Britain"s Queen Elizabeth misses church on Christmas Day for the first time in decades due to a heavy cold,

Top 5 Strange Facts About Queen Elizabeth II

Last updated10:12, December 26 2016

Britain"s queen elizabeth misses church on christmas day for the first time in decades due to a heavy cold,

A bad cold kept Queen Elizabeth II from attending the traditional Christmas morning church service near her Sandringham estate in rural Norfolk, England, raising some concerns about her health.

It"s extremely rare for Elizabeth, 90, to miss the service, which is a cornerstone of the royal family"s Christmas celebrations and brings the monarch into contact with locals who gather outside for a glimpse of her.

"The Queen continues to recover from a heavy cold and will stay indoors to assist with her recovery," Buckingham Palace said. "Her Majesty will participate in the royal family Christmas celebrations during the day."

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The young royals head to church.

Those festivities included a gala lunch. In past years, theBritishroyal family would often go for extended walks in the countryside.

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Elizabeth has been in generally good health and has maintained an active schedule in the last year despite travelling less often than in the past. Recently she stepped down as patron for about 20 charities and groups to lighten her work load.

The Royal family have attended a Christmas church service without the Queen, who is recovering from a "heavy cold" .

Her husband, 95-year-old Prince Philip, has also cut back on his public schedule and his charitable works in the last few years. He was also suffering from a severe cold earlier in the week, the palace said.

Philip did attend the Sunday morning Christmas service, waving to well-wishers on his way out of the church in a car.

With the Queen stuck at home with a heavy cold, forcing her to skipa traditional Christmas morning church service, the younger members of the royal family stole the show with Prince George and Princess Charlotte sucking on candy canes as they left a church.

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Prince George sucks a candy cane as he leaves church.

This year, Prince William also broke with tradition spendingChristmas with his in-laws.

He and wife Catherine took kids George, 3, and Charlotte,1,to the Duchess of Cambridge"s home village, Bucklebury.

The littlest royals attended theirfirst Christmas communion service, at a 12th-century church in Englefield,near the Middleton family home, the Daily Mailreported.

Catherine"s parents, Carol and Michael Middleton, brother James, and sister Pippa also attended.

Pippa Middleton was expected to marry fianceJames Matthews at thesame church in May.

Prince Harry attended the royals" regular church service near the Queen"s home in Sandringham, alongside his grandfather, Prince Philip.

The 95-year-oldwas also suffering from a heavy cold earlier in the week, the palace said.

As a concession to age and his cold, he drove to the church instead of walking.

Prince Harry spent time talking to local residents after the service and stopped to pat a dog.

Elizabeth has been in generally good health and has maintained an active schedule in the last year despitetravellingless often than in the past.

Philiphas also cut back his public schedule and his charitable works.

There were no signs of other family members being ill. The flu season has hit many Britons hard in the last two weeks and colds and flus are spreading. A cold can be dangerous for people in their 90s, doctors warn.

Earlier this week, the royal couple delayed their departure from London to Sandringham because of their colds buttravelledone day later than expected, using a helicopter instead of a train.

The royal family received some sad news Saturday, when it was revealed that the queen"s granddaughter, Zara Tindall, had suffered a miscarriage while expecting her second child with husband Mike Tindall.

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Princess Charlotte holds a candy cane as she leaves church with mum, the Duchess of Cambridge.

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Prince George holds his dad"s hand as they leave church.

PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS

Britain"s Prince Philip with Sophie, Countess of Wessex, after the Sandringham service.

-AP

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/87945395/queen-elizabeth-ii-to-miss-christmas-church-service-due-to-heavy-cold

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Britain"s Queen Elizabeth misses Christmas church service due to "heavy cold"

The Queen at 90 (Full Episode)

By Philip Noble

SANDRINGHAM, England (Reuters) - Britain"s Queen Elizabeth, 90, missed a traditional Christmas church service on Sunday for the first time in decades due to a heavy cold, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said.

Elizabeth, the world"s longest-reigning living monarch, and her husband Prince Philip, 95, both suffering what the Palace described as heavy colds this week, delayed the journey to their Sandringham country residence in eastern England by a day, traveling there by helicopter on Thursday.

The queen has attended the Christmas service at the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene in Sandringham every year since the family started celebrating Christmas there in 1988.

Before then, the family spent Christmas at Windsor where Elizabeth attended a service since the mid-1960s. It was unclear if Elizabeth had ever missed a Christmas Day service before.

Philip was driven to church and walked in unaided, a Reuters photographer said, while Prince Charles, heir to the throne, walked to the church with his wife Camilla and other members of the family.

"The queen continues to recover from a heavy cold and will stay indoors to assist with her recovery," a palace spokesman said. "Her Majesty will participate in the Royal Family Christmas celebrations during the day."

Elizabeth"s other children, Anne, Andrew and Edward attended along with Prince Harry, Charles"s second son. Prince William, second-in-line to the throne, was spending Christmas with the parents of his wife, Kate.

