Six of the best royal moments

It’s been a busy four days of revelry and reflection marking the Queen’s seven decades on the throne.

There was a military parade, a special Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, and a pop concert at Buckingham Palace. The celebrations came to an end on Sunday with a pageant and carnival procession in London – as well as street parties across the nation.

Here are the most memorable royal moments.

The festivities began on Thursday with the Trooping the Colour parade, in honour of the Queen’s official birthday, bringing huge crowds to London’s Trafalgar Square and The Mall in dazzling sunshine.

Though the crowds were delighted to see the 96-year-old monarch on the Buckingham Palace balcony, four-year-old Louis – son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – was the real star of the show.

As RAF planes and helicopters roared overhead in a special flypast, he covered his ears and appeared to let out a scream. Waving to the crowd and pulling funny faces, the young royal amused the crowds and cemented his place as the centre of attention.

At the pageant on Sunday, his relative Mike Tindall kept an eye on him.

But the young prince still managed to delight the crowds by pulling cheeky faces.

On Thursday evening, the Queen set off a chain of lights from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace, as thousands of beacons were lit across the UK and Commonwealth.

The main beacon – the Tree of Trees sculpture, representing the million trees planted in the Jubilee year – lit up the palace grounds.

Others were set ablaze at historic sites, the UK’s four highest peaks, and in all 54 Commonwealth capitals. Historically, trails of beacons were used for long-distance communication, and today they represent solidarity between places.

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex had not been seen together at a royal event since leaving the UK for the US two years ago.

They were briefly spotted in the window of a building overlooking Trooping the Colour on Thursday, but they made an official appearance when they arrived hand-in-hand at St Paul’s Cathedral, for a special service in honour of the Queen.

The royal pair brought their two children with them to London, and are said to have been staying in a cottage on the Windsor Castle estate. It would have been the Queen’s first chance to meet her great-granddaughter Lilibet, who celebrated her first birthday on Saturday.

The 96-year-old monarch made a surprise appearance in a secretly pre-filmed sketch at the Platinum Party – a pop concert gathering 22,000 fans outside Buckingham Palace on Saturday night.

In the skit, she met the children’s TV character for a gentle cream tea that spiralled out of control, with the bear drinking straight out of the teapot and splashing cream on to the face of a footman.

Paddington told her he always carried a stash of his favourite treat around with him: a marmalade sandwich. Smiling, the Queen responded “so do I”, before lifting her very own sandwich out of her bag.

In a touching moment, the bear looked the monarch in the eyes and said: “Happy Jubilee Ma’am. And thank you. For everything.”

Later at the concert, Prince Charles paid a personal tribute to his mother and thanked her on behalf of the world.

Standing beside his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, he began: “Your Majesty, mummy”, drawing cheers from the 22,000-strong crowd.

“You laugh and cry with us and, most importantly, have been there for us, for these 70 years,” he said.

The star-studded event featured performances by the band Queen, Duran Duran and Diana Ross, and garnered an average of over 11m viewers in the UK. You can watch it in full here.

After a spectacular pageant through central London, featuring the military, celebrities and thousands of volunteers, the Royal Standard was raised above Buckingham Palace, meaning the Queen was there. Shortly after, she appeared on the balcony.

She was joined by her son Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, and her grandson Prince William, his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge and their three children.

Concerns about her health meant there had been doubts about whether she would be there. In the end, it was a brief appearance – she smiled and waved before heading back inside – but it was met with loud cheers from the crowd.