Palace confirms a scaled-back schedule for the season ahead

The updated calendar is shorter than last year's by roughly a third. The palace framed the change as a sharpening of focus onto a smaller number of long-term causes.

Reading the calendar

Royal correspondents tend to read these documents the way analysts read earnings reports. The engagements that were dropped say as much as the ones that survived.

What is not in dispute: the working year ahead is lighter, and deliberately so.