Queen Elizabeth to Miss Opening of Parliament

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II will not preside over the state opening of Britain’s Parliament on Tuesday, Buckingham Palace said Monday evening, the first time she has missed the ceremony since 1963 and a stark sign that health problems are forcing the indomitable, but increasingly frail, monarch to fade from public view.

Her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, will take her place, delivering the Queen’s Speech, which lays out the government’s legislative agenda, on her behalf. The palace attributed the decision to her “episodic mobility problems,” and said she decided to cancel reluctantly, after consulting her doctors.

Elizabeth, who turned 96 last month, has had stiffness in her knees for several years, palace officials said. She recently lamented her trouble walking as she greeted two visitors at Windsor Castle. In recent months, she has been photographed using a walking stick. The queen also contracted the coronavirus in February, an ordeal that she said later had left her utterly exhausted.

The palace emphasized that the queen continued to work. She plans to conduct her regular audience with Prime Minister Boris Johnson by phone on Wednesday. But missing the opening of Parliament is a major blow: It is one of the most powerful symbols of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, a ceremony the queen has missed only twice in her 70-year reign, both because of pregnancies.

Last May, she turned up a month after the death of her husband, Prince Philip, and read the Queen’s Speech in a firm voice. It was viewed as a reassuring sign after the poignant images of her at Philip’s funeral service, grieving alone in a choir stall in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor because of Covid social-distancing regulations.

Parliament had already scaled back the ceremony last year in deference to the queen’s fragile condition. She was driven from Buckingham Palace in a Range Rover rather than a gilded carriage. And she shunned the 18-foot velvet cape and imperial crown that she once wore at openings in favor of a lilac coat and hat.

Charles squired her to the opening for several years, inheriting a role long played by Philip. But in reading the speech, he will be taking on one of the queen’s most visible public duties, part of a quiet but steady transfer of duties that has turned Charles into a de facto prince regent, even if the palace resists the phrase.

Under the rules, the palace said, the queen can delegate the responsibility for opening Parliament jointly to Charles, the Prince of Wales, and his elder son, Prince William, the duke of Cambridge. As she has in recent years, Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall and the wife of Charles, will also attend the ceremony.

The reading of the Queen’s Speech is one of the more curious spectacles in Britain’s constitutional monarchy. It is a political document, not unlike the State of the Union address, prepared by Downing Street to set its agenda for the new parliament. Last year, the queen spoke of Mr. Johnson’s plans to roll out “5G mobile coverage and gigabyte capable broadband” throughout the country.

The queen’s cancellation deepens questions about whether she will be able to take part in her Platinum Jubilee next month. Palace officials said she was intent on appearing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace on the first day of the four-day celebration, as well as at the service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

But the palace has instituted a policy of confirming her attendance at public events only on the day they occur. And in recent months, the announcement has more often than not been that she has canceled.