In any other year, the major story of the Trooping the Colour would be how grim and unseasonal the wet, cloudy weather was this June. How the cold and rain potentially rendered the pageantry and pomp of this historic affair somewhat anticlimactic – not that the countless spectators, in person and watching on television, cared. This time round, though, the event itself has been overshadowed by the presence of two of the members of the Royal Family: the King and, in particular, the Princess of Wales, who made her first public appearance since her cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
As the princess revealed in her measured, careful announcement last night, she has made good enough progress for her doctors to be happy for her to appear at Trooping the Colour. She is still in the middle of treatment for her illness. It was unsurprising that the first pictures of her travelling with her family showed a drawn, exhausted-looking woman, rather than the radiant figure of previous years.
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