A version of this story appeared in the September 8 edition of CNN’s Royal News, a weekly dispatch bringing you the inside track on Britain’s royal family. Sign up here.
It will be a bittersweet day for Britain’s royal family Friday as they mark not only the first year of King Charles III’s reign but the one-year anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
The late monarch died peacefully at the age of 96 at her Balmoral bolt hole on September 8 last year, months after her historic Platinum Jubilee celebrations marking 70 years on the British throne.
Charles is currently in Balmoral – the beloved royal property in Aberdeenshire where his mother retreated annually for a summer break. There had been questions over whether the King would continue the tradition, but that speculation was put to rest with his arrival a few weeks ago.
Since then, several family members have been spotted coming and going from the Scottish residence. But a royal source has told CNN they will have all departed by Friday. And there won’t be any public events there.
Charles has opted to handle the deeply personal day by staying out of the public eye, apart from a brief appearance after attending church – a similar approach to his mother who often spent her own Accession Day in private at Sandringham House, where her father King George VI died in his sleep in 1952.
