King and Queen arrive at British Museum to view models of Elizabeth II memorial

The King and Queen have begun a poignant day of commemorations marking what would have been Queen Elizabeth II’s 100th birthday.

Charles and Camilla arrived at the British Museum on Tuesday to view final models of the national memorial to the late Queen.

They were joined at the event on the centenary of Elizabeth II’s birth by the under-fire Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who greeted the King with a broad smile and a handshake and then also was seen to pat Camilla on the top of her arm.

The royal family is later set to gather at a special reception at Buckingham Palace in honour of the nation’s longest reigning monarch, who died aged 96 in 2022.

The King, in a video message, has paid a heartfelt tribute to his “darling Mama”, but said much of life today would likely have “troubled her deeply”.

He said he took heart from her belief that “goodness will prevail” and that a “brighter dawn is never far from the horizon”, and said the milestone anniversary should be celebrated as a “life well-lived” rather than marking an “absence”.

Among those at the museum ready to show the masterplan to the King and Queen was renowned architect Lord Foster, who won the bid to design the permanent memorial to the King’s late mother.

Lord Foster famously once criticised the King when he was the Prince of Wales for using his “privileged position” to intervene in the architectural development of the former Chelsea Barracks.

The King is to be shown a likeness of his mother, in the form of a maquette which depicts Elizabeth II as a young woman in her 20s in her Order of the Garter robes in the early years of her reign.

Another of his father Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, around the same age, in his naval uniform with his hands behind his back, was also on show.

Full-scale versions of the statues by sculptor Martin Jennings will form part of the permanent memorial in St James’s Park, close to Buckingham Palace.

The area will also incorporate a new Queen Elizabeth Bridge in glass and steel inspired by the Queen’s wedding tiara, a family of gardens with meandering paths, a Commonwealth Wind Sculpture by artist Yinka Shonibare, and a bust of the Queen in her 50s or 60s by sculptor Karen Newman on Birdcage Walk.

Other members of the royal family – the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester – gathered in the museum’s circular Reading Room to see the scale model of the park, featuring tiny trees and people and the new additions.

Guests included artist Dame Tracey Emin, broadcaster Claudia Winkleman, designer Erdem Moralioglu and presenter Martha Kearney, who are all trustees of the museum.

The memorial is one of three projects honouring the Queen’s legacy, with a new charity The Queen Elizabeth Trust, and a Digital Memorial, which asks for the public’s memories of the monarch at Queenelizabeth.com, also launched on Tuesday.