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Britain’s streets are decked out with flags, tea parties have been planned and cakes baked as the country marks Queen Elizabeth II’s unprecedented 70 years on the throne.
The country hailed its highly popular monarch with four days of pageantry and parties as she becomes the first to celebrate an anniversary billed as the Platinum Jubilee.
As the 96-year-old's reign enters what is likely its closing act, after a day of celebration, Buckingham Palace said she would will not attend a National Service of Thanksgiving at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.
But the jubilee represents a moment of light for the queen, her family and the nation after two dark years marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of Prince Philip and royal scandals.
What happened today:
- Celebrations began with the queen’s birthday parade, known as Trooping the Color.
- A Royal Air Force flypast was watched by crowds in London and four generations of the royal family from the famed Buckingham Palace balcony.
- Later in the day, more than 2,000 towns and cities in Britain and overseas will light beacons to mark the jubilee.
Queen’s at the heart of the party
Royal Air Force planes screaming through the skies, a military band on horseback, a ceremonial Irish wolfhound named Seamus.
Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee kicked off Thursday with all the grandeur one would expect from this 1,000-year-old institution. But despite the lavish royal pageantry, there was only one star of the show for the flag-waving crowds lining the streets of the British capital on this warm June day.
There were doubts about how much of the country’s four-day celebration its 96-year-old queen would manage to attend. On Thursday, she was greeted with rapturous cheers and applause as she made two smiling appearances on the famed Buckingham Palace balcony.
What to expect for the rest of the long jubilee weekend
After Thursday's big kickoff of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, attention will turn to the final three days of festivites.
Here's what else to expect:
- A Service of Thanksgiving will take place on Friday morning at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, with prayers, anthems and bible readings. Great Paul, the largest church bell in the country, will be rung at about 11 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET) — the first time it will be rung for a royal occasion.
- On Saturday evening there will be a star-studded musical event, the BBC’s Platinum Party at the Palace, will feature musicians including Queen and Adam Lambert, Alicia Keys, and Diana Ross.
- To cap off the celebrations, Sunday will see nationwide street parties and a massive pageant that will march in the area around Buckingham Palace on Sunday. It will feature the queen’s gold state coach, as well as members of the military from the U.K. and across the Commonwealth. After that, decorated double-decker buses, U.K. celebrities, circus artists and more will make their way along the route to celebrate the queen's 70 years on the throne.
Queen will not attend thanksgiving service, Buckingham Palace says
The queen will not attend a National Service of Thanksgiving at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace said in a statement Thursday.
The monarch considered the “journey and activity” and had “with great reluctance concluded the she will not attend,” the statement said.
It added that she wanted “to thank all those who made today such a memorable occasion.”
Queen's cousin joined her on the balcony for the military parade
Perhaps one of the lesser well known royals to join the queen on the balcony of Buckingham Palce was her cousin, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent.
Now, 86, the Duke of Kent served in the British army for 21 years, before he retired in 1976 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Known for his passionate advocacy for honoring veterans, especially those that fought in World Wars I and II, hze was promoted to Field Marshal in 1993.
But he is perhaps best known for his involvement with the Wimbledon tennis championships. As President of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club since 1969, each summer he presents the winners’ trophies to the champions at the end of the tournament.
With his wife of 60-years, Katharine, Duchess of Kent, he has three children, George, Earl of St Andrews, 59; Lady Helen Taylor, 58, and Lord Nicholas Windsor, 51.
A dessert fit for the queen: U.K. has an official 'Platinum Pudding'
LONDON — Proof that this jubilee will be a very British combination of old and new lies in the layers of Jemma Melvin’s “Platinum Pudding,” which beat almost 5,000 rivals in a special bake off to find an official dessert to mark the occasion.
Her winning entry is a seven-layer lemon swiss roll and amaretti trifle, a modern twist on a traditional dish that dates back to the 1700s.
Organizers hope people across the country might serve the winning dessert at the thousands of street parties being held as part of this week’s celebrations.
Sex Pistols re-release 'God Save the Queen,' praise the jubilee
They may have ranted that the royals were a “fascist regime” and said the queen “ain’t no human being,” but the punk icons the Sex Pistols appear to have mellowed since releasing the countercultural anthem “God Save the Queen” during the monarch’s 1977 Silver Jubilee.
The band has re-released the song as a potentially lucrative tie-in for the queen's Platinum Jubilee. But now, all in their 60s, its members appear to have lost some of the anti-establishment swagger that made the song such a hit.
“I mean, it’s entertaining stuff," Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones told The Associated Press of the four-day event. "Tourists just absolutely love it.”
Sex Pistols singer John Lydon, then known as Johnny Rotten, recently told the broadcaster Talk TV he was “really, really proud of the queen for surviving and doing so well.”
Prince Louis steals the show on palace balcony
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II’s face was full of smiles during the Royal Air Force flypast, the centerpiece of Thursday’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, but it was one of her great-grandsons who stole the show.
Prince Louis, the youngest child of Prince William and his wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, had no problem showing his emotions while standing next to the queen, and was seen fidgeting, covering his eyes, holding his head in his hands and resting his chin throughout the ceremony on Buckingham Palace’s balcony.
But it was an image of the 4-year-old holding his ears, with his mouth wide open, that took off on social media, quickly achieving meme-status.
Prince Andrew tests positive for Covid, will not attend queen's thanksgiving service
Prince Andrew has tested positive for Covid and will not attend Saturday's jubilee service of thanksgiving for the queen at London's St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace said in a statement.
“After undertaking a routine test the Duke has tested positive for Covid and with regret will no longer be attending tomorrow’s service,” the statement said.
Andrew was stripped of his military affiliations and royal patronages in January after his lawyers failed to persuade a U.S. judge to dismiss a civil lawsuit that accused him of sexual abuse.
The following month, he reached a legal settlement with Virginia Giuffre who alleges she was 17 when she was sexually abused by him.
Not everyone is joining in the royal razzmatazz
While jubilee fever may seem ubiquitous, there are plenty of people in Britain and its former colonies who won't be celebrating. #AbolishtheMonarchy was trending on British Twitter on Thursday morning, backed by the anti-royal campaign group Republic.
It's not just ardent anti-monarchists left cold, however. Last month, the pollster YouGov found more than half of Britons, 56 percent, said they wouldn't be celebrating the jubilee — and only 14 percent said they definitely would.
The queen herself remains popular among around three-quarters of Brits, polls consistently show. But fewer than two-thirds say they want to keep the monarchy, with more than 1 in 5 saying they want to replace it with an elected head of state, YouGov found in a survey this week.
Prince Charles is far less popular than his mother, and many experts say his ascension to the throne will be a moment of extreme uncertainty for the future of the royals. Anti-royal disquiet is bubbling in Britain's former colonies across the Caribbean, with young people in particular demanding reparations for the monarchy's historic links to the slave trade.
