The Queen is under medical supervision at Balmoral after doctors raised concerns about her health, Buckingham Palace announced today.
Her Majesty’s immediate family have been informed, with the latest announcement escalating fears for the monarch’s health.
A royal spokesman said: “Following further checks this morning, the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended that she remain under medical supervision. The Queen stays comfortable and in Balmoral.’
Minutes before the statement, new Prime Minister Liz Truss was handed a memo in the House of Commons revealing her plans to cap energy bills.
Ms Truss said “the whole country will be deeply concerned by the news from Buckingham Palace at noon today,” adding: “My thoughts – and the thoughts of the people of our UK – are with Her Majesty the Queen at this time and.” your family”.
Yesterday, on the advice of doctors, she had to postpone a Privy Council meeting at the last minute.
After a busy day on Tuesday, during which she welcomed both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to Balmoral and took on other light duties, the 96-year-old monarch was told to rest.
And today Buckingham Palace announced doctors were taken to Balmoral after concerns this morning.
The Queen waits in the drawing room before receiving Liz Truss for an audience in Balmoral, Scotland, on Tuesday. Today she is under the supervision of doctors out of concern for her health
Her Majesty is at her Scottish home (pictured today) and is described as ‘comfortable’ by her staff
She should have practically held the Privy Council last night, at which the new Prime Minister would have taken her oath as First Lord of the Treasury and Cabinet ministers would have been sworn into their roles and appointed Secret Advisers, if they had not already been appointed as such one in the past.
It comes after a series of health problems for the increasingly frail Sovereign, who was advised not to travel to London from her home in the Highlands this week to accept the resignation of her outgoing Prime Minister and appoint Miss Truss.
It was the first time in her 70-year reign that the Queen had appointed a Prime Minister at Balmoral.
The two politicians made the 1,000-mile round trip from London rather than allow the Queen, who has been suffering from episodic mobility problems since October, to travel back from Scotland.
Buckingham Palace said there were no constitutional problems with the delay in the procedure being rearranged and that the decision to encourage Her Majesty to rest did not involve hospitalisation.
But the decision to postpone the virtual meeting will inevitably raise new concerns for the Queen’s health.
A palace spokesman said last night: “After a busy day yesterday, Her Majesty took the doctors’ advice this afternoon to rest.
“This means that the Privy Council meeting scheduled to take place tonight will be rearranged.”
The Queen was pictured on Tuesday smiling and alert but still frail, with a cane and extensive bruising on her hands as the inevitable result of her advanced age.
It was the first time she had been seen in public in 47 days while enjoying her well-deserved annual break on Royal Deeside. As well as meeting Mr Johnson and Miss Truss on Tuesday, the Queen had another duty afterwards: to deck out her outgoing communications secretary, Donal McCabe, with the insignia of a lieutenant in the Royal Victorian Order – an honor in the monarch’s personal gift of service to the Royal Family .
She also tended to several red boxes of papers while a number of guests were seen leaving the castle before the first audiences began. The Queen often has family and friends staying over during her annual leave and is said to have been ‘inundated’ with company this year – though not her grandson Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who are in the UK briefly visiting from California.
Well-placed sources have repeatedly said the monarch is “old, not ill,” and one person who saw her recently described her as “in excellent shape.” But last week she chose not to take part in another regular feature of the royal calendar, the Braemar Gathering – the most famous event of the Highland Games.
Meanwhile, she represented the Prince of Wales at the State Opening of Parliament earlier this year.
She secretly spent a night in hospital last October undergoing tests and was then under orders from doctors to rest for the next three months as she attends the Cenotaph service on Remembrance Sunday in London and the Cop26 climate change talks missed in Glasgow.
The Queen, who lost Prince Philip – her 73-year-old husband – in April last year, then contracted Covid in February and suffered mild cold-like symptoms, said the virus left her “very tired and exhausted”.
However, as the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, she was able to make two brief appearances at her platinum anniversary celebrations in June.
