King Charles marks official birthday with Trooping the Colour, BBC reports Red Arrows flypast and Republic protests on The Mall, ageing jets and a tightened royal roster keep the ritual running

Images

King Charles III and Queen Camilla appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the Red Arrows flypast bbc.com

The King and Queen rode in an Ascot Landau carriage, purchased during the reign of Queen Victoria. The King wore the uniform of the Grenadier Guards featuring the cypher of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II bbc.com

Members of the Royal Family (left to right) Queen Camilla, King Charles III, the Prince of Wales, Princess Charlotte, the Princess of Wales, Prince George, and Prince Louis on the balcony of Buckingham Palace standard.co.uk

standard.co.uk

Members of the Royal Family (left to right) the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duchess of Edinburgh, Queen Camilla, King Charles III, the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, and Prince Louis on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, London, to view the flypast following, the Trooping the Colour ceremony in central London, as King Charles III celebrates his official birthday. Picture date: Saturday June 13, 2026. standard.co.uk

standard.co.uk

King Charles III and Queen Camilla rode in a carriage along The Mall to Horse Guards Parade for Trooping the Colour, the annual ceremony marking the monarch’s official birthday, according to the BBC. The event ended with a Red Arrows flypast watched from the Buckingham Palace balcony by senior royals, with crowds packed along the route. The BBC reported that anti-monarchy protesters from the campaign group Republic were present, chanting slogans during the day.

Trooping the Colour is designed to look timeless: scarlet tunics, bearskin caps, precision marching, and regimental flags carried as if they were still battlefield identifiers. Yet the details in this year’s coverage show how the institution adapts by narrowing the cast while keeping the spectacle intact. The BBC described a smaller working group of royals in public roles, with the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Edinburgh appearing on horseback as royal colonels, while the Princess of Wales attended with her children.

Even the aviation portion is being managed as a finite asset. The BBC noted that the Red Arrows are beginning to fly with fewer aircraft for most displays to preserve an ageing fleet, a practical constraint that sits awkwardly beside the ceremony’s promise of endless continuity. The London Standard added further colour around uniforms, carriages and the specific regimental focus of the day, reinforcing how much of the event’s meaning is carried by objects and choreography rather than speeches.

The protest presence, meanwhile, has become part of the predictable street-level logistics of large public rituals: banners, chanting, and police-managed boundaries that allow dissent without interrupting the broadcast-friendly core. The monarchy’s public-facing offer is stability through repetition; its critics use the same repetition to argue the country is staging history rather than living it.

At 13:00 BST, the BBC reported, the Red Arrows flew over Buckingham Palace as the Royal Family watched from the balcony. The aircraft were fewer than they used to be, but the formation still arrived on time.