Queen Elizabeth marks official birthday with parade, honours

Queen Elizabeth IImarked her official birthday with the annual Trooping the Colour parade, a traditional display of British pageantry.

About 1,400 soldiers in ceremonial scarlet coats and bearskin hats marched past the Queen in a ceremony on Horse Guards Parade in Westminster.

Royals who took part included Prince Charles, Prince William and his wife Kate, and Prince Harry and his wife Meghan who appeared in her first public outing since giving birth to their son, Archie, to watch the birthday fly-past of military aircraft.

Baby Archie did not appear, but Prince Louis, the youngest child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, made his debut on Buckingham Palace's balcony. The one-year-old waved frantically at the first of the helicopters in the show.

The Queen marks her birthday twice a year an official ceremony is always held in June, in hopes of holding the parade in good weather. Her actual birthday, on April 21, is usually celebrated with close family only.

Thousands of spectators lined the parade ground and gathered in nearby St. James's Park to watch the spectaclein sparkling sunshine. They then walked down the road leading to Buckingham Palace, gathering at the gates to honour the monarch ahead of the fly-past, the punctuation mark of the annual event.

It's been a big week for the monarch. Demonstrating the close link between the monarchy and the armed forces, she was the centre of ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the invasion of France that marked the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany.

But if the 93-year-old sovereign was tired, it didn't show. She waved and smiled as she emerged on the balcony and the crowd roared.

The ceremony originated from traditional preparations for battle. The colours or flags were "trooped," or carried down the lines of soldiers, so they could be seen and recognized in battle. The regimental flag being paraded this year is from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards.

Birthday honourees include Oscar winner Olivia Colman

On Friday, Academy Award-winning actress Olivia Colman was honoured by the monarch she is about to play on television in The Crown.

Colman was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in the annual Queen's birthday honours list.

The performer won a best-actress Oscar this year for playing 18th-century monarch Queen Anne in The Favourite.She plays the current Queen in the third season of Netflix's royal drama The Crown,which is currently in production.

Colman said she was "totally thrilled, delighted and humbled" by the honour.

Honours are awarded twice a year, at New Year and to mark the monarch's official birthday in June, and reward hundreds of people for services to their community or national life. Most go to people who are not in the limelight, but there is also a sprinkling of famous faces.

Recipients are selected by committees of civil servants from nominations made by the government and the public, with the awards bestowed by the Queen and other senior royals during Buckingham Palace ceremonies.

The list included a knighthood for Simon Russell Beale, one of Britain's finest stage actors, who can now call himself Sir Simon.

A knighthood was also bestowed on Boyd Tunnock, inventor of the Tunnock's Teacake, a chocolate-coated marshmallow treat.

"When you get to my age, very few things surprise you but this certainly did, and I am deeply honoured and grateful to Her Majesty the Queen," said Tunnock, whose family firm has been making sweets in Scotland since the 19th century.

Artist Rachel Whiteread, who won the Turner Prize in 1993 for her concrete cast of the inside of a condemned house, became a dame, the female equivalent of a knight.

Novelist Joanna Trollope and Lee Child, writer of the Jack Reacher thrillers, were made CBEs.

Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of The Undertones best known for punk classic Teenage Kicks was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE. So were singer-songwriter Elvis Costello and actress Cush Jumbo, a star of TV legal series The Good Fight.

British-Sri Lankan rapper MIA, whose full name is Mathangi Arulpragasam, was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, or MBE.

In descending order, the main honours are knighthoods, CBE, OBE and MBE. Knights are addressed as "sir" or "dame," followed by their name. Recipients of the other honours have no title, but can put the letters after their names.