With regard to the Duke's Engagements in January and February, generally speaking, these have always been traditionally 'light' at this time of year [ditto in the case of the Queen]. This is because the Queen tends to extend her Christmas and New Year break well into February. [Reputedly, the Christmas decorations still remain up at Sandringham during the whole period, instead of coming down on Tweflth Night]. The Queen does, however, still work on her Red Boxes each day.
I don't know therefore if Prince Philip has actually cancelled engagements, or not.
He is due in Cambridge next week for the Dinner at the Polar Insitute and it seems he is also expected to 'pop in' to Papworth [close by] for a check-up.
I do feel so sorry for the Queen if she is without her consort for most of the Jubilee engagements. Although it is purely speculation on my part, as the Duke, in the event, did not significantly reduce his public roles and engagements last year [The Palace had formally announced that he would be 'cutting down' his work significantly following his 90th birthday, although from the fact that he only relinquished about a dozen patronages and Tim O Donovan's list showed only a small decline in number of engagements that he undertook], I had presumed that in practice, the end of the Jubilee year would then see the Duke significantly cutting down his engagements. It now seems that things have accelerated since his cardiac surgery. In fact, although one of the patronages that Prince Philip did relinquish was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the engagement that he is scheduled to perform next week is at.........Cambridge University. So if you think about it......... Mind you, the Duke is 'a tough old bird' and since the majority of the diamond jubilee visits are not scheduled to start until the [theoretically] better weather in the Spring, there might be less cancellations than the papers indicate.
One does not want to dwell too much on the future, but as the Queen so obviously relies on her 'other half', if the Duke is not going to be at her side for her yearly programme, it is going to be a tremendous blow to her. I can remember watching a television programme around the time of the Queen's 70th birthday, and the general tone of the programme was that the Queen would never abdicate [which I still think is the case today] but that the particular commentator felt that if the Duke was no longer at the Queen's side, whilst a 'Queen Victoria'-style absence of duties was not thought to be likely, it seemed to the commentator that the absence of her spouse [for whatever reason] would prove the catalyst for the Queen to hand on much of the 'day to day' business of monarchy to her son.
Fingers crossed for the return to duty of Prince Philip. On a personal level, the party hosted by the Duke that I am due to attend in a few weeks' time [and which could easily be cancelled] has NOT yet been cancelled. To be truthful, I have been expecting a 'regret' card to pop through my door for the last 10 days or so........
Alex