Confusion over whether or not Princess Kate Middleton will attend the Royal Family's high-profile summer event, Trooping the Colour, has sparked speculation about her health while she recovers from abdominal surgery.
The extraordinary debacle unfolded after the British Ministry of Defense posted a web link on Tuesday inviting the public to book places for the training ceremony on June 8, saying Kate would oversee it.
The listing sparked excitement (and bookings) after British news sites Mark the eventNoting that this is the first public event scheduled for Kate since she disappeared from public view after undergoing abdominal surgery in January.
However, when The Daily Beast verified with Kensington Palace that Kate was planning to appear at the event, sources in Kate's office responded strongly. They implied that the MoD published the list without checking with Kate's team, and pointedly added: “Kensington Palace, and no one else, confirms the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales at events.”
By Tuesday evening, all mention of Kate had been removed from the list on the Ministry of Defense website.
It seems likely that publishing the list was a digital snafu, perhaps based on a tentative timeline. The dozens of people who are asked to know who does what at big occasions like this have probably been given documents that state, provisionally, that their planning must take into account Kate being there.
But that doesn't change the fact that the Palace was not ready to announce Kate's attendance on Tuesday, and her name was removed from the list.
Of course, the removal of Kate's name (at the request of Kensington Palace) inevitably sparked speculation that the Palace was effectively saying Kate would not be ready to return to her duties by June.
This would be a major development, given that after her hospitalization, her team said she would recover for “two to three months.” The palace gave itself a deadline by saying that her return to her official duties would depend on medical advice and would likely not come “until after Easter.”
But such speculation is not accurate.
While neither the Ministry of Defense nor Kate's team responded to The Daily Beast's questions asking whether Kate would attend the June event, and even in informal briefings Palace staff notably made no mention of whether Kate would attend, the general understanding is that the advice given At the beginning of her recovery, Kate is still standing.
the The Daily Telegraph It was reported that Kate is expected to attend the event.
Kate's team has made clear that they will not be pushed back into making last week's comment by hysterical and ill-informed social media comments, and they appear equally unwilling to make a hasty announcement in response to what one source described as a “MoD dick”. -higher.”
The source added: “I'm sure she'll be there.” “I think the point is that she wants to be responsible for managing the theater of her return to public life, not the Department of Defense.”
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