The Duke of Kent Has Missed a String of Royal Events
As members of the royal family filed into the Buckingham Palace ballroom for a lavish state banquet in honor of South Korea, all eyes were on the most senior royals. However, it did not go unnoticed that one key player who would usually have been taking his seat at the horseshoe table was not there.
The Duke of Kent was absent from the state banquet on November 21 having not attended a public engagement since November 1. The Duke, 88, also recently missed remembrance events including the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall and Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph.
According to the court circular, the Duke's last public engagement was on November 1, when he attended the Senior Serving and Retired Officers' Briefing at the Army and Navy Club in central London. Prior to that, the court circular shows that he carried out engagements across five days in October, including attending two concerts at central London venue Wigmore Hall.
The royal family’s official website points out that the Duke of Kent, who is the late Queen’s first cousin, is a working royal involved with 140 charities. “The Duke currently divides his time between engagements relating to his own Patronages, and work in support of The King and the wider Royal Family,” the site adds. The Duke, whose first name is Edward, featured in a key portrait for King Charles’s coronation showing all the working royals. He attended the state banquet a year ago for the President of South Africa, which was the first of the King’s reign.
Following the Duke’s absence from the cenotaph, The Sun quoted a source saying that he was experiencing “episodic mobility issues.” The same phrase was used by royal aides to describe Queen Elizabeth’s reason for being unable to attend events in the last few years of her reign.
The Duke of Kent is the oldest child of Prince George, the former Duke of Kent, who was a younger brother of King George VI. Buckingham Palace representatives did not respond to a request to comment on the Duke’s reason for missing recent public events.
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