Queen Elizabeth appeared unexpectedly at a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the opening of a London Underground line named in her honor. As of the second half of 2021, the 96-year-old monarch had been absent from a series of engagements due to health issues.
Elizabeth wore a hat and a yellow coat – she also carried a cane, an object she used in her previous public engagement, an equestrian show, last Sunday (15). The Queen was accompanied by her youngest son Edward and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, the monarch, who walked slowly around the lobby of Paddington station, spent a few minutes at the event, during which she received a card from London’s public transport network and showed how to use it in a machine.
The US$24 billion (R$118 billion at current price) rail project was supposed to open in December 2018, but since then its completion has been delayed several times due to safety and signaling issues. The Covid-19 pandemic also contributed to the delay in the delivery of the work.
Originally called the “Crossrail”, the Elizabeth line will connect areas west of London, including Heathrow Airport and the city of Reading, with the eastern suburb of Shenfield.
The line is expected to open to the public in a week.
Tuesday’s event is the Queen’s first official engagement outside Windsor Castle since late March, when she attended mass in honor of Prince Phillip, who died in April 2021.
Elizabeth was seen in public on a few occasions after spending a night in hospital in October last year due to an unspecified illness. Thus, since the hospitalization, the first since 2013, mobility problems led the monarch to cancel her presence at major events.
A week ago, she missed the traditional “throne speech” in Parliament, which she had only missed on two occasions during her 70-year reign, the last of which was in 1963, when she was pregnant. In this way, for the first time, the Queen was replaced in the institutional act by Prince Charles, the 73-year-old heir, an important step in the progressive transition of monarchic functions.
The replacement of the queen by her children has even become frequent in recent months. In this Tuesday’s case, the expectation was that only Edward would appear representing the royal family.
On Sunday night, she attended the event that marked the first celebration of her Platinum Jubilee, which marks the 70th anniversary of her reign. On the occasion, the Queen accompanied the equestrian show “A Gallop Through History”, which was attended by 500 horses and 1,300 artists at Windsor Castle. Two days earlier, she appeared smiling at another equestrian event in Windsor.
