bitchy | King Charles spoke in Canada’s Parliament & Camilla wore one of QEII’s brooches

Here are some photos from King Charles and Queen Camilla’s “whirlwind” 24-hour trip to Canada this week. They arrived mid-afternoon on Monday and left Tuesday afternoon, after Charles addressed Canada’s Parliament. Before I get into Charles’s speech and what it all meant, let’s take a moment and pay attention to Queen Sidechick, the Half In The Bag Consort. Soon after Charles dropped a “ceremonial puck for a street hockey game,” Charles and Camilla were ushered into a private meeting with various Canadian officials. It was there where Camilla was “sworn in” as a member of the King’s Canadian Privy Council. Meaning, Camilla is officially one of her husband’s top advisors on Canada? It feels like the kind of thing Charles demanded before he agreed to visit Canada for 24 hours. WWD also had some info about Camilla’s ensemble on Tuesday:

As for her accessories, Queen Camilla styled her three-strand pearl necklace with a diamond clasp at the center and the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada brooch, which holds a significant symbolic meaning, per Steven Stone jewelry expert Maxwell Stone.

“The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada brooch is a meaningful and distinguished piece of royal jewelery, symbolizing her deep and enduring association with the regiment,” Stone said in a statement to WWD, via email. “Crafted in silver and embellished with diamonds, it’s adorned with the regiment’s iconic bugle horn cap badge. The brooch was presented to her in 2012 by General Sir Patrick Sanders, then Colonel Commandant of The Rifles, to mark her appointment as colonel-in-chief,” Stone said.

“Since then, Queen Camilla has worn it on numerous ceremonial occasions, including during official visits to Canada. I’d estimate it to be worth around £100,000.” (100,000 pounds equals roughly $135,095.) Queen Camilla has an extensive jewelry collection, often wearing brooches for particular public royal engagements.

[From WWD]

I love the backstories on some of QEII’s brooches, sometimes they’re perfectly insane – like “such-and-such military regiment decided to blow $100K on diamonds for QEII one year.” Like, what? Why were military units commissioning diamond brooches for QEII? Oh well. On Monday, Camilla wore a much more familiar piece of Royal Collection jewelry: the Queen Mum’s iconic diamond maple-leaf brooch.

As for Charles’s speech… PM Mark Carney really rolled out the red carpet for them. They arrived in a landau carriage, they were escorted by Mounties, they had a guard of honor and more. Charles spoke in English and French and gave a pretty strong pep talk to Canadians, while also giving Carney respect for the way he was handling Trump. The Daily Beast said that Charles “humiliated Trump.” One, it doesn’t take much to humiliate that hideous cheeto. Two, I don’t think Charles was actually trying to humiliate anyone, nor was that the goal of the Canadian speechwriters. I think it was more like I said – a pep talk, mostly about how Canadians need to stand strong and united against the methlab in the basement.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.