Queen's address to cap Jubilee celebrations
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II, closing four days of celebrations of her 60 years on the throne without her husband at her side, will make a rare address to the nation today.
The broadcast in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth follows a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral, a lunch in a medieval hall and a carriage procession back to Buckingham Palace where the queen and her family will greet well-wishers from a balcony.
The two-minute address, recorded on Monday, will also be available on the Royal Channel on YouTube, the palace said. Other than the annual Christmas Day broadcasts, the 86-year-old monarch has rarely spoken directly to the nation.
The queen’s husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was hospitalized Monday for treatment of a bladder infection and will miss the final day’s events.
With most of Tuesday’s events indoors or under cover, there was less worry about the precarious weather, which has ranged from unseasonably cool to downright foul, as rain poured during Sunday’s grand procession of boats down the Thames.
Among the early arrivals at the cathedral were four women from Jedburgh, a Scottish town near the English border, who displayed a large Union Jack flag.
By The Associated Press
