King Charles and royal household, minus Andrew, collect for Christmas as king’s speech highlights unity and variety

King Charles III and members of the royal household — minus his disgraced brother, the previous Prince Andrew — gathered for Christmas on the king’s non-public Sandringham Property, the place they historically spend the vacation. Within the king’s annual Christmas speech, broadcast throughout Britain and the Commonwealth, he confused the significance of each unity and variety.

Within the morning, Charles and Queen Camilla, together with the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate, their kids and prolonged relations, walked to providers at St. Mary Magdalene Church at Sandringham, in Norfolk, about 100 miles north of London. 

Members of the royal household additionally stopped to greet individuals within the crowd outdoors.

Andrew was not current for the vacation gathering, BBC Information reported, within the wake of the scandal over his ties to the late intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein. He didn’t attend final 12 months both. In October, he was stripped of his remaining titles and honors, together with prince, and is now often called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Later within the day, the king’s annual Christmas Day speech was watched by thousands and thousands of individuals within the U.Ok. and throughout the Commonwealth, an affiliation of 56 nations with historic ties to Britain. 

“As I meet individuals of various faiths, I discover it enormously encouraging to listen to how a lot we now have in widespread, a shared eager for peace and a deep respect for all life,” Charles mentioned in his handle, which was recorded earlier this month at Westminster Abbey.

Amid “division each at residence and overseas,” he mentioned, there are “values of which we must not ever lose sight.”

“With the good range of our communities, we are able to discover the energy to make sure that proper triumphs over flawed.” 

Westminster Abbey, within the coronary heart of London, is the place monarchs have been topped since William the Conqueror in 1066, and it has additionally been the positioning of quite a few royal weddings.

The speech was accompanied by a video of members of the royal household, together with scenes from the king’s historic journey to the Vatican, the place he prayed with Pope Leo XIV in an effort to forge nearer relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church. 

The speech is likely one of the uncommon events when Charles, 77, can voice his personal views and would not search steering from the federal government. The remarks usually have a powerful non secular framework, mirror present points and generally draw on the monarch’s private experiences.

The king’s speech was adopted by a efficiency by a Ukrainian choir and London’s Royal Opera Refrain, in an indication of assist for Ukraine in its struggle towards Russia’s invasion.

This was Charles’ fourth Christmas speech since ascending to the throne after his mom, Queen Elizabeth II, died in September 2022.

The handle comes simply two weeks after Charles made a deeply private tv look wherein he mentioned “excellent news” from his medical doctors meant that he would have the ability to scale back his remedy for most cancers within the new 12 months.

The king was identified with a nonetheless undisclosed type of most cancers in early 2024. Buckingham Palace says his remedy is now shifting to a “precautionary section” and his situation can be monitored to make sure his continued restoration.

Throughout final 12 months’s Christmas handle, Charles honored care employees across the nation and gave a particular because of the medical doctors and nurses who supported him after his most cancers prognosis.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, additionally underwent remedy for most cancers final 12 months. She mentioned in January that she was in remission after going via some “arduous occasions” throughout her restoration. Kate, as she is broadly known as, has not shared particulars about what kind of most cancers it was. 

She and her husband Prince William, the inheritor to the throne, have three kids: 12-year-old Prince George of Wales, 10-year-old Princess Charlotte of Wales and 7-year-old Prince Louis of Wales.