Queen and Charles enjoy Windsor walk prior to prince's Easter message
3 April 2021, 09:23 | Updated: 3 April 2021, 18:00
The Queen and the Prince of Wales have been pictured together enjoying a walk in Windsor ahead of Charles delivering his Easter message.
Pictures showed the monarch and her eldest son Charles strolling alongside daffodils in the garden of Frogmore House, a royal residence around half a mile south of Windsor Castle, where the Queen has been spending the coronavirus lockdown.
They were photographed on 23 March - just a week after Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, returned home following a month spent in hospital - but the images were released on Good Friday.
The royal pair looked in good spirits and were pictured smiling and laughing as they crossed a small bridge over a stream in the gardens.
Charles donned a tan trench coat over a shirt and tie, while the Queen wrapped up warm in a long green coat with a patterned headscarf.
Read more: Queen carries out first in-person engagement in almost five months
Read more: William felt Harry and Meghan 'blindsided' Queen - senior royal source
Meanwhile, Clarence House said the Prince of Wales has recorded a verse written by acclaimed poet and Catholic priest Gerard Manley Hopkins to show support for Christians at Easter.
Charles' narration of the God's Grandeur poem will be played during a virtual service on Sunday morning at Stonyhurst College, a Catholic boarding school in Lancashire where the Victorian cleric taught.
Clarence House said: "The Prince of Wales has recorded the Gerard Manley Hopkins Poem, God's Grandeur, to show support for Christians around the world at Easter.
"Easter is the most important festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion, and Hopkins's poem captures the hope and joy associated with that season."
Read more: Queen praises ‘wonderful work’ of NHS volunteers in video call
Read more: Trooping the Colour cancelled for second year running
The poem begins with the lines: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
"It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed."
Hopkins, who converted to Catholicism, was one of the most influential poets of the Victorian era but gave up writing poetry after choosing to train to become a priest.
Years later, he took to the art again after being inspired to write a long poem in memory of five nuns who died in a shipwreck.
His works were not published in full until 1918, almost 30 years after his death, and his use of language, new rhythmic effects and unusual word combinations were a huge influence on major literary figures like WH Auden and Dylan Thomas.
