Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, still sick with ‘heavy cold’, misses church again

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth missed a New Year’s Day church service on Sunday due to a heavy cold, Buckingham Palace said, a week after the 90-year-old monarch missed a Christmas Day service for the first time in decades.

The world’s longest-reigning monarch, who became unwell before Christmas, stayed indoors at her Sandringham country estate in Norfolk, eastern England, while other members of the royal family attended the service.

“The Queen does not yet feel ready to attend church as she is still recuperating from a heavy cold,” Buckingham Palace said.

Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip, 95, were both suffering from heavy colds in the week leading up to Christmas and delayed their journey from London to Sandringham by a day, travelling there by helicopter on December 22.

Philip attended both the Christmas and New Year services. On Sunday he arrived by car before walking into the grey stone parish church of St Mary Magdalene, but the queen, who is the symbolic head of the Church of England, made no public appearance.