A military parade, a review of the armies, an air parade … Every year, the United Kingdom celebrates the birthday of its sovereign, King Carlos III and Queen Elizabeth II before him, on a Saturday in mid -June during a ceremony baptized “Tropering the color” (colored salvation) or “King’s birthday parade” (King’s birthday parade).
Except that Charles, more than Elizabeth was born in June. The king’s true anniversary is November 14, and the queen was born on April 21.
They are not the first sovereigns that are celebrated at that time of year. For several centuries, the British sovereign has celebrated his birthday twice a year. The real anniversary is quite celebrated with the family and marked by the transmission of a new official photo.
Over time and the sovereigns, this military parade, which originates in the preparations for the war, where all the flags were shown to the soldiers to recognize them in the confusion of the fight, was associated with the anniversary of the sovereign.
A very old ceremony
The colored salvation ceremony would have been organized for the first time during the reign of King Carlos II, which was a monarch from 1660 to 1685, recalls the British army site.
It was King Jorge II, the second sovereign of the Hanover dynasty, who decided for the first time that his birthday, on November 9, 1683, would prefer to be held in June, evokes the historian Philippe Chassaigne in the Real podcast.
“In 1748, it was decided that this parade would be used to mark the official birthday of the sovereign. It became an annual event in 1760, after the adhesion to the throne of George III, successor of George II” specifies the army site.
Still in June
It was from Edouard VII, also born on November 9 (in 1841), that this period of the beginning of June to celebrate the anniversary of the British monarch was definitively retained.
For quite obvious reasons for the weather, the election fell in June, more conducive to the United Kingdom, to outdoor celebrations than the winter months.
In 2022, the date of the last color of Queen Elizabeth II, the commemorations coincided with the celebrations of her platinum jubilee. On the occasion of Tropering the colorThe complete royal family appears on the balcony of the Buckingham Palace to observe the demonstrations of the Royal Air Force.
The balcony scene
It is Buckingham balcony that the active members of the complete royal family follow the parade and the air parade. Men are in military uniform, women use baths in bright or cake colors. The sovereign is in the center. It is also for the public the opportunity to analyze what is absent. Thus, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan disappeared from the balcony in 2020, when they left the royal family with an accident.
Prince Andrew, brother of King Carlos, dotted with Epstein scandal, was also fired the same year.
Around Charles and Camilla, this year they should be William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales, with their three children, but also Edward, younger brother of Charles and Duke of Edinburgh and his wife Sophie de Wessex. Anne, Charles’s sister, also very inverted in the representation of the royal family, should also be with her husband Timothy Laurence. We also met the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent, both German cousins of Queen Elizabeth II.
Last year, the emotion was intense because this ceremony marked the return of Princess Kate, absent for six months due to cancer.
Source: BFM TV
