Trooping the Colour is coming up this Saturday. This is the annual “birthday parade” for the king or queen, and there are horses, carriages and an RAF flyover. As of this writing, Kensington Palace has not confirmed anyone’s attendance. It’s widely assumed that Prince William will attend Trooping, and I think Buckingham Palace has tried to confirm that. But KP hasn’t said definitively that the Princess of Wales will be absent. They likely want to string this along until the very last minute, because they know Kate’s absence will be THE story. For what it’s worth, it does sound like KP is letting people know behind-the-scenes that Kate will obviously not go to Trooping. One GB News commentator even said that it’s “incredibly unlikely” that Kate will attend, and that if she did attend, she would “upstage the king.” Yes, we can’t have a missing princess turn up at a public event lest a 74-year-old man have his thunder stolen.

The Trooping conversation has been interesting because it’s just further evidence that KP wants it both ways. They want to convince everyone that Kate is regularly popping out in Windsor and Norfolk, that she’s running errands and “doing better,” but they also want to say that she’s much too ill to even think about standing on a balcony or making a work phone call. The mixed messages about if and when Kate will “return to work” have gotten so strange in recent weeks. Speaking of, Katie Nicholl shared her thoughts:

Kate Middleton has “turned a corner” with her health recovery and will “100 per cent” be returning to work, claims a royal expert. Katie Nicholl, who is Vanity Fair’s royal correspondent, shared how Kate will “pick up as Princess of Wales” when she is ready and gets signed off by her medical team.

Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive Show, Katie said: “I’ve been told by sources very close to the Princess of Wales that she had struggled with the treatment initially. It’s preventative chemotherapy, it’s not a pleasant thing. No one wants to have to have this, you know, off the back of major surgery, a pretty long recovery period, and then she has to go through the treatment. I think it was a struggle initially and I was very, very relieved to hear from actually more than one source that she has recently turned a corner.”

The royal author debunked a story she had read which claimed Princess Kate will not be “returning to work in the same capacity again.”

She said to The Sun’s Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson: “I really think this is not the case. Everything I hear is that she will be back to work. She’s coming back 100 per cent to pick up as Princess of Wales and do the great work she was doing before. It will just be in her time and she’s ready and crucially when she gets the sign off from her medical team.”

She added: “I think we all felt her absence very, very acutely over the past few days. Even Williams said she would have loved so much to be there [at the D-Day events] and she would have done so you’re feeling that for him there. It’s just all a reminder of, I think, how much weight and burden is falling to William. He’s playing the role of Prince of Wales brilliantly, perfectly, but I think it’s a huge burden on him at the moment. He is going through a lot. And I think in all of this, it’s a reminder that the Royals are just human like the rest of us.”

[From The Sun]

“I think we all felt her absence very, very acutely over the past few days.” Actually, in the past week, there has been a suspicious number of random reports that the monarchy is stronger than ever without Kate and that everyone is surprised by how smoothly it’s going without button-covered distractions. Nicholl’s sourcing used to be so Middleton-centric, but I’m starting to get the feeling that she’s been co-opted by William’s people. That’s happened a lot in recent years. It’s sort of insidious. It should be a story about “where is Kate, can we get any proof that she’s actually doing better” and it became a story about “William is so burdened and he’s handling all of this brilliantly.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.