LONDON, Nov 10, (AP): King Charles III led the nation Sunday in a two-minute silence in remembrance of fallen service personnel in central London as the Princess of Wales looked on, a further sign the royal family is slowly returning to normal at the end of a year in which two of the most popular royals were sidelined by cancer.

Remembrance Sunday is a totemic event in the UK, with the monarch leading senior royals, political leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his eight living predecessors, and envoys from the Commonwealth countries in laying wreaths at the Cenotaph, the Portland stone memorial that serves as the focal point for honoring the nation’s war dead.

The service is held on the second Sunday of November to mark the signing of the armistice to end World War I "on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” in 1918. Across the UK, services are conducted at the same time in memory of the dead. After the two-minute silence, buglers from the Royal Marines played the Last Post and Charles led the wreath-laying part of the service.

The 75-year-old king, dressed in his Royal Navy uniform of the Admiral of the Fleet, laid a wreath of poppies at the base of the Cenotaph in recognition of the fallen from conflicts dating back to World War I. His eldest son and the heir to the throne, William, left his own floral tribute - featuring the Prince of Wales’ feathers and a new ribbon in Welsh red. Dressed in somber black, his wife, Kate, watched on from a balcony of the nearby Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, as is tradition.