After more than six decades on the throne, the queen has cut back on international tours but still regularly performs official duties around Britain, although she said on Tuesday she would reduce such visits.

While Elizabeth"s father, George VI, died at the relatively young age of 56, her mother, known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, lived until 101 and was still appearing in public almost up until her death in 2002.

"GREAT LOVE"

Elizabeth has maintained the popularity of the monarchy despite years of political, social and cultural change since she became Queen Elizabeth II on Feb. 6, 1952, aged just 25.

In a pre-recorded Christmas broadcast, she invoked the example of Jesus and quoted the words of Mother Teresa to praise those who she said did small things with love.

"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love," Elizabeth said. "It"s understandable that we sometimes think the world"s problems are so big that we can do little to help."

"On our own, we cannot end wars or wipe out injustice, but the cumulative impact of thousands of small acts of goodness can be bigger than we imagine."

Elizabeth, the symbolic head of the Church of England, noted that despite Jesus"s humble beginnings and maligned life, billions of people - including her - rely on his teachings and draw inspiration from his example.

The Times reported on Wednesday that Philip carried out more public engagements last year than did his grandsons William and Harry, and William"s wife Kate combined.

(Additional reporting by Adela Suliman; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Louise Ireland and Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNGufpfwgnVo0tDdDSu8YTuVCwgbKw&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&ei=lmRhWJjiMMqG3QHNnKeYCA&url=https://sports.yahoo.com/news/britains-queen-elizabeth-miss-christmas-church-due-heavy-101624681.html

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Television|Review: Netflix Does Queen Elizabeth II in "The Crown," No Expense Spared

Prince William Gets Scolded by Queen Elizabeth II
Photo Claire Foy as Elizabeth II in The Crown, beginning Friday on Netflix. Credit Alex Bailey/Netflix

A pricey prestige drama about a British monarch? Should we prepare for an orgy of beheadings, s*x scandals and battlefield brutality?

Well, no; just an orgy of sumptuous scenes and rich performances.

The series is The Crown, and the monarch is Elizabeth II, the very woman who sits on the British throne today. Shes not exactly the kind of hard-living, bloodthirsty ruler who makes for frothy television, and The Crown, a 10-part drama that becomes available Friday on Netflix, doesnt try to pretend that she is. This is a thoughtful series that lingers over death rather than using it for shock value; one that finds its story lines in small power struggles rather than gruesome palace coups. Here, it takes an episode and a half just for George VI (Jared Harris) to cough himself to death so that Elizabeth (Claire Foy) can ascend to the throne.

Peter Morgan, creator and writer of the series, showed with Frost/Nixon and other works that history doesnt have to be gory to make good drama. Here, a budget widely reported to be over $100 million helps him prove that again: The Crown looks expensive right from the start, investing its money in actors like John Lithgow, who makes a fine Winston Churchill, and in a wealth of historical detail.

The series focuses on the queens early years on the throne, but it begins before Georges death in 1952, when she was a princess leading a relatively carefree life with her husband, Prince Philip (Matt Smith). Their wedding in 1947 is lavishly rendered 12 minutes into the opening episode.

In less patient hands, the next five years would be condensed into five minutes, with George seen chain-smoking enough to make the point that cigarettes kill, then dying so that we could get on with Elizabeths story. But The Crown takes its time arriving at that sea-change moment, and the result is a delicate study in the power of breaking news then versus now.

Photo John Lithgow as the British prime minister Winston Churchill, in The Crown. Credit Alex Bailey/Netflix

Today, thanks to the internet and social media, everyone knows almost immediately when something major or even not so major happens. Five minutes after the death of a person of the kings stature, the event would have been absorbed, the praying for George tweets would have been posted, and the snarky post-mortem would already be underway. The Crown lets you feel (or remember) what it was like when information moved more slowly. Elizabeth and Philip were on a world tour at the time. Just reaching her with word that she was now the queen was an ordeal, and in following that thread the series also conveys how the news rolled across the British Empire a growing shock wave rather than a quick burst.

Thats the kind of treatment needed in a historical drama set in the 1950s, a decade that could not compete with the one immediately before or after it in terms of eventfulness. The Crown is not without its power struggles and scandals. Churchill, who reassumed the post of prime minister in 1951, was thought to be old and out of step even by some in his own party. Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby), Elizabeths sister, was having a dalliance with a married man, Peter Townsend (Ben Miles).

But these are relatively tame goings-on compared with some throne-based television fare. Like Downton Abbey, this is a series you watch to see actors being given the time to act, and to be reminded of or introduced to historical nuggets. Episode 4, for instance, involves the lethal fog that blanketed London in 1952, a haze of toxic pollutants that not only killed thousands of people but also had political ramifications. Its easy for a writer to weave drama out of a war or an assassination. But out of fog? Kudos to Mr. Morgan.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/arts/television/review-netflix-crown-queen-elizabeth-ii.html

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