The British royal family marked Queen Elizabeth’s centenary on Tuesday with a day of special events that began at the British Museum and ended with a reception at Buckingham Palace. King Charles and Queen Camilla led the morning visit, where they viewed the final design for the national memorial to the late monarch.
The museum stop also drew the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Lady Sarah Chatto, while the evening reception brought together the Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess Alexandra. Representatives from the British Red Cross, the Royal Kennel Club and Cancer Research UK were among the guests, underscoring the broad public and charitable reach of the queen’s legacy.
Camilla’s appearance drew attention of its own. She wore a four-strand pearl necklace with a small round diamond clasp, a piece first seen around 2010 and believed to come from her own collection. The choice echoed Queen Elizabeth’s best-known pearl choker, a four-stranded necklace made by Garrard and given to the queen from Japan in the 1970s.
That royal choker has had a long afterlife. It was loaned to Princess Diana and is now worn by Kate Middleton, linking three generations of royal women to the same piece of jewelry. Camilla has also worn her own pearl choker on a series of formal occasions, including a state visit to Canada in 2014, VE Day celebrations in 2015, Trooping the Colour in 2022 and a state visit to France in 2023.
Tuesday’s events placed that symbolism beside something more tangible: the first public look at the design for the national memorial to Queen Elizabeth. By moving from a museum viewing to a palace reception in one day, the royals signaled that the centenary was not just ceremonial, but part of a continuing effort to define how the late queen will be remembered.
