Catherine, the Princess of Wales and the wife of Prince William, has returned home from a London hospital almost two weeks after undergoing abdominal surgery, Kensington Palace said in a statement on Monday.
She will convalesce at home for two to three months, according to her office at the palace, and will not return to official duties until after Easter, which falls on March 31 this year.
“The Princess of Wales has returned home to Windsor to continue her recovery from surgery. She is making good progress,” Kensington Palace said in the statement.
It added: “The Prince and Princess wish to say a huge thank you to the entire team at The London Clinic, especially the dedicated nursing staff, for the care they have provided.
“The Wales family continues to be grateful for the well wishes they have received from around the world.”
Kensington Palace did not offer any details on Catherine’s surgery, other than to say that it had been planned and was successful. Unlike her public appearances outside St. Mary’s Hospital in London after the births of the couple’s children, she was not seen leaving the London Clinic, a private hospital in the city’s Marylebone neighborhood.
Her sudden hospitalization earlier this month caught royal watchers off guard, and the dearth of details about her condition prompted a wave of speculation in British newspapers and on social media.
The Palace had previously said Catherine would recuperate at Adelaide Cottage, the four-bedroom house on the grounds of Windsor Castle, just outside London, to which the couple and their children moved in 2022, after having lived in an apartment in Kensington Palace.
William was photographed driving a car outside the London Clinic a day after the surgery, presumably to pay a visit to his wife. But there were no pictures of the couple’s three children arriving or leaving during Catherine’s hospitalization.
Kensington Palace had pleaded for privacy on behalf of Catherine, 42, saying only that her condition was “not cancerous.” When she was admitted to the London Clinic, the palace said in a statement, “She hopes the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.”
Health concerns for Britain’s royal family have been in the public eye in recent weeks, with King Charles III undergoing a medical procedure for an enlarged prostate, also at the London Clinic, and requiring several days off to recover.
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and the ex-wife of the king’s younger brother, Prince Andrew, also disclosed that she had been diagnosed with melanoma, a serious type of skin cancer. It was her second cancer diagnosis within a year.
Ms. Ferguson, 64, had spoken publicly about her decision to undergo a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery last year after a breast cancer diagnosis in the summer.
