King Charles confirms attendance at key royal event just days after Trooping the Colour
King Charles is to attend the annual Garter Day service at Windsor Castle next week, Buckingham Palace has announced.
King Charles III will join Queen Camilla and other members of the Royal Family at the annual Garter Day service at Windsor Castle next week, it has be confirmed.
His appearance will come just two days after a busy, high-profile appearance at Trooping the Colour on Saturday to mark the monarch’s official birthday.
The monarch also travelled to France for the D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations last week despite still undergoing treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer.
Buckingham Palace said, after the snap General Election was called to take place next month, that the royals would postpone engagements “which may appear to divert attention or distract from the election campaign”. This is, however, not a blanket ban and visits would be considered on a case by case basis.
Garter Day sees Ladies and Knights of the Order of the Garter – the country’s oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry – process down the hill from the Berkshire castle’s State Apartments to St George’s Chapel.
Attendees such as these are dressed in white plumed hats and dark blue velvet robes and are watched by crowds of onlookers.
The Palace said Charles, Camilla and members of the royal family will depart by carriage afterwards and return to the castle.
The installation of new Companions of the Order – including composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who has been made a Knight Companion – will take place during the service.
Theatre impresario Lord Lloyd Webber, whose hit musicals include The Phantom Of The Opera, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, will also attend a private investiture in the castle’s Garter Throne Room earlier in the day.
King Charles was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year
Also being invested will be the Duchess of Gloucester as a Royal Lady of the Garter, as well as Lord Kakkar, emeritus professor of surgery at University College London and Air Chief Marshal the Lord Peach, who have both been made Knight Companions.
Founded in 1348 by Edward III, the Garter is awarded by the sovereign for outstanding public service and achievement.
Last week, the King and Queen took to the stage at a poignant D-Day event in Portsmouth on June 5.
At the event, the King and Queen both received a warm round of applause.
King Charles and Queen Camilla pictured in Portsmouth last week (Image: GETTY)
The monarch gave a moving speech shortly after arriving on stage, taking time to pay tribute to D-Day veterans at a commemorative event in Portsmouth.
Addressing the crowd, the 75-year-old said: “The stories of courage, resilience and solidarity we have heard today and throughout our lives cannot fail to move us, to inspire us and to remind us of what we owe to that great wartime generation.”
He added: “Today we come together to honour those nearly one hundred and sixty thousand British, Commonwealth and Allied troops who, on 5th June 1944, assembled here and along these shores to embark on the mission which would strike that blow for freedom and be recorded as the greatest amphibious operation in history…”
