New photo of Queen released to mark 78th birthday

A new photograph of Queen Camilla has been released to mark her 78th birthday on Thursday.

In the photo by Chris Jackson, the Queen is pictured smiling as she leans on a metal gate in a field at her private Wiltshire home, Raymill.

She is wearing gold drop earrings and a turquoise dress made from fabric featuring a rainforest of monkeys, toucans and lemurs.

The Queen was on duty on her birthday last year when she attended the State Opening of Parliament with King Charles III, but she is expected to spend this year’s birthday privately.

The photo, taken earlier this month, also features her wedding band, her five carat emerald cut diamond engagement ring, and a gold ring composed of circular plaques on her little finger.

In April, the Queen also celebrated her 20th wedding anniversary to King Charles, who is still being treated for cancer.

Since then, the pair have had a busy few months of high profile engagements, including hosting a state visit by the French President Emmanuel Macron last week, attending Trooping the Colour in June, and visiting Canada for the opening of the country’s parliament in May.

This week, the Queen also visited a children’s hospice in Devon and HMS Astute, a nuclear-powered submarine, in Plymouth.

There, the Commander of HMS Astute, Christopher Bate, gifted the Queen a roll of clingfilm in a special holder for her birthday.

The wrapping was used to fix a defect in the main engines of the submarine, Bate explained.

“There’s nothing more useful, brilliant, how wonderful,” the Queen said of the present, which also featured a plaque with the words: “Clingflim keeping nuclear submarines at sea”.

The Queen was also appointed a Vice Admiral of the United Kingdom, in recognition of her support of the Royal Navy, it was announced on the same day.