A poignant moment at the National War Memorial
Charles and Camilla are paying their respects and laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial after the speech from the throne.
It’s a regular stop on royal visits to Ottawa, and this trip is no different.
The war memorial was unveiled by Charles’s grandfather, King George VI, during his visit with his wife Queen Elizabeth in 1939.
It’s one last engagement today for Charles and Camilla, and one that reinforces a focus that has long been important to them — support for the military. It also has a deep personal resonance.
“There is tremendous poignancy there and you’ve got it happening then on multiple levels,” royal historian Justin Vovk of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., told me.
“You’ve got the personal poignancy of Charles inhabiting the space and this site of memory that had been inaugurated by his grandparents … the last time that a reigning King was in Canada.
“It also has great poignancy for Canadians who have served in the Armed Forces. Charles’s role as commander-in-chief, Canada’s tremendously proud history of peacekeeping and its military history. That is a significant way for the King and Queen to show solidarity with Canadians and our history.”
