called the Greek royals to let them know he would be unable to attend.

Kensington Palace did not elaborate on the “personal matter” requiring William’s attention, though it did issue a statement insisting his wife, Princess Catherine, was still “doing well” in the wake of her abdominal surgery, which took place in January.

Kate is taking a break from her royal duties until Easter as she recovers. She has not been seen in public since the operation.
 

Camilla was joined by Anne-Marie, former queen of the Hellenes, Prince Pavlos, and other members of the Greek royal family for the service. She then joined a reception with her Greek counterparts.

Prince Andrew, his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie were also there for the event.

The ceremony was led by the Dean of Windsor, Dr Christopher Cocksworth. King Constantine died in January of last year.

Charles, 75, was at Windsor on Tuesday morning but departed before the service started. The King was diagnosed with “a form of cancer” after an issue of concern was spotted during an unrelated prostate operation. The diagnosis was revealed to the public in early February.

The specific details of Charles’ cancer fight have remained private.
 

Constantine II’s father, King Paul, was the first cousin of the late Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, who married the future Queen Elizabeth II in 1947.

The Greek monarchy was toppled in 1973 after a military coup - and its abolition was confirmed by a referendum the following year.

Constantine eventually died at the age of 82. The late, deposed king was reportedly a close friend of Charles, and was also William’s godfather.

The Prince of Wales’ family has relocated from its usual home in Norfolk to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor while Kate recovers from her surgery.

“Catherine is recovering well,” a source close to the family told The Sun.

“She was looking forward to a change of scene and will be able to take it easy in Norfolk while the children let off steam with William.”
 

Kate’s absence from the public eye has sparked concern, irregardless of the family’s statements talking up her recovery.

She has not been seen out and about since Christmas Day last year, when she and William took their children George, Charlotte and Louis to a church service.

Rachel Hawkins, a prolific author whose output includes several royal-themed books of fiction, spoke out about Kate’s disappearance on social media this week.

Prefacing her tweets by saying she does “not want to speculate about a woman’s health online”, she nonetheless noted that she “spent years eyeball deep in Weird Royal Research for the royals books, and everything that is happening with Kate is indeed very, very weird.

Unprecedented, even”.

“We’re at two months since anyone has seen her. We’re not even getting milquetost, ‘I appreciate the well wishes,’ statements from her (note that we HAVE gotten solo statements from William under his personal standard. Anything about her has been under the joint PoW banner),” Ms Hawkins wrote.

She went on to describe Kate’s absence as “absolutely BIG TIME WEIRD”, though not “super nefarious”, and said it had been “very mishandled all the way around from a PR standpoint”.

News.com.au’s royal expert Daniela Elser suggested this week that we might expect to see Kate return to public duties by April 17, when her children will go back to school after the Easter break.

If we don’t see her until then, her break from public life will have stretched to almost four months - as Ms Hawkins said, a truly “unprecedented” absence for a senior royal.

- with The Sun