Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: Meghan Markle’s outfit at the Service of Thanksgiving

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The Duchess of Sussex put on a typically glamorous display as she arrived with Prince Harry for the Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday. 

Meghan, 40, was the picture of poise in a pale pink ensemble as she joined senior royals in her first public engagement with the family in two years. 

The couple were last seen with The Firm at the frosty Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, shortly before they officially stepped down as senior royals. 

Prince Charles is representing the Queen at the service in London today after she was forced to pull out last night, and there will also be no appearance from Prince Andrew after he tested positive for coronavirus. 

It comes a day after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex introduced their daughter Lilibet to the Queen for the first time. Their son Archie, three, was born in the UK and met the Queen as a baby but Lilibet, who turns one tomorrow and was named in Her Majesty’s honour, has never met her great-grandmother.

The couple introduced Lilibet to the Queen yesterday at Windsor after attending a private Royal Family lunch at Buckingham Palace following Trooping the Colour. 

Harry and Meghan, who are staying at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor while visiting from California, are expected to remain mostly low-profile over the four-day Jubilee weekend, with no sign of the Netflix cameras that followed them around at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands in April.

The Sussexes were not allowed on the Buckingham Palace balcony yesterday and instead watched proceedings from Horse Guards Parade.

They were glimpsed through an open window as they caught up with other members of the family, including Peter Phillips’ daughters Savannah, 11, and Isla, 10, and Zara and Mike Tindall’s daughter Mia, eight. 

The 96-year-old Queen is missing today’s service at St Paul’s following a last-minute decision announced by the Palace at 7.30pm last night after she experienced ‘discomfort’ during the Trooping The Colour events.

She is understood to have suffered episodic mobility issues yesterday – and, in a statement, the Palace revealed the Queen ‘greatly enjoyed’ her birthday parade and flypast but ‘did experience some discomfort’.

It said: ‘Taking into account the journey and activity required to participate in tomorrow’s National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, Her Majesty, with great reluctance, has concluded that she will not attend.’

News of the Queen’s meeting with Lilibet yesterday – which comes ahead of her first birthday tomorrow – was revealed on BBC Breakfast this morning by royal commentator Omid Scobie, who is friendly with the Sussexes.

He said: ‘I think people are expecting some sort of big birthday extravagant event, that we’re going to see photographs from. From what I’m told, we shouldn’t expect anything. 

‘Those moments with Lilibet are very much private between them and the Queen and of course we know how much she’s been looking forward to it.

‘They’ve been held back by a pandemic. Of course the times that Harry has been here it’s just been by himself for quite sombre occasions. And so this really was the first time.

‘Of course we know the Queen went back to Windsor Castle yesterday, the couple went back to Windsor as well where they’re staying at Frogmore Cottage. So that would have been the first moment or the first chance for her to meet her namesake.’

Yesterday, Harry and Meghan made a concerted effort not to be seen by prying eyes as they watched Trooping the Colour yesterday, arriving incognito at Horse Guards Parade and studiously keeping away from most – although not all – of the waiting photographers.

The couple arrived in the UK on Wednesday afternoon, flying in by private jet from Los Angeles to Farnborough Airport in Hampshire, where they were picked up by royal bodyguards and taken to Frogmore Cottage.

Yesterday a Range Rover with a modest escort swept them in to Central London and onto Whitehall, where they took up position in the Major General’s Office overlooking the parade ground ready for the other royals to arrive.

Among the first to greet them were Princess Beatrice and her husband, Edo, as well as the Queen’s grandson Peter Phillips.

Meghan was seen kissing his elder daughter, Savannah, 11, as his younger daughter, Isla, 10, held Zara and Mike Tindall’s younger daughter Lena, almost four.

As Princess Beatrice’s husband, Edo Mapelli-Mozzi, looked on, Meghan, 40, appeared to be sharing a secret with the youngsters, who were joined by the Tindalls’ eldest daughter Mia, eight.

Meghan, wearing a large wide-brimmed navy and white hat, put her finger mysteriously to her lips as the girls mimicked her, laughing.

Her husband, Harry, 37, who looked tanned in a lounge suit rather than military uniform, was also seen later entering into the spirit of things, apparently urging Lena to ‘shush’.

The couple were later seen chatting to the Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Kent, 86, before he left the family gathering to join the monarch at Buckingham Palace, where they took the returning military salute together.

Last month Buckingham Palace revealed that the Queen had personally decided to only invite working members of the Royal Family and some of their children onto the Buckingham Palace balcony with her.

This neatly sidestepped the tricky issue about what to do with Harry, Meghan and Andrew who have all quit royal duties.

But while Andrew wasn’t invited to join the family following his shaming over his links to billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, she did extend an olive branch to the Sussexes to join other family members at Horse Guards to watch the parade from the windows of the Duke of Wellington’s old office.

Those on the Buckingham Palace balcony also included the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duchess of Cambridge and her three children – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – after they had arrived by carriage along with the Earl and Countess of Wessex and their two children, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Anne’s husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence.

Princess Alexandra, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were also present as well as the children of Princess Margaret, Lord Snowden and Lady Sarah Chatto, and their families.

As for Harry and Meghan, Mr Scobie told BBC Breakfast today that he ‘spoke to people close to the couple’ who said that the couple ‘wanted to be as low profile as possible during this trip’.

He continued: ‘It is almost hard to believe, but I think that yesterday at Trooping the Colour was a great example. We didn’t really catch sight of them on TV cameras. There were a few grainy photos of them in existence online but that is about as far as it goes.

‘And for them being here is all about honouring and really celebrating the life and legacy of the Queen. Someone that they have continued a very warm and close relationship with.

‘Of course we know that is not the same with the other family members and today will be very interesting to see them alongside some of them.

‘I was with the couple on their last day in the UK, on Meghan’s last engagement, and of course we remember they also went on to that Westminster Abbey Commonwealth service.

‘Very awkward moments between the Sussexes and the Cambridges. It was almost sort of at the peak of the tensions between them and the institutions of the monarchy.

‘A lot of that has softened since then. It doesn’t meant that the relationships have necessarily gotten back on track to how they once were. I think all eyes will be on them today just to see how they all are with the other members of the family.

‘But of course everyone is here to celebrate the faith, the reign and the lifetime of service of the Queen.

‘And I think for them, despite the fact that they broke away from the firm, they always said that they had carried out their work. Holding, upholding the same principles and values as Her Majesty.’