The Monarch’s speech will be shown on TV and the Royal Family’s social media channels (Picture: UK Press via Getty Images)

Queen Elizabeth is to address the UK and the Commonwealth in a rare televised broadcast this Sunday, after more than 3,000 people lost their lives to coronavirus.

The Monarch, who is currently in self-isolation in Windsor Castle, will speak at 8pm in what will be only the fourth televised address of her 68-year-reign during times of national crisis and grief.

Her pre-recorded speech, which will also be shown on the Royal Family’s social media channels, comes as the national death toll rises by 684 – the biggest daily increase since the outbreak began.

The head of the Royal Family normally broadcasts a recorded message each year on Christmas Day – but gave a special address after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002, ahead of Diana, Princess of Wales’s funeral in 1997 and about the First Gulf War in 1991.


Queen Elizabeth II holding her weekly audience with Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the phone from Windsor Castle in Windsor, west of London on March 25, 2020 (Picture: Buckingham Palace/AFP via Getty)

A member of the ambulance service wearing personal protective equipment is seen leading a patient (unseen) into an ambulance at St Thomas’ Hospital in London (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)

The UK death toll rose by 684 today

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On the eve of Princess Diana’s funeral, the Queen made an unprecedented decision to deliver her speech live.

Speaking from Buckingham Palace against a backdrop of a view of the crowds of mourners outside, she described her former daughter-in-law as ‘an exceptional and gifted human being’.

Dressed all in black, she added: ‘In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.’

In February 1991, Her Majesty recorded a brief televised address to the nation during the Gulf War, as the allied land offensive began against Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait.

Calling on the nation to unite and pray that the Armed Forces’ success would be as ‘swift as it is certain’, she said she hoped it would be ‘achieved with as small a cost in human life and suffering as possible’.

A drive-through NHS testing facility for Covid-19 at IKEA Wembley, north-west London (Picture: James Veysey/REX)

A woman wears a mask as a precaution against coronavirus on a street in London (Picture: Ilyas Tayfun Salci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A member of the military speaks with paramedics outside Manchester Central which is being turned into a Nightingale Hospital (Picture: Getty Images)

The day before her mother’s funeral in 2002, the Queen thanked the UK people for their support and the ‘love and honour’ shown to the Queen Mother.

She said: ‘I count myself fortunate that my mother was blessed with a long and happy life.

‘She had an infectious zest for living, and this remained with her until the very end.’

The Queen has also been known to give speeches in times of celebration, notably to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

In a two-minute pre-recorded televised message, she told the nation she was deeply touched by their support and hoped ‘memories of all this year’s happy events will brighten our lives for many years to come’.

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