Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are no longer staying in one house. The monarch and the Duke of Edinburgh agreed to live at different sites after seven months of staying together during the lockdown.
According to Hello, the Queen left Prince Philip's Wood Farm in Sandringham on Tuesday, Oct. 6, after a two-week stay with her husband. Her Majesty is back at her castle in Windsor while the Duke of Edinburgh chose to stay behind his home.
Wood Farm has been Prince Philip's sanctuary since he retired from public service in 2017. He mostly stayed at this Norfolk countryside home, which has as little as five bedrooms, because it's more relaxing than staying at the palaces.
According to sources, this is the reason why the Queen agreed for her husband to stay behind while she returned to Windsor Palace to restart her work. Apparently, the 94-year-old monarch understood that her 99-year-old husband needed his time alone to enjoy the rest of his retirement.
Wood Farm isn't also too far from Windsor Castle. Thus, if the Queen needed to see her husband, and vice versa, they would not be too far from each other. The Queen could easily drive over to Wood Farm and was, in fact, spotted behind the wheel when she departed her husband's Sandringham estate to move to Windsor.
In the last six months, the Palace was able to maintain a royal bubble, with fewer number of royal workers, when Her Majesty and her husband lived together. Now that they are in two houses, it's unclear how royal courtiers will carry out their protection for the Queen and Prince Philip, who are both vulnerable to the virus because of their ages.
Sources revealed that Prince Philip originally didn't want to go to Windsor in March or stay in Balmoral for the summer. He was apparently "forced" to join his wife as it was logistically easier to enforce the safety protocols.
The source said that it "made more sense" for the elderly royal pair to stay in one roof. He was also told there aren't enough staff to maintain an efficient bubble system.
Queen Elizabeth wanted to return to Windsor so she could resume smaller in-person meetings and engagements. Large-scale royal events have been cancelled until the end of the year.
Buckingham Palace, however, said that they will continually review the safety protocols around the Queen and her husband upon the advice and guidance of the government.
