As King Charles III, the new monarch is set to undertake his first Trooping the Colour celebrations (King’s Birthday Parade) on June 17, some media reports said Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are unlikely to attend the mega event as the invitation hasn’t been extended to them.
On Saturday, the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden wrote: “I hear that Prince Harry and Meghan have not […] been invited to the King’s Birthday Parade next weekend.”
“It will be the first time in Harry’s life that he has not been welcome at the monarch’s official birthday celebrations.”
Prince Harry had attended the coronation of King Charles III in London on May 6, 2023.
Last time Harry and Meghan attended Trooping the Colour as working royals was in 2019.
In 2022, both attended the event as non-working royals.
Saturday’s parade — which marks the sovereign’s official birthday — is a minutely choreographed military tradition dating back more than two centuries.
On the Trooping the Colour celebrations day, King Charles will ride from the palace to Horse Guards Parade on horseback.
Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was the last monarch to ride at the event in 1986, when she was 60.
The parade starts at Buckingham Palace in central London and moves down The Mall to Horse Guards Parade, where Charles, 74, will receive a royal salute.
King Charles III’s actual birthday is on November 14. He was born in the year 1948.
In 2020, the event was canceled due to the Covid pandemic. In 2021, the event was scaled down to a smaller event at Windsor Castle.
The double birthday tradition was started by German-born King George II in 1748, who wanted to have a summer celebration as his own birthday was on October 30.
(With inputs from AP)
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Updated: 13 Jun 2023, 04:41 AM IST