King Charles may have missed this year's Easter address to pave the way for William to 'pick up the mantle', royal expert Richard Kay has told the Daily Mail's Palace Confidential.

Charles delivered the address in both 2024 and 2025, but chose not to this year, leading Kay to suggest the King may be hoping his son will take on the tradition in his place.

Unlike the Christmas speech, the late Queen rarely gave an Easter message at all, reserving it only for moments of national crisis, such as her address to the nation during the COVID pandemic in 2020.

Charles had delivered an Easter address every year of his reign bar one, making his silence this year all the more striking, according to Kay.

Last weekend, the King and Queen Camilla led a beaming royal turnout at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with the Wales family making a much-anticipated return to the service after a two-year absence during Catherine's cancer treatment.

'The speech is not a regular thing', Kay told fellow royal expert Richard Eden.

'People seem to think it's now set in stone, and the fact he did not do it suggests something is up.

'There is an interesting thesis [on why Charles didn't deliver it]. Perhaps, what the King would really like is for his son, William, the Prince of Wales, to pick up the mantle.

'William has recently allowed people on his behalf to speak about his religious faith. It may be that Charles is hoping, in due course, William will do it.'

Charles delivered both his previous addresses on Maundy Thursday, each carrying an explicitly religious theme.

Asked by Palace Confidential host Jo Elvin why William did not give this year's speech himself, Kay noted the Prince may not yet feel comfortable discussing his faith publicly.

'It's true William keeps his faith very private', he said.

'He does not seem comfortable talking about it. He is okay with other people talking on his behalf.'

Both Kay and Eden moved to dismiss what they called a 'strange internet conspiracy theory' that Charles had secretly converted to Islam, a claim that has gained traction online since the King chose not to deliver his Easter address.

The theory stems from Charles's longstanding interest in Islam, including a 1993 speech he delivered as Prince of Wales exploring the relationship between the Muslim faith and the West.

However, Charles has long positioned himself as a multifaith monarch, seeking to foster understanding between the Church of England, of which he is Supreme Governor, and other world religions.

'I can exclusively reveal that our Supreme Governor of the Church of England has not converted to Islam', Eden joked.

'There has been quite a lot of misreporting surrounding this. I saw some reports online where they contrasted a message that the King had given for Ramadan, then saying he had not given one for Easter.

'But when I looked into it, that was a message from 2021, before he was King. It was not a regular thing or anything like that.

'The key point is that the King has always been about understanding between religions. That is something he has always wanted to emphasise.'

Watch the full episode, where Kay and Eden break down the latest news around Trump's upcoming state visit, by subscribing to Palace Confidential on YouTube.