Princess of Wales returns to work in first meeting of 2024

The Princess of Wales has held her first official meeting since announcing the end of her cancer treatment a week ago, a milestone on her return to public life following her diagnosis with the disease earlier this year.

According to the Court Circular, which lists all official royal engagements, Catherine held a meeting at Windsor Castle yesterday afternoon with her Early Years team. The Early Years Centre is part of the Royal Foundation, of which the princess is co-patron along with her husband, and aims to improve education and care for children under five. "The palace has not issued any pictures of the meeting or shared specific details of what was discussed," said Sky News, but the project "has long been a cornerstone of the princess's charitable work".

Catherine is believed to have started carrying out some work from home, but this is "the first official meeting to appear under her name in 2024", said The Times. Health permitting, Catherine "will attend more meetings to assess the progress of her projects with the royal foundation".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The meeting is part of the princess's "carefully managed return", said the BBC, which also includes planned appearances later this year at Remembrance events in November and her annual Christmas carol concert. Catherine made limited public appearances over the summer, attending a Trooping the Colour ceremony in June and the Wimbledon men's tennis finals in July.

There is still "great caution about her health", however. In her video message last week, the princess said her "path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes".

"I am however looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can," she added.