What The Royals Got Up To In 2018

With that wedding, two new great-grandchildren for the Queen and a visit from Donald Trump, its been a memorable year for the Windsors. Royal writer Ingrid Seward looks back at the key moments.

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There’s nothing like a Royal wedding or baby to lift the spirits – and 2018 provided us with both. An extraordinary 2.5 billion were estimated to have watched the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, broadcast from St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on 19 May. The 97-year-old Duke of Edinburgh attended in spite of having had a hip operation only weeks beforehand, as did the Duchess of Cambridge, who had stunned us all by making a glamorous exit from hospital only seven hours after giving birth to Prince Louis on 23 April.

The Queen is 92, but her royal duties were so tightly packed that when she missed a service at St Paul’s Cathedral in late June, it was suggested she was doing too much. During the previous 10 days, she had attended the Garter Day events at Windsor Castle, five days of racing at Royal Ascot and, at the height of the summer heatwave, she received guests at Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Young Leaders awards ceremony. The Queen is reported to say of herself that if she stops, she drops – and in 2018 she never stopped. Meanwhile the rest of the family were busy too…

1 The launch of the “Fab Four” brand