While visiting concert rehearsals at Cardiff Castle, Prince William and Kate were joined by Prince George and Princess Charlotte to bring the Platinum Jubilee celebrations to Wales.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, along with their children George, eight, and Charlotte, seven, met the cast and crew of a special Platinum Jubilee Celebration Concert held within the castle grounds.
As they arrived in the Welsh capital, William and Kate appeared to encourage their shy-looking children to shake hands and introduce themselves to officials. It’s George and Charlotte’s first formal royal visit, according to reports.
Prince Louis, who stole the show after the Trooping the Colour event when he stood on Buckingham Palace’s balcony with his family and the Queen, was absent.
The couple and their children will attend rehearsals and meet some of the performers, including Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, who will perform at the festival. Bonnie was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week for her contributions to music.
The royals will also meet weatherman Owain Wyn Evans, who is best known for his work on North West Tonight and The One Show.
The Cambridges and their children will next meet a variety of West End performers, as well as the Rubicon Dance Company and the Wales Youth Choir for Good.
The visit is one of several that members of the royal family are making across the UK to commemorate the Jubilee.
Prince Edward paid a visit to Cardiff while the Cambridges were there.
Harry and Meghan, on the other hand, are set to be absent from today’s Jubilee celebrations as they celebrate Lilibet’s first birthday at Windsor and maintain their low-profile.
They will celebrate the birthday ‘privately as a family,’ according to Omid Scobie.
Through their social media profiles, the Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla, and the Cambridges all wished Lilibet a happy birthday.
Later, during a star-studded Jubilee event outside Buckingham Palace, William and his father, Prince Charles, will take center stage in front of a throng of 22,000 to pay tribute to the Queen.
At the end of the BBC’s open-air Party at the Palace show, the father and son, both future kings, will speak separately in honor of the monarch.
Despite the fact that the event did not begin until 8 p.m., royal enthusiasts began arriving at The Mall as early as 8 a.m. to secure the finest place.
Although it is unlikely that the Queen would attend the concert, any changes will be announced later today.
She is also not likely to attend today’s Epsom Derby Day, but will instead be riveted to the television, watching the events unfold in Windsor. In her place, Princess Anne will appear.
Princess Beatrice and her husband Edoardo, meantime, were photographed leaving the Maison Estelle private members’ club at 1 a.m. Friday night.
The Met Office has issued a weather warning for thunder and downpours this morning, but a second round of storms is expected to avoid the Party at the Palace concert-goers.
The Queen pleased spectators with a visit to the Buckingham Palace balcony on Thursday, and she is likely to return after the Pageant march concludes on Sunday.
After experiencing some ‘discomfort’ on the first day of celebrations, she was unable to attend the thanksgiving ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.
She’s also spent time with the Sussexes, who brought their children Archie and Lilibet over from the United States – the latter of whom the monarch met for the first time this weekend.
The Derby, which took place on June 4th, was supposed to be a personal highlight for the Queen during the four-day Jubilee celebrations.
The head of state, who is a devoted horse owner and breeder, was expected to be greeted on the course by up to 40 of her previous and present riders.
The BBC’s Party at the Palace, which will take place on three stages in front of Buckingham Palace this evening, will amuse a live audience of 22,000 people and a televised audience of millions.
Among the celebrity acts scheduled to play are Diana Ross, Queen + Adam Lambert, Alicia Keys, Hans Zimmer, George Ezra, and Eurovision 2022 runner-up Sam Ryder.
Around the Victoria Memorial at the top of The Mall, three interconnecting stages have been created. Each year of the Queen’s reign is represented by one of the 70 lit columns in the design.
After enduring difficulty following two balcony appearances and a beacon lighting on Thursday, the Queen, 96, withdrew from the service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.
For the sacred occasion, around 50 members of the royal family, including the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, gathered in honor of the absent head of state.
The Queen had loved Thursday’s festivities, although the day had been’very taxing,’ according to the Duchess of Cambridge.
Saturday is the first birthday of Harry and Meghan’s daughter Lilibet, who travelled with the Sussexes and older brother Archie for her first visit to the UK.
The Earl and Countess of Wessex are visiting Northern Ireland to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
They will first visit Belfast, where the Royal couple will join members of the public at a 1950s-themed celebration on Royal Avenue in the city.
