Queen expected to attend service in London as UK remembers
The Queen is expected to attend the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London today, her first public appearance since doctors advised her to rest.
Buckingham Palace has confirmed the 95-yeard-old monarch will watch the event from the balcony of a Whitehall building as she has done at previous services.
She had cancelled engagements including a visit to Cop26 in Glasgow when doctors had advised rest until mid-November after tests in hospital last month. Prince Charles will lay a wreath on her behalf, on his 73rd birthday. Charles began placing a wreath for his mother in 2017, with the change seen as a subtle shift of duties and responsibilities.
Palace officials had previously said it was the Queen’s “firm intention” to attend the annual Remembrance service to honour the country’s war dead but added that she is also “mindful of her doctors’ recent advice”. On Tuesday, the Queen returned to Windsor Castle following a long-planned weekend away at her Sandringham home in Norfolk.
Last night, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, accompanied by other members of the royal family, attended the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Other royals in attendance included the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Earl and Countess of Wessex, Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra.
In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will today attend the National Service of Remembrance at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson will lead tributes to MPs who served in both world wars, including a soldier killed in battle after avoiding a trip on the Titanic and an officer who inherited the red phone from Hitler’s bunker.
In a video to be released by the Conservative Party, the prime minister will pay tribute to the MP for his own constituency, Charles Mills, who died at the Battle of Loos in 1915, while serving on the Western Front.