King Charles III has announced a festive spectacle for his birthday next year.
The newly crowned monarch, who assumed the British throne after Queen Elizabeth II died in September, will hold the traditional Trooping of the Colour celebration in London on June 17, according to a statement shared with HuffPost on Thursday. The event will take place a mere six weeks after the king’s royal coronation on May 6.
“The Trooping of the Colour has marked the official birthday of the British Sovereign for over 260 years,” Buckingham Palace said. “2023 will mark His Majesty King Charles III’s first Trooping of the Colour as Sovereign.”
Elizabeth historically scheduled the annual event in June despite being born in April, per People. The king will keep with this tradition, which started in 1748 during the reign of King George II as a celebration of both him and Britain’s armed forces.
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“Over 1,400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians” will come together for “a great display of military precision, horsemanship and fanfare,” the palace said.
Some members of the royal family are set to participate on horseback, with others transported by carriage along a route stretching from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade, a former jousting yard. To conclude, the Royal Air Force will conduct a “fly-past, watched by Members of the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace balcony,” the statement said.
The Trooping of the Colour was most in vogue during Elizabeth’s reign, which spanned 70 years — the second-longest of any monarch in British history — and saw the event showcase the royal family more prominently than ever before.
The palace statement also announced that multiple royals had received new titles in the Foot Guards, regiments of the British army. Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, is now the honorary colonel of the Irish Guards. That designation previously belonged to her husband, Prince William, who is now the colonel of the Welsh Guards. Camilla, the queen consort, has become the colonel of the Grenadier Guards.
Prince Andrew, the previous colonel of the Grenadier Guards, was stripped of the title earlier this year amid allegations of sexual abuse. In a now-settled lawsuit, a woman accused Andrew of raping her when she was a teenager in the early 2000s, a period in which the royal socialized with child sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
