Putting Berkshire into Tier 4 has forced William and Kate to abandon spending Christmas with the Middletons in Bucklebury, near Reading. A bereft Michael and Carole Middleton will also not be hosting Kate’s sister Pippa, husband James and their son, Arthur.
Instead, William and Kate will spend Christmas at Anmer Hall in Norfolk with their three children – and no other family.
The Government U-turn also means the Queen and Duke, who had ditched the usual plans for Sandringham in Norfolk to have Christmas lunch alone at Windsor Castle, will now find it difficult to see family members who had intended to visit.
Because the castle is in Tier 4, each of them will be restricted to seeing one person outside at any one time.
Those living nearby – such as the Yorks or the Wessexes – could still visit.
But Prince Charles, 72, and Camilla and those living outside Tier 4 will now be banned from visiting the 94-year-old monarch and her 99-year-old husband as they had intended.
Charles and Camilla will be at Highgrove in Gloucestershire in a bubble with Camilla’s family.
Camilla, 73, said shortly before the rules changed: “Every day we are going somewhere, and then it changes.
“I suppose we shall just be at home and see who we are going to be able to see. We have just got to make the best of it.”
They normally spend New Year at Birkhall, their home on the edge of the Balmoral estate in Aberdeenshire, but that will be scratched because the Scottish government has banned cross-border travel.
