Kensington Palace Posts Striking Solo Photo of Prince William—and a Royal Butler Has Thoughts on Kate's Absence

The Royal Ascot is one of those rare occasions each year where we get to see the full royal family (and a few royally adjacent folks) make a splashy public appearance. This year, we got King Charles, Queen Camilla (and her $2.5 million brooch), Prince William—even Kate Middleton's mom, Carole Middleton, made an appearance (and didn't have any shoe trouble this time). Missing, however, was Princess Catherine after a last minute cancelation.

Kensington Palace hasn’t commented on the reason for the change, but outlets including The Times and Vanity Fair confirmed Princess Catherine's absence was a late decision. In all likelihood, her cancelation has to do with not overexerting herself in light of her health issues (and the current heat wave in Britain).

We did get a super striking portrait of her husband though. Kensington Palace released a series of images, but the first one caught my eye immediately.

The image shows a dapper Prince William standing solo and looking, IMHO, not quite as cheery as usual.

The royals captioned the post, "A brilliant afternoon of racing at Royal Ascot. Congratulations to William Buick, the Gosdens and the impressive Ombudsman on winning The Prince of Wales’s Stakes!"

And while I can only imagine how the prince must be feeling to be at the outing without his wife, someone who has close knowledge of the royal family, King Charles's former butler, weighed in.