King Charles led Britain’s annual ceremony of remembrance for the country’s war dead on Sunday, under November sunshine and the shadow cast across Europe by the almost four-year-old war in Ukraine.

As Parliament’s Big Ben bell tolled 11am, thousands of military personnel, veterans and members of the public gathered in central London fell still for two minutes of silence, broken by a single artillery blast and Royal Marines buglers sounding “The Last Post”.

The 76-year-old king, dressed in the uniform of an army field marshal, laid a wreath of red paper poppies on a black background at the base of the Cenotaph war memorial.

Erected over a century ago to honour the British and allied troops killed in World War I, it has become the focus of annual ceremonies for members of military and civilian services killed in that war and subsequent conflicts.

The national ceremony of remembrance is held every year on the nearest Sunday to the anniversary of the end of World War I on November 11, 1918, at 11am. Similar memorial services are held in dozens of towns and cities across Britain and at UK military bases overseas.

A military band played as heir to the throne Prince William followed his father in laying a wreath on the simple Portland stone monument inscribed with the words “the glorious dead”.