From isolation in Windsor Castle this week, Queen Elizabeth honored two of her longest-running traditions in a new way. The Chelsea Flower Show and the Royal Windsor Horse Show both found ways to go virtual amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the queen wrote public letters to celebrate her enthusiasm for both. This year is the first time that the queen will have missed the RWHS since it began in 1943, but according to palace aides, she is preparing for an extended period outside of the public eye.
Across Europe, however, other royal families are resuming regular duties—with a few adjustments. Early Thursday morning, Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia made an in-person visit to MercaMadrid, a warehousing and supply center that helped keep goods moving through the country during the pandemic. They spoke with various government officials and José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the mayor of Madrid, about fresh food distribution and watched workers load various goods for dispatch across the country. Felipe and Letizia were both wearing masks and latex gloves, but were otherwise comfortable getting close to the people around them at work.
Though he spent most of the last few months working in his palace office, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands is going to attend a Memorial Day service on Sunday, his first official appearance since the beginning of the pandemic. According to a statement from the Royal House, the service will be truncated and closed to the public to protect against the spread of coronavirus, though a group of dignitaries, including U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, will be present.
The two youngest members of the Danish royal family have been back in school since mid-April, but this week Crown Princess Mary posted that her two older children, Prince Christian and Princess Isabella, were able to return after two months of homeschooling. On Instagram, she showed her children walking to school (without masks) and commented that they appreciated the return to normalcy.
In Sweden, however, the younger royals’ most recent public appearances have involved plenty of protective equipment. On Wednesday, Crown Princess Victoria and her two children, Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar donned full bodysuits to learn about beekeeping, in honor of world Bee Day. According to the Swedish newspaper Expressen, Estelle said that she felt like she was wearing a spacesuit.
In the U.K., the royal family hasn’t quite figured out what their new normal is going to look like after the pandemic, and instead have been focusing their efforts on social media. A few of the younger members of the British royal family, from Princess Charlotte to Countess Sophie, have been spotted without masks in public as they have helped out with community service projects, but it’s too soon to tell when the traditional royal engagement will make a comeback.
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