Palace on ‘mission to stop Queen looking frail’ at Philip’s memorial service

Buckingham Palace has planned a ‘military-style’ operation to get the Queen to Prince Philip’s memorial service out of view from paparazzi cameras, insiders say.

Earlier this month the monarch dropped out of the Commonwealth Day service for the first time in ten years over concerns for her comfort and mobility issues.

She has been less visible over the past year, after spending three months resting on doctors orders and having recently recovered from a bout of Covid.

A wheelchair-friendly lift is thought to have been installed at her cottage in Balmoral, and she is continuing to scale back her diary.

So instead of taking a 60-mile round trip and having to sit in Westminster Abbey for over an hour, she watched Monday’s Commonwealth Day service on the telly at Windsor Castle.

But she is set on attending the church on March 29 for a thanksgiving service for her late husband the Duke of Edinburgh, who died last April aged 99.

Palace sources say she’ll be flown by helicopter from Windsor to Buckingham Palace – taking around 15 minutes – before being driven a short distance to the Abbey.

To avoid her having to walk around 100 yards from the entrance through the nave and choir to get to her seat, officials are thought to be putting together her own private entrance.

The entire Dean’s Yard would be sealed off under the plans, so the Queen’s staff can park in private next to a side-door, the Sun on Sunday reports.

Six-foot tall privacy screens and potentially a football-style tunnel would be use to stop any photographers getting pictures of Her Majesty.

One source told the Mail on Sunday the Queen does not want to be seen in public in a wheelchair over fears she’d replicate a ‘haunting’ photo of her sister Princess Margaret in the months before her death.

Despite her age and growing frailty, the head of state is still determined to carry on walking for as long as possible.

But the option of wheelchair assistance is being explored by officials so she can get around parts of the Abbey faster and more comfortably.

They are also considering whether to seat her before the audience arrives, rather than her sitting down last as per tradition.

Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, said that while the Queen ‘doesn’t want to be seen in a wheelchair’, she may concede so the public can see their Head of State.

She told the Sun: ‘The best way of doing that is to make sure there are no photographs taken. This could be a dress rehearsal for everything at the Platinum Jubilee. I think she wants to go as she knows Philip would want her to be there.

‘She will be thinking that if it was her thanksgiving ceremony, he would move Heaven and Earth to make sure he was there.

‘She would really hate to miss it. It is a headache for her staff as it would be difficult for anyone of her age who suffers mobility problems. It would be a painful process for her.’

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