Her Majesty The Queen has requested that there be no gun salute for her birthday next Tuesday. This is the first time the traditional gun salute has been cancelled in her 68-year reign.
A palace source stated, “Her Majesty was keen that no special measures were put in place to allow gun salutes as she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances.” There are no plans in place for an alternative celebration of Her Majesty’s birthday. She will mark her birthday privately with The Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor Castle. Any family time will be via telephone or a video call due to the ongoing Coronavirus crisis.
The Trooping the Colour ceremony in June, which is the traditional birthday parade, had already been cancelled.
The future Queen Elizabeth II was born at 2.40 am on 21 April 1926 as the daughter of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and the future King George VI, then the Duke and Duchess of York, by caesarean. At the time, her uncle, the Prince of Wales and later King Edward VIII, was still young and still expected to marry and produce heirs. Nevertheless, at the time of her birth, she was third in the line of succession. Her father wrote to his mother Queen Mary, “We always wanted a child to make our happiness complete, & now that it has happened, it seems so wonderful and strange. I do hope that you & Papa are as delighted as we are, to have a granddaughter, or would you have sooner had another grandson. I know Elizabeth wanted a daughter.”
