King Charles assigns Royal Family's 'secret weapon' to stand in for him on major trip

King Charles has entrusted a key royal dubbed the Firm's 'secret weapon' to carry out a major overseas trip on his behalf.

It has been announced that Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh will travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina later this week, where on behalf of the monarch, she will attend an event marking the 30th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide. The massacre, which took place in July 1995 at the time of the Bosnia war saw more than 8,000 men and boys killed in the town of Srebrenica. At the memorial service, Sophie will lay flowers in the memorial cemetery and has also been given the important task of reading a personal message from the King, who is still receiving cancer treatment, during the event.

The Duchess will begin her three-day trip on Thursday when she will meet female peacebuilders in Sarajevo as well as representatives from the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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She is also scheduled to meet with survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, something Sophie has long been associated with. As well as attending the memorial service, she will also meet religious leaders and UK military personnel who are serving with NATO in the region.

Sophie, who became Duchess of Edinburgh in 2023, has been dubbed the royal family’s 'secret weapon' in recent years for her meaningful approach to her role.

She was a favourite of the late Queen's and has risen in public prominence after being credited in royal circles for quietly steadying the ship after a tumultuous period for The Firm. As patron to more than 70 organisations, her work has seen her travel to conflict zones as well as campaign for victims of sexual violence around the world.

Courtiers and charity bosses have hailed Sophie as a dependable figure in the slimmed-down working monarchy, which was left further stretched in the wake of the King and the Princess of Wales's major health troubles.

The Duchess was pictured placing a reassuring hand on Kate's back as the princess, now in remission from cancer, made a rare public appearance on Remembrance Day at the Cenotaph at the end of a traumatic year.

She also became the first member of the royal family to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion. She travelled to Kyiv in April to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska to discuss how to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

On a trip to Chad in October, Sophie was moved to tears after she met refugees fleeing to escape the civil war in Sudan and heard their "devastating" experiences of sexual assault.

Sophie, patron of the Wellbeing of Women charity, also became the first member of the royal family to discuss their own experience of going through menopause, recounting hot flushes, memory loss and brain fog, and calling for franker conversations on the subject.

She has also called for tampons and sanitary pads to be kept "out of the closet" to end the taboo over menstrual health. Sophie, a champion of the UN's Women, Peace and Security Agenda, has focused her charity work on raising awareness of the devastation of conflict-related sexual violence.

She has also long campaigned on preventing avoidable sight loss after her daughter Lady Louise Windsor was born with an eye condition for which she had surgery.