Queen Elizabeth, 96, Uses a Stick as She Anoints Liz Truss New Prime Minister of U.K.

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Queen Elizabeth II used a walking stick to support herself today as she formally invited Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, to form a new government.

The use of a stick was not the only concession to the 96-year-old monarch’s “episodic mobility” problems; the ancient ceremony, known as “kissing of hands,” took place at the queen’s Scottish home of Balmoral, where she lives for the summer and early fall months. It was the first time in her 70-year reign that the ceremony has been conducted away from Buckingham Palace.

Will Balmoral Provide Queen Elizabeth With a Summer of Peace?

The queen had originally planned to travel to London for the ceremony; however, last week her office said she had decided to ask Truss to travel to Scotland instead. Outgoing PM Boris Johnson also made the trip north for a final audience with the queen in the drawing room of Balmoral, and to formally tender his resignation.

Although photographs of the ceremony were provided, it was not (and has never been) filmed. It was memorably (and, insiders have said, accurately) recreated in the 2006 film The Queen featuring Helen Mirren as Her Majesty and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair.

For about an hour, between the resignation of Johnson and the formal invitation to Truss, the U.K. was technically without a prime minister. In the gap, executive authority is vested in the monarch.

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