Trooping the Colour 2026: anti-monarchy protesters gather as royal family marks King Charles III's official birthday

The ceremony

Thousands lined The Mall on 13 June for the traditional Trooping the Colour parade, which marks the sovereign's official birthday. The event began with a carriage procession from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade, where King Charles III inspected more than a thousand guardsmen from the Grenadier, Scots, Irish, and Coldstream Guards. Over 1,400 parading soldiers, 200 horses, and 400 musicians took part in the military spectacle.

The royal family

King Charles travelled in an Ascot Landau carriage with Queen Camilla, while the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and the Duke of Edinburgh rode on horseback. The Princess of Wales, wearing a blue and white Catherine Walker outfit and a wide-brimmed Philip Treacy hat, accompanied her three children in a carriage. The Queen, as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, wore a red dress inspired by the regimental uniform and a black beret.

The balcony appearance

After a 41-gun salute, the royal family gathered on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the traditional RAF flypast. Typhoon jets, Chinook helicopters, and a C-17 transport aircraft roared overhead in ten waves, followed by the Red Arrows, whose red, white, and blue vapour trails filled the sky. The King stood beside two future monarchs, Prince William and Prince George, on the balcony.

Prince Louis's moments

The youngest Wales child, eight-year-old Prince Louis, drew attention. At a first-floor window earlier, he ducked to peer through a half-open pane. On the balcony he leaned sideways, mouth open, to catch the flypast. His brother Prince George, 12, was seen holding in a sneeze during the national anthem before laughing with their mother.

Anti-monarchy protest

Dozens of protesters gathered opposite the palace, raising placards with the slogan 'not my king' as the national anthem played. Several also held signs showing Prince Andrew alongside the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The demonstration remained small but visible at the margins of the celebrations.