The Queen has travelled to Balmoral for a short break ahead of the platinum jubilee celebrations which begin next week.

The monarch has attended a number of high-profile engagements in recent weeks and it is understood she is now pacing herself before the national events start.

It is understood the Queen arrived at her private Scottish home on Thursday. She usually visits Scotland at this time of year.

Celebrations taking place in London’s West End to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee could be worth £80m and kickstart the economic recovery of the entire UK, according to new research.

Joanna Whitehead reports:

Although she is the first monarch to celebrate 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II isn’t the first royal to celebrate landmark dates in style.

Since George III in 1809, monarchs have been commemorated in a variety of different ways, including with parties, pageants and world tours.

Watch our latest IndyTV to discover six things about the royals and their jubilees, ahead of the Queen’s June celebrations:

On Thursday 2 June, the Queen will celebrate her “official” birthday with a military parade.

The annual celebration, known as Trooping the Colour, is held on the Mall outside Buckingham Palace. It will mark the start of an extended bank holiday weekend full of events to honour the Queen for her platinum jubilee.

Here’s everything you need to know about Trooping the Colour this year:

Meghan Markle is being commended for her dedication to helping others after she visited Uvalde, Texas, to donate food to a community centre and pay her respects to the 19 children and two adults killed in Tuesday’s elementary school shooting.

On Thursday, the Duchess of Sussex was photographed laying a bouquet of flowers outside a makeshift memorial of white crosses bearing the names of the victims of the school shooting.

Chelsea Ritschel reports:

For over eight decades, from 1933 to 2018, Queen Elizabeth II has owned at least one corgi – a dog breed that has become as synonymous with Her Majesty as Buckingham Palace.

Learn more about the Queen’s history with the big-eared, short-legged pooches:

Prince Andrew is expected to join the Queen at her Service of Thanksgiving scheduled to take place at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday 3 June.

The event, which will take place on day two of the monarch’s four-day platinum jubilee celebrations, will mark the largest gathering of the royal family since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding at Windsor Castle in 2018.

More than 12,000 trees planted to help “re-nature” the South Downs National Park have been dedicated to the Queen to mark her Platinum Jubilee.

The trees have been planted at 30 sites across Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex for the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative.

Find out more below:

A portrait of the Queen painted by a humanoid robot artist has been unveiled in celebration of the platinum jubilee.

The painting, titled Algorithm Queen, is an abstract, multi-dimensional portrait of the monarch, painted by Ai-Da, an artificial intelligence robot — named after 18th century mathematician and scientist Ada Lovelace, who is considered to be the first computer programmer.

Ellie Muir reports:

The Queen will allow the world to see touching glimpses of “the fun behind the formality” of her royal life in home movies that have been released for the first time.

The clips, which span her life from being a baby pushed in a pram by her mother to her coronation in 1953 at the age of 27, come as she is set to celebrate her platinum jubilee.

Find out what to expect from the upcoming BBC documentary, Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen: