UK’s Queen Elizabeth II has missed a New Year's Day church service due to what the Buckingham Palace described as a “lingering heavy cold,” a week after the 90-year-old monarch missed a Christmas Day service for the first time in decades.
The queen was slated to attend the New Year's Day church service at Sandringham on Sunday.
The queen and her husband Prince Philip fell ill before taking their Christmas break on June 21 and had to cancel a train trip to their Sandringham estate in Norfolk. They flew there on a helicopter the next day.
Although Philip, 95, attended the ceremony after making a full recovery, the Buckingham said that Elizabeth was “still recuperating.”
Other members of the royal family, including Princess Anne and Prince Edward, accompanied their father at the service.
The queen also missed this year’s Christmas Day church service due to poor health, the first time since 1988 that the queen missed the traditional royal service.
Since arriving at her 20,000-acre mansion in Norfolk, the queen has not been able to go outside.
The Buckingham said Sunday that she was “up” and had resumed working on so-called Red Boxes, which contain government reports and documents related to businesses ran by the monarch.
Elizabeth’s illness and her unprecedented absence from the public eye has fueled rumors about her wellness.
Last week, social media sites were set ablaze after a fake BBC account on Twitter claimed that the queen was dead.
“BREAKING: Buckingham Palace announces the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 90. Circumstances are unknown. More to follow,” read a tweet on the fake account’s page.
It was announced earlier this month that Elizabeth would give up the patronage of 25 national organizations before her 91st birthday. She is currently a patron of more than 600 charities, according to the Palace.
Elizabeth II became the longest reigning monarch in the world after the October death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej.