Today, the King kicked off his Scottish holiday and the return of the royal family to Balmoral by watching a guard of honor outside the main castle gates, a tradition that dates back 175 years.
Balmoral’s future was uncertain after the late Queen’s death. Charles prefers to stay in nearby Birkhall, and there were rumors that he would turn the main house into a museum in honor of his mother.
However, the king’s three-week residence suggests he’s keen to follow the family tradition of a summer retreat at the castle Queen Victoria called ‘my dear paradise in the Highlands’.
King Charles inspects the Balaklava Company of the Royal Regiment of Scotland as they stand before a traditional guard of honor at Balmoral. The ceremony marks the start of the royal family’s two-month stay in Scotland
Queen Elizabeth II inspects a Balmoral guard of honor from the Royal Scots in July 2004
King George VI inspects the guard of honor at Stationsplein in August 1949
The Duke of Edinburgh conducts the Review in 1952
Victoria and her consort Prince Albert leased the estate in 1848 without even seeing the original castle. When they arrived on September 8, they were received by a guard of honor from the 93rd Regiment.
After Ballater station opened in 1866, a guard of honor was formed to greet Victoria on her biennial visits to the Balmoral, although she never judged it.
At the castle there was another smaller ceremony, attended by the locals.
When she arrived in May 1899, four days after her 80th birthday, she told the benefactors: ‘I thank you very much for your warm welcome. I’m glad to be with you again in my home in the Highlands.’
Her successors continued the tradition of a guard of honor that they began personally judging, along the ranks of soldiers standing at attention.
As a child, the future Elizabeth II watched her grandfather George V and then her father George VI conduct the inspection. Her uncle, Edward VIII, had no great fondness for Balmoral and photographs of him reviewing the 1st Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, show him looking less than enthusiastic as he arrives for his Scottish break.
The future King Charles was a nine-month-old baby in the arms of his nanny Helen Lightbody when he witnessed his grandfather George VI judging the 1st Battalion, The Highland Light Infantry at Ballater. Growing up, he and his sister Anne watched their mother perform the same ceremony.
The Queen arrives at the gates of Balmoral, where she also met an old friend, the mascot Cruachan IV, in 2019. Two years earlier, the pony had tried to eat her bouquet of flowers
Queen Elizabeth speaking to the Commander of the Guard before inspecting the Royal Guard of Honor at Balmoral in August 1983
King George V arrives in Ballater for the start of his stay at Balmoral in 1933. He shakes hands with Captain Campbell, who is on the Cameronians’ guard of honor (Scottish rifles)
After the rail link from Aberdeen closed in 1966, the ceremony was again held at the entrance to the castle. In recent years, Queen Elizabeth has stayed at the Craigowan Lodge estate while the castle was still open to the public.
On the day of her official arrival, she dressed in her usual matching coat and hat, with matching gloves, handbag and shoes. After surveying the troops and riding through the gates to the castle, she put on a plaid skirt, blouse, waistcoat and sturdy walking boots, ready for two months of country life.
She last attended the ceremony at the gates in 2021 when, aged ninety-five, she inspected a guard of honor from Balaklava Company, part of The Royal
Regiment of Scotland. Here she was reunited with her mascot, an honorary army rank Shetland pony, Lance Corporal Cruachan IV. During their previous encounter at Stirling Castle in 2017, Cruachan tried to bite into her bouquet. The Queen jokingly said to him, “Go away!” and said to his attendant, “They always try to eat the flowers.”
King Edward VIII and his brother, the Duke of York, future King George VI, at Balmoral in 1936
Queen Mary speaking to Major Grant, who commanded the Guard of Honor of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, on arrival at Ballater in September 1928
Queen Elizabeth with the mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Shetland Pony, at Balmoral in August 2021
In August 2022, the official arrival at the gates took place at the door of the castle, as the Queen was then too weak to perform the ceremony in public. Land rovers with troops could be seen driving in and out of the estate.
The Queen would have been pleased that her successor has kept up the long tradition of a formal welcoming ceremony. So did Queen Victoria, who loved Balmoral so much she hated to leave for the south.
As Charles himself said, “She hated to leave, just as I hate to leave this beautiful place.”