In keeping with the annual Christmas tradition, the Queen is expected to address the public on Christmas Day in a pre-recorded speech. Royal experts have said the speech will be an opportunity for the monarch to honour those who supported the country throughout this year.
This year’s speech will come as thousands of families – including the Royal Family – will be unable to spend the festive season together due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, royal author and historian Harry Mount has said the monarch will feel the “distress” of a cancelled Christmas but will “uplift” the public during her speech.
Mr Mount wrote in The Telegraph: “Her Majesty will feel the distress of a cancelled Christmas.
“With the mutated virus and the new Tier 4 restrictions, this Christmas will be harder than any since the war.
“Still, there is deep consolation in the reassuring presence of the Queen talking to us after Christmas lunch, as she has done so upliftingly since 1952.”
Some people have lashed out at the monarch for not interfering with the Government’s handling of the pandemic and threatened to refuse to watch the speech.
However, the Queen has been praised for boosting the nation’s spirits during the pandemic, with one royal expert saying she has stood out this year.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams praised the Royal Family for continuing to carry out their duties during the crisis.
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“I think there is no doubt at all that conducting business virtually and occasionally as we have seen in person, I think that she has done wonderfully well.”
The Queen first addressed the nation on April 5 where she thanked people for following the Government rules to stay at home.
She said from Windsor Castle: “While we had faced challenges before, this one is different.
“This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal.
“We will succeed – and that success will belong to every one of us.
“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”
The Queen added how the “painful sense of separation from their loved ones” reminded her of the experience child evacuees had during World War 2.
Mr Fitzwilliams also went on to praise the entire Royal Family for keeping spirits up during the pandemic.
He continued: “The national obviously has had a dreadfully difficult year, it has been an unprecedented year.
“I think the royals have done remarkably well in the way they have boosted morale.
“They have obviously acted on Government advice both virtually and in person.”
