King Charles Leads Tributes on Queen Elizabeth II's Would-Be 100th Birthday

The Prince and Princess of Wales have paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II on what would have been her 100th birthday, with a message praising her for "inspiring generations through a lifetime of duty". King Charles delivered his own personal video message remembering the life of public service of his "darling Mama". The King warned, in a message recorded at Balmoral earlier this month, that his mother would have disapproved of the current state of the world. "Much about the times we now live in I suspect may have troubled her deeply," he said, without revealing any specific concerns, domestic or international. On Tuesday, the King and Queen went to the British Museum where they were shown the final design of a traditional bronze statue of Queen Elizabeth, which will be built as a memorial in St James's Park in London. The statue, to be sculpted by Martin Jennings, shows Queen Elizabeth in her younger years, in the ceremonial robes of the Order of Garter. The image, which will be 9.84ft (3m) tall, standing on a 11.15ft (3.4m) plinth in the park, is inspired by the 1955 painting of her by Pietro Annigoni. It's being unveiled 100 years after her birth, on 21 April 1926, when the then-Princess Elizabeth was born in a townhouse in Bruton Street in Mayfair. Lord Janvrin, chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee, said the image showed the monarch in her public role; if the statue had shown her on horseback, as had been discussed, it would have been more about her personal hobby. The memorial committee had to decide how to represent the late Queen to future generations and Lord Janvrin said they had wanted to show her "very strong sense of duty" and public service. In his video message, the King said the late Queen lived through "remarkable change and yet, through each passing decade, through every transformation, she remained constant, steadfast and wholly devoted to the people she served". The memorial project in St James's Park, designed by a team headed by architect Lord Foster, also includes a bust of the Queen in her later years and a bronze statue of her husband, Prince Philip. The plans for the memorial were shown to the King and Queen, accompanied by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, at an exhibition at the British Museum on Tuesday morning. The plans include rebuilding a bridge across St James's Park, with a toughened glass balustrade that will evoke a royal tiara. It's expected that these memorials, in the central London park near to Buckingham Palace, will be completed in about two years. On Tuesday morning, in another London setting, Regent's Park, Princess Anne opened a memorial garden to her mother. And later in the day, there will be a reception at Buckingham Palace, where guests will include several people who are celebrating their 100th birthday on this day. As well as the statues and gardens in London, there will be a digital section of the memorial project, with a website that will invite people to send in their own memories of the late Queen. The domain name www.queenelizabeth.com had belonged to the shipping company, Cunard, but has now been donated to the Queen Elizabeth II memorial. It will build a historical archive of memories, a social history of royal events, and will be supplemented by a digitised version of the "court circular", which records the working lives of the Royal Family. There will also be a nationwide memorial scheme, in which a newly created Queen Elizabeth Trust will support local community projects, intended to bring people together. The King, who will be going on a state visit to meet US President Donald Trump next week, spoke of the late Queen's legacy of optimism that "goodness will always prevail and that a brighter dawn is never far from the horizon". He also recalled how many might remember the late Queen from "a fleeting personal encounter, a smile, a kind word that lifted spirits … or for that marvellous twinkle of the eye when sharing a marmalade sandwich with Paddington Bear in the final months of her life".