Princess of Wales to attend Remembrance Sunday events
The Princess of Wales is to join the Royal family for the national services of Remembrance this weekend, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.
The Princess, who is making a gradual return to work after chemotherapy, will attend the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night and watch commemorations at the Cenotaph on Sunday.
She will join the King, her husband the Prince of Wales and other senior members of the Royal family for the events.
The Queen’s attendance will be confirmed closer to the time based on medical advice after she was diagnosed with a chest infection and cancelled several engagements this week.
The Royal family will gather en masse for the first time since Trooping the Colour to honour military veterans, those who lost their lives in service, and their families.
It is one of only a handful of public appearances for the Princess of Wales this year following her illness.
On Thursday, Prince William spoke of the toll it had taken on their family, calling it “probably the hardest year in my life”.
The weekend of Remembrance will begin on Saturday evening with the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. The King became patron of the Royal British Legion earlier this year.
The event includes personal testimonies, storytelling and music performances to an audience of Armed Forces families.
Buckingham Palace has confirmed that the King, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent will all attend.
The Princess’s appearance at the evening event at the Royal Albert Hall will be seen as an important step in her measured return to public life. In December, she is also expected to host her annual Westminster Abbey carol concert, but no other events in the calendar have been confirmed.
On Sunday, the King will lead the annual Remembrance Day Service at the Cenotaph in London – his first since his diagnosis with cancer. The wives of the Royal family customarily watch proceedings from a balcony.
The King will lay a wreath, the design of which pays tribute to the wreath of his grandfather, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.
The wreath’s poppies are mounted on an arrangement of black leaves, as is traditional for the sovereign, with a ribbon bearing the King’s racing colours of scarlet, purple and gold.
The Queen’s wreath will be laid on Her Majesty’s behalf by an equerry from the Royal household, and bears her own racing colours, inherited from her grandfather, which echo the wreath of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The King’s and Queen’s wreaths have been produced by The Poppy Factory.
The Prince of Wales will lay the wreath featuring the Prince of Wales feathers, with a new ribbon in Welsh red.
On Monday, the Duchess of Edinburgh will attend an Armistice Service at the National Memorial Arboretum to lay a wreath and give a reading.
