Like millions of other people all over the world, Queen Elizabeth is struggling to figure out how to get through the unprecedented era of coronavirus. Now, sources close to the Queen are saying that she is leaning on her strong Christian faith to get through this difficult time.
Sources told People magazine that the 94 year-old Queen has spent the last few weeks in isolation at Windsor Castle with her 98 year-old husband Prince Philip, and that she greatly misses the “community feel” of going to church with her family and friends.
“Her Christian faith means so much to her, and those rituals of going to church on Sunday and praying in chapel are not happening,” one palace insider said.
“She feels the poignancy, but that does not turn into depression or defeat,” added historian and biographer Robert Lacey. “She sees is in the bigger context of her religious faith and of a God who holds her and her family in his hands. It is the solid and simple faith that sustains the queen.”
Another source said that the Queen has still managed to find joy in simple things in quarantine.
“She loves to be out walking her dogs and is still riding,” the insider said, with others adding that she is determined to make the most of her time in isolation by spending time with her husband.
“One of the nicest things for the queen is that she is getting to spend more time with her husband than she usually would,” a friend of the monarch’s told Vanity Fair. “They have dinner together in the evenings and I imagine the queen is of the generation where she dresses for dinner. She is riding out every day and is making the most of this time.”
Palace aides have previously confirmed that the Queen has maintained her weekly phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who managed to beat COVID-19 last month after testing positive for it himself.
Throughout this pandemic, the Queen has given a few addresses to the world in which she offered up messages of hope. Her most recent speech came in mid-April, when she told her subjects defiantly that “coronavirus will not overcome us.”
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