| Revealed: The Hardest Working Royals |
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| Written by Joanne Leyland | |
| Wednesday, 02 January 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 4 
It was announced at the time of Prince Edward’s marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones
in June 1999 that the Earl of Wessex will duly inherit his father’s title of Duke of
Edinburgh.Says Mr O’Donovan, who reveals the full details of his table of royal engagements in a New Year letter to The Times: "What has really changed is that the Earl of Wessex has taken over most of his father’s work with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme." "The Duke of Edinburgh used to do a lot of foreign trips with the awards but that all goes to him now." In the past year, Prince Edward has embarked on a number of overseas tours which have included relatively low-profile visits (from the wider aspect of Fleet Street) to America and Israel. No fewer than 139 of Prince Edward’s 362 engagements in 2007 were outside the United Kingdom. 
In total, the Countess of Wessex carried out 147 engagements last year. Equally limited in her public role was the Duchess of Cornwall, who spent several weeks out of the public eye after she underwent a hysterectomy operation at the King Edward VII Hospital in London in March. This procedure came after Camilla was forced to cancel a handful of engagements in the latter part of 2006 due to illness.
The 60-year-old Duchess came under significant attack in both 2005 – the year in which she officially entered the royal family upon her April marriage to the Prince of Wales – and 2006 when it was revealed that she was the least active of the royals when it came to public duty. Considering the extensive workload which was carried out by the likes of Princesses Anne and Alexandra during their late teens and early twenties, there may be some raised eyebrows at the lack of work undertaken by the second and third-in-line to the throne. |
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