The earl and countess will meet groups of artists, including the Belfast Busking Band, and will hear stories of the city’s different communities over the previous 70 years, told via fashion, photography, music, and dance.
The earl will also meet senior citizens in the community who have been brought together by Age Friendly Belfast to share their memories and experiences.
Meanwhile, the countess will participate in special platinum jubilee craft activities with schoolchildren, including as crafting crowns and corgis, before seeing a fashion presentation across the ages.
The duo will also sample a local specialty, the Belfast Bap, and browse the Retro Jubilee Market’s vendors.
The earl and countess will see a community dancing group perform a number before departing Belfast.
The royal couple will then travel to their second engagement in the region on Saturday afternoon.
The Queen’s London palace will be surrounded by three stages for the Party at the Palace.
Ross will do her first UK live performance in 15 years at the end of the two-and-a-half-hour show.
Sir David Attenborough, Emma Raducanu, David Beckham, and Stephen Fry will also appear, as will Sir Elton John, who will perform a specially recorded performance.
The evening will focus on worldwide themes that arose or evolved during the Queen’s reign, such as British and Commonwealth contributions to fashion, sport, the environment, and pop music.
During a private visit in Windsor, the Queen finally met her great-granddaughter Lilibet.
Given the Queen’s current mobility issues, it is thought that Harry and Meghan took their children to Windsor Castle to see their great-grandmother soon after they arrived in the UK, though this has not been formally verified.
Lilibet was given the name Lilibet in honor of the Queen, who had the nickname Lilibet as a youngster. It was coined in the 1920s when Princess Elizabeth was a toddler and couldn’t pronounce her own name correctly.
‘Lilibet is my pride,’ the Queen’s father, George VI, was recorded as saying about his daughters.
Margaret is my joy.’
The monarch’s late husband, Prince Philip, as well as close family and friends, used the nickname.
Many viewed the Sussexes’ decision to name their daughter after the Queen as an attempt to highlight their ties to the Royal Family at a time when they were establishing lucrative commercial deals as part of their new independent lives in the United States.
Buckingham Palace was also entangled in a debate about whether the Queen had been consulted in advance about the name.
According to the BBC, the Sussexes did not request and were not granted permission to use the name.
However, a spokeswoman for the couple stated that Lilibet’s great-grandmother had been informed beforehand and that they would not have adopted the name if the queen had objected.
‘The duke communicated with his family ahead of the announcement – in fact, his grandmother was the first family member he called,’ the official said.
‘During that conversation, he mentioned that they wanted to name their baby Lilibet after her.’ They would not have used the name if she had not been supportive.’
Harry also threatened the channel with legal action, claiming that the statements were “false and defamatory.”
Some royal sources have waspishly indicated that there was a world of difference between asking permission and presenting it as a fait accompli.
Meanwhile, palace aides were said to have choreographed timings for the Platinum Jubilee service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday to ensure that Prince William and Kate Middleton didn’t bump into Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
It was Harry and Meghan’s first royal engagement with senior royals since the frosty Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, shortly before they officially stepped down as senior royals for a life in the United States.
However, in their first public appearance in two years, the pair sat in the church separately from Prince William, Kate, Prince Charles, and Camilla after royal officials made sure they were seated on opposite sides of the aisle in a carefully organized plot.
Palace aides meticulously studied schedules as well as seating arrangements in the cathedral, with the pair arriving and leaving the service at different times to William and Kate to avoid running into each other.
The Sussexes have been at odds with the Palace since last year’s bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, with Harry accusing his father Charles of financially cutting him off and Meghan claiming an unnamed royal made a comment about Archie’s skin tone before he was born – with the Sussexes having a war of words with the Palace.
During the feud, a source said palace staff were extremely mindful of ‘the optics,’ or how things would appear from the outside, and made sure the pair only attended events where they might be seen.
Asked if the Sussexes would appear at any other events over the weekend, particularly with their children, the source said: ‘I really wouldn’t expect them at everything.’
They added: ‘It’s a typically elegant solution as you would expect. The Queen wants her family there and they are still part of it. But in a carefully controlled fashion.’
Elsewhere, Omid Scobie told BBC Breakfast that ‘people close to the couple’ said they ‘wanted to be as low profile as possible during this trip’, while a royal insider said they believed the couple had taken their ‘low-key’ cue from the Queen.