Queen Camilla gave up attending the funeral of the Duchess of Kent, dean of the royal family, due to acute sinusitis on Tuesday, due to an acute sinusitis, the Buckingham palace announced on the eve of Donald Trump’s state visit.
Camilla, 78, is due to welcome the American president with King Charles III Wednesday at the Château de Windsor, on the first day of his second state visit with his wife Melania.
Buckingham’s palace said the queen “recovered from her sinusitis” Tuesday, without indicating whether this could affect her schedule and in particular her presence at the state banquet on Wednesday evening.
The Duchess of Kent, 92, was the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the Germain cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
King Charles, his sister Princess Anne, Crown Prince William and his wife Catherine notably attended London on Tuesday at the Requiem Mass that the Duchess wished the Cathedral of Westminster.
She had converted to Catholicism in 1994, and a tribute from Pope Leo XIV was read during the mass, welcoming her “dedication to the most vulnerable”.
These Catholic funerals were the first in modern history for a member of the British royal family.
Prince Andrew, brother of the king, deprived of any public role because of his links with the American sexual criminal Jeffrey Epstein, made a rare appearance there.
The Duchess, who died on September 4 at the Palais de Kensington in London, lived separated from her husband, who is still an active member of the royal family. The couple never divorced.
For years, she appeared on the lawn of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, where she gave the trophy to the winner.
In 2002, she had stopped her commitments for the royal family.
Once “retired”, this pianist had secretly taught music for 13 years in a public primary school in northeast of England, identified as Ms. Kent and no longer using her title of Royal Highness.
She was born Katharine Worsley in an aristocratic family of Yorkshire, in the north of England, and was the mother of three children, one of whom was also converted to Catholicism.
