Kate Middleton returns to huge Trooping the Colour duty alongside King Charles

The Princess of Wales returned to her major Trooping the Colour duty alongside King Charles and Queen Camilla today. In her role as as Colonel of the Irish Guards she took her seat on the dais alongside the King and Queen to watch the spectacular military parade at Horse Guards Parade.

Last year she was sat upstairs in the Major General’s office to watch the display with her children after marking her return to duty following the start of her cancer treatment. Today, Kate arrived at Horse Guards Parade today in an Ascot Landau carriage alongside her three children. She dazzled in a turquoise Catherine Walker coat dress, a hat by Juliette Botterill, her Irish Guards Regimental brooch and a pair of earrings late that belonged to the late Queen before taking her seat on the parade ground.

At last year’s Trooping the Colour, Kate made a triumphant return, making her first official public appearance since she revealed she had received a cancer diagnosis. She took pride of place on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the RAF flypast standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the King.

It came two months before she later revealed that she had finished her chemotherapy treatment and in January of this year she revealed that she is now in remission.

The princess is still gradually returning to royal duties but has slowly been increasing her workload. However, it is the second time she has taken part in a major royal event in months after joing the Firm for commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

Earlier this week, she visited the new V&A East Storehouse in London’s Stratford to learn about its “order an object” system where paintings, furniture, books and sculptures can be requested and a room set aside for viewing with staff.

With a keen interest in the arts and a love of the natural world, she choose a number of items themed around nature, a large William Morris samples book, rolls of ornate textiles and a musical instrument for the private moment.

Trooping the Colour sees more than 1,000 servicemen taking part in the military display who when not performing ceremonial duties are fighting soldiers. The colour – regimental flag – being trooped this year is the King’s Colour of Number 7 Company, Coldstream Guards, a prestigious regiment known as the sovereign’s bodyguard which is celebrating its 375th anniversary this year.

In addition, today the King requested a minute’s silence be observed in tribute to the 241 passengers and crew killed, and others affected, when a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for Gatwick Airport came down on Thursday in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.

Black armbands were also be worn by the head of state and senior royals riding in the ceremony, also known as the King’s Birthday Parade, staged in Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the King requested amendments to the Trooping the Colour programme “as a mark of respect for the lives lost, the families in mourning and all the communities affected by this awful tragedy”.

In 2017, Trooping was held a few days after the Grenfell Tower blaze and the loss of life was marked by a minute’s silence, a decision taken by Queen Elizabeth II.

The King issued a written message soon after the Air India plane crash saying he was “desperately shocked by the terrible events” and expressing his “deepest possible sympathy”.

He was kept updated about the developing situation on Thursday and it later emerged there was a sole survivor, UK national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh.

Source: Mirror