Here are some photos from Saturday’s Trooping the Colour, which is King Charles’ annual birthday parade, despite the fact that he’s actually a Scorpio. Each year into Charles’ reign, Trooping loses more and more significance. For years during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, it was such a big date on the royal calendar. QEII loved to have her whole family on the balcony, all of cousins, her children, her grandchildren and even great-grandkids. That balcony used to be heaving with royals and royal-adjacents. Nowadays, the all-white balcony is sparse and so are the crowds. Photographers are hesitant to do wide shots of the balcony, and the newspapers are even more hesitant to publish the wide shots of both the pale-and-stale balcony and the sparse crowds.

For this year’s Trooping, Queen (Consort) Camilla repeated a funky look which she wore to this same event in 2023 (it was her first Trooping as queen consort). It’s a red militaristic coatdress, which is supposed to mimic her husband’s Irish Guards dress uniform. She had it specially made back in 2023, so I suppose she wanted to get more use out of it. In many of the photos of Camilla, she looks totally over it, btw. I keep thinking about the Hans Gruber line in Die Hard: “And Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.” That’s Camilla’s attitude at this point – she’s reached the top of the mountain, vanquished her enemies (her husband’s first wife, her stepsons and the British media), got the crown and there are no more worlds left to conquer. The only thing keeping her alive is the hate in her heart.

Surprisingly, I thought the best-dressed woman of Trooping was… the Duchess of Edinburgh?? Sophie wore a new Roland Mouret dress which is either white or a very, very pale pink. Her Jane Taylor hat is pink. This is the best Sophie has looked in a while?

The Gloucesters were included on the balcony, as were Princess Anne, Tim Laurence, the Duke of Kent and Prince Edward (who also wore his dress uniform, despite having never served).

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.