The Queen is launching her Platinum Jubilee Weekend Festivities today with the splendid Trooping the Colour Ceremony, which is usually the highlight of the Royal Calendar, and we can expect to see the wearing wearing this spectacular Royal Heirloom: The Brigade of Guards Brooch!
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Known as the Brigade of Guards Brooch or the Guards’ Badge, rendered in diamonds and topped by a crown, the piece combines the badges of the five Household Regiments: the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish, and Welsh Guards, all enclosed in an oval frame bearing the words QUINQUE JUNCTA IN UNO, meaning “five joined as one”. Created for Queen Mary, an identical piece was also given to her daughter, Princess Mary, in 1922, and the Queen began wearing the Brooch in 1987, when she stopped wearing Uniform for Trooping the Colour.
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The Queen rode on Horseback for Trooping until 1986, after which she began riding in Queen Victoria’s 1842 ivory-mounted phaeton, followed by the Royal Colonels, and except 1988 and 1989 (when it seems a smaller version was used), the Queen has consistently worn the Brigade of Guards Brooch for every Trooping the Colour until 2019.
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That streak ended with the reduced Trooping the Colour in 2020, when the Queen wore the Queen’s Welsh Guards Leek Brooch, though the Badge was not worn in 2021 either. With a return of the celebrations to London, there is no doubt the Queen will wear the Brigade of Guards Brooch today!
