Throughout 2012, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth are celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We are celebrating, as well, by following Her Majesty through the rhythms of the Royal Year.
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Spring into the Glittering Season
Windsor Castle
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MATT DUNHAM/AFP/GETTY
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AP
THE QUEEN ALWAYS RETURNS to Windsor Castle in May for the Royal Windsor Horse Show—a five-day equestrian extravaganza of which she is patron, as her father was before her. Members of the Royal Family have long taken part in the varying competitions. For years, the Duke of Edinburgh was a champion in the carriage-driving events. Several thousand horses and tens of thousands of spectators turn out for 164 jumping, showing and carriage-driving events in Windsor Great Park.
This year’s show, May 9-13, also features the Diamond Jubilee Pageant to be held evenings on the grounds of Windsor Castle itself. More than 800 musicians and military personnel and 500 horses from around the world will recollect the Queen’s State and Commonwealth visits through the six decades of her reign. Among the units participating are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, India’s Marwari Horses and the New South Wales Police Military Display from Australia.
The Queen returns to London in late May for a rather different event of which she is also patron, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, held annually on the grounds of Chelsea Royal Hospital since 1913. Her Majesty always visits the world’s most famous flower show on the evening before it is opened to the general public.
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CARL COURT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Close on the heels of Chelsea this year comes the central weekend of the Diamond Jubilee commemorations, June 2-5, when the entire country will take a four-day weekend to help celebrate. An initiative termed the Big Jubilee Lunch encourages traditional street parties and picnics across the kingdoms on Sunday, June 3. Think any alcohol will be served? That afternoon, the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant will fill the River Thames with a flotilla of 1,000 boats (including many historic craft), making their way down river from Putney to Tower Bridge. At the centerpiece will be the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in the Royal Barge.
ON MONDAY, JUNE 4, a Diamond Jubilee concert will be televised live from Buckingham Palace, with Sir Paul McCartney, Tom Jones and Dame Shirley Bassey among the glittering headliners. More than 2,000 beacons will be lit that evening across the island, as they have been in celebration of historic events for centuries (including Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897). The Queen herself will light the national beacon in central London at 10:30 p.m., the centerpoint of a chain of light stretching across the country.
The weekend concludes with a service of thanksgiving to be held at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday, June 5—with a carriage procession conveying the Royal Family through the streets of London, and suitable pomp and patriotic circumstance.
Though Queen Elizabeth II’s actual birthday is April 21, her official birthday is in June (this year the 16th), marked by Trooping the Colour—in a ceremony dating from 1748. The Trooping recalls the tradition of carrying the regimental flags in front of the assembled battalion so that the soldiers might recognize them in battle. Every year the Queen accepts the salute of the Household Division (again, with due pomp and ceremony) on Horse Guard Parade before riding in a carriage at the head of her Guards on parade back to Buckingham Palace
Her Majesty may be ready for a rest by now, but soon it will be time for her annual garden parties at Buckingham Palace.
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