THREE cheers for Her Majesty the Queen. Hip hip…’ A great roar rent the air as 323 white gloves punched eagle-feathered bonnets into the air and three hurrahs bounced off the walls of the Palace of Holyrood and the next-door ruins of Holyrood Abbey across to the cliffs of Arthur’s Seat and back again. It was one of those supremely joyful moments that will stick in the memory, a visual and audible demonstration of the bond between a much-loved monarch and her loyal bodyguard.
This moment had been a long time in the making; serendipitously, The Queen’s 70 years on the throne coincided with 200 years of The Royal Company of Archers’ service as the Sovereign’s Body Guard for Scotland. The Almighty had ensured that the sun shone for the afternoon of June 30 during an otherwise wet and windy week in Edinburgh and Her Majesty, whose public appearances have become less frequent and all the more treasured, was able to be present and was visibly touched by the parade and the presentation of a Reddendo by the Captain-General, the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry.
The parade was the culmination of Royal Week, the annual migration of the Court to Edinburgh, where the Royal Family performs its official duties in Scotland, notably an investiture, a garden party and the installation of new Knights of the Most Ancient Order of the Thistle in St Giles’s Cathedral.
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