Worrying phrase Queen keeps repeating

Let’s start with a cliche shall we? Because sometimes, as hackneyed as it might be, a picture ready does paint a thousand words. The last time the top brass of the Church of England got together for a General Synod was in 2015.

Look at images of the event and there, for the opening act, we have the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby welcoming the Queen and Prince Philip, the duo all big smiles and looking positively chuffed.

That was the 10th Synod, just in case you are keeping count, and the 11th such get together kicked off overnight at Church House in Westminster. And this time? The Queen was not there, having pulled out last week, as her current health crisis drags on.

Prince Philip has obviously shuffled off the mortal coil to accidentally offend the seraphim thanks to his trademark brand of gaffe-ry. And smiles? Well, they were in short supply as dark clouds continued to gather over the royal family. (I warned you about the cliches didn’t I?)

However, what has really set off a fresh round of alarm bells (number three) was her opening address to the Synod, delivered by son Prince Edward, and her choice of nine particular words which have only dialled up the concern for her wellbeing.

See, with Prince Charles and wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, in Jordan, the first international royal tour since the pandemic began, and Prince William perhaps suddenly not answering his phone, it fell to Edward to attend this year’s religious confab in his mother’s stead and to read a speech on her behalf.

If the 95-year-old was trying to tug on the heartstrings then she was successful, starting with, “It is hard to believe that it is over 50 years since Prince Philip and I attended the very first meeting of the General Synod.”

However, it’s what came next that matters: “None of us can slow the passage of time,” she continued, spookily evoking her very own words from earlier this month.

As with her withdrawal from the General Synod, Her Majesty had been slated to appear at the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in early November, only to cancel for mysterious health reasons. Then as now, she welcomed delegates, saying on that occasion in a video address, “we none of us will live forever”.

Thus, for the second time in just over two weeks, we have the Queen reminding the public of her own mortality in a less than subtle fashion.

Your Majesty, do you have something to tell us?

(At the rate things are going, we’ll be seeing the Queen uttering “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well,” while clutching a skull any day soon.)

There are other signs today that are a cause for concern.

Most obviously, missing the Synod is not a decision that would have been made lightly.

The sovereign’s absence at the Synod was the first time in her reign that she has not attended this event (she is after all the Supreme Governor of the Church of England) adding even more sinister weight to her no-show. Surely the Palace would have done whatever was necessary to get her there if it had even been a remote possibility.

Then there is the fact the General Synods are only held every five-years, meaning the next one will happen when the Queen is 100 years old. While the Queen Mother was still enjoying Ascot and found the time to recommission an aircraft carrier at the ripe old age of 101, you wouldn’t want to have money on her daughter being at the 2026 conclave.

Which is to say, there is every chance that this week’s conference could be the last such event that Her Majesty could go to, thus putting her decision to miss proceedings in an even more ominous light.

The painful question that needs to be asked today, gird your loins appropriately, – is Buckingham Palace preparing us for something? Is all this talk of ‘none of us living forever’ an indication that sombre and historic events could be just around the corner? That whatever is troubling the Queen is more serious than anyone is letting on?

When it was announced last week that the Queen would skip the Synod, no reason was given beyond a bromidic statement that said in part, “Mindful of her doctors’ recent advice, the Queen has decided not to attend.”

Similarly, no details have come to light about why the nonagenarian was secretly hospitalised last month for the first time in eight years. (And on that previous occasion it had only been for gastroenteritis, a fact the palace clearly made plain.)

On October 20, with the Royal Standard still flying over Windsor, the press had been led to believe that she was safely tucked up in the Castle, with a warm cup of Horlicks and a Black Beauty re-run to enjoy, as she got some much needed rest (okay, the last part I’m assuming). In fact, she was actually nearly 40km away in a Marylebone hospital.

That particular sleight of hand worked out about as well as expected and when The Sun exposed the truth about her hospital stay, there was plenty of (quail’s) egg on the palace’s face.

That farce of sorts set the tone for coming up to a month of cancellations and detail-free statements coming out of the royal house during which the Queen has pulled out her two day tour of Northern Ireland, her Cop26 appearance, and her attendance at the Festival of Remembrance.

While earlier this week, she had been slated to join proceedings at the London Cenotaph to mark Remembrance Sunday, less than two hours before kick off, the Palace revealed that she had sprained her back and would not be going.

Unlike previous bouts of ill health, when some brief details have been provided to explain things, this time around Buckingham Palace has remained unusually tight-lipped only offering up the most oblique of official comments and not a single hard fact about what is going on.

While The Telegraph’sCamilla Tominey reported this back news “lends more weight to the theory that the Queen’s health issues are largely mobility related”, by and large the world is still in the dark about what is going on, why doctors are so intent that she rests and what she was being tested for during her hospital stay.

Maintaining this information vacuum is dicey play for the palace.

That aides remain schtum, even in the face of growing public worry, does not bode particularly well. One would think if there was any way to do it, The Firm would jump at the chance to tamp down speculation about the Queen’s health.

Without sounding callous, this current health crisis is a serious distraction from what the Palace wants to be focusing on right now, having hit the ground running post-summer, with all systems go, engines revving and a slew of big outings on all the HRHs calendars in the lead up to Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee year.

Instead? Some poor palace lackey has been typing out one cancellation statement after another, the public is fretting and the media has been largely focused on whether This Is It, rather than paying attention to whatever good things the rest of the Team Windsor is up to.

Just how long can this state of affairs continue on for?

With the Queen having no engagements on the schedule between now and Christmas, Buckingham Palace at least has some breathing room but that does not solve this current situation. Still, they must surely want to be able to draw a line under this chapter and get on with things – they have a Jubilee to sell the UK and the Commonwealth on after all.

The issue is, will they be able to? The more we hear things like the Queen’s “none of us can slow the passage of time” line, the slimmer it seems the chances that Buckingham Palace will be able to tidy away the PR disaster of the last month and move on to brighter things.

Earlier this month, the Royal Collection Shop, aka the royal gift shop, put out their line of Platinum Jubilee goodies, including a $230 pill box clock and a $175 limited edition Christmas bauble.

Might be an idea to snap them up while an eager shopper can; they might be about to become collectors’ items much sooner than anyone had expected.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Originally published as Worrying phrase the Queen keeps repeating amid health crisis