Britain’s royal family marked King Charles III’s inaugural birthday parade with a balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace, where they watched an impressive fly-past while being cheered on by crowds.
Britain’s royal family rounded off King Charles III’s inaugural birthday parade Saturday with a balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace to watch a spectacular fly-past.
Three of the king’s young grandchildren — future king Prince George, nine, Prince Louis, five, and Princess Charlotte, eight — joined the rest of the family on the balcony with the princes sporting red ties and blue blazers and Charlotte in a sailor suit with red trim.
They were cheered by the crowds who gathered outside the palace and in The Mall, the avenue leading up to it.
The air display of some 70 military aircraft, following a 41-gun salute from nearby Green Park in central London, came after bad weather cut short a planned fly-past at Charles’s coronation on May 6.
It ended with the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force’s aerobatic display team, trailing red, white and blue vapours.
Earlier, Charles saddled up for the annual Trooping the Colour parade that marks the British sovereign’s official birthday.
It was the first time the monarch has ridden at the ceremony since his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1986.
Charles, who also took the royal salute, was followed on horseback as he inspected the troops by his eldest son and heir, Prince William, Charles’ brother Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, and sister Anne, the Princess Royal.
Queen Camilla in a military-inspired red outfit, and William’s wife Catherine, the Princess of Wales, who was dressed in green, followed in a carriage.
The colourful display of regimental precision and pageantry was the first of 74-year-old Charles’s reign.
Charles’s actual birthday is on November 14 but British sovereigns celebrate twice — once in private and again in public.
Marie de La Roche Saint-André, with AFP
