The official birthday of The Queen was celebrated in London in the traditional way: with the Trooping the Colour ceremony followed by a fly-past of Royal Air Force planes over Buckingham Palace.
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh - who had celebrated his 84th birthday on the previous day - rode in an open carriage from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade, at the top of the Mall.
Other members of the Royal Family also travelled by barouche, including The Duchess of Cornwall, The Earl and Countess of Wessex, Prince William, and The Duke of York and his daughters.
The Prince of Wales - Colonel of the Welsh Guards - rode on horseback, as did The Princess Royal as Colonel of The Blues and Royals, and The Duke of Kent, Colonel of the Scots Guards.
The Royal procession was accompanied by a Sovereign's Escort of the Household Cavalry, made up of around 122 officers and troopers from the Life Guards, and Blues and Royals.
On Horse Guards Parade, footguards - mainly from the Household Division's Irish, Grenadier, Scots and Coldstream Guards - marched wearing their trademark bearskin hats and red tunics.
The Queen was greeted by a Royal salute before carrying out an inspection of the troops.
Trooping the Colour this year were the 1st Battalion Irish Guards. It had been 10 years since the regiment last displayed its Colour during the event.
The colour (or flag) is a long standing symbol of honour for the particular regiment to which it is attached. In the old days it would have acted as a rallying point on the field of battle and would have shown men attached to that regiment where they should meet, or where their comrades were fighting.
The colour was trooped by being marched slowly past the lines of soldiers in the regiment to show it to them. In days gone by, it was of crucial importance that all the men in the regiment knew which colour was theirs, so that they could recognise it on the field of battle.
During the ceremony the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards also paraded their latest battle honour, which was won in Iraq.
When the trooping was completed, The Queen returned by carriage to stand on a dais in front of Buckingham Palace, as the soldiers ranked past.
Afterwards The Queen joined the rest of the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch an RAF flypast, spearheaded by two Typhoon Eurofighters.
Trooping the Colour dates from 1748, when it was decided that this ceremony would also mark the official birthday of the Sovereign. Only from the reign of King Edward VII (1901 - 1910), however, has the King or Queen attended the parade in person every year.
The Queen first appeared on parade when she was 21. She has attended the Trooping of the Colour ceremony every single year of her reign except 1955, when a national rail strike forced the ceremony to be cancelled. |
