Queen marks official birthday at Trooping of the Colour

The Queen marked her 84th official birthday today with a review of hundreds of soldiers in the annual Trooping of the Colour.

She wore a light lilac outfit as she inspected rows of crimson-coated Guardsmen while the sun shone weakly over Horse Guards Parade.

The parade included more than 1,400 soldiers in the traditional uniforms of the Household Cavalry, Royal Horse Artillery and Foot Guards.

The colour being trooped today was presented by the Queen to the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards last month, just two weeks after the unit returned from Afghanistan.

The Queen took the royal salute as she has done every year since 1952, with the exception of 1955 when the ceremony was cancelled due to a national rail strike.

She was accompanied on the short journey from Buckingham Palace by Prince Phillip, who underwent minor surgery on his left hand earlier this week.

They rode down Pall Mall to the parade ground behind Downing Street in an open-topped carriage first used by Queen Victoria in 1842

Prince Charles also attended the ceremony despite suffering from a persistent chest infection and is scheduled to take three days off next week.

He was accompanied the Duchess of Cornwall, who suffered a broken leg earlier this year and had the cast removed just two weeks ago, and Prince William, currently training to be an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot.

Princess Ann, who is Colonel of the Blues and Royals and tenth in line to the throne, rode her charger Elizabeth in the parade that followed the Queen’s carriage.

After taking the salute the Queen and other royals returned to the Palace where they watched an RAF flypast by 13 different types of aircraft, including World War II Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster, modern Typhoon fighters and the Red Arrows aerobatic display team.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight led the formation to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Britain’s defeat of Germany.

Since her coronation in 1952, the Queen has only ever missed the Trooping of the Colour once in 1955 when it was cancelled due to a national rail strike.

The ceremony, which marks the official birthday of British monarchs, was created so sovereigns whose birthdays fell in the winter months were able to enjoy a day of pageantry during fine summer weather. It always falls on a Saturday in June.

The Queen celebrated her actual birthday on April 21. She was 84.

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, former England goalkeeper Bert Williams and cricket statisticians Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis were all on the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, released earlier today.