A SOLEMN BEAT FOR QUEEN’S FINAL JOURNEY
THERE were bells and cannons. But it was the beat of the drums, the socalled metronomes of grief, that lingered afterwards.
Drums underscored Queen Elizabeth’s procession yesterday. As the keepers of order. As the markers of time, whether it’s beginning or ending.
The people streamed to be here, negotiating bottlenecks (and possible bouts of claustrophobia) in street control measures from first light. They wanted to record the moment on their phones.
For here was another critical moment in the required recognition of a regal life – and death.
At first, your eyes kept being drawn to the boys. Of course they were.
Twenty-five years ago, brothers William and Harry walked behind the coffin of their mother, Princess Diana, in an overload of rawness that jumped the barriers between us and them.
They didn’t want to be doing so. William bowed his head and hid his pain under his hair; Harry, a bundle of stiffness, willed himself not to cry.
It was different for them this time. They looked composed.
So your gaze turned to the row in front of them. The Queen’s own children.
Edward was inscrutable under his hat. Anne was stoic, seemingly lost to reverie. Andrew seemed determined to maintain that particularly British type, emanating from the jawline, of resilience.
Then there was Charles, the new King. In recent days, he has grown as a source of eloquence and lightness. Britain has turned to him as the new voice for reassurance after his mother fulfilled the duty for seven decades.
But in these private moments, on the most public of stages, he seemed stooped. Glum.
The Queen’s passing may have captivated a wider world which tends to reduce her to titles and powers. Yet her replacement on Wednesday reminded us that her loss was much more personal.
That’s why so many turned out to watch; they thought of the Queen as part of their own families. Some clapped from time to time. But most spectators seemed to adhere to the unspoken expectation of reverence and respect.
After all, that’s what the ancient rituals of a royal procession demand. The features of Wednesday – a horse drawn carriage, the march of mourners in step with the drum – emulated processions from centuries ago. They also stamped what the Queen herself wanted.
This was an exercise in symmetry and simplicity. The upholding of tradition was the prize. Take the coffin, laid only with a wreath, crown and a standard. Even nature followed the script, producing a bright sun and not a breath of wind.
Nothing was too much trouble – not for the Queen. The procession stopped the clocks – and the planes. Heathrow Airport changed plane schedules between 1.50pm and 3.40pm to “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall”.
The Queen’s coffin has been placed on a raised platform – or catafalque – in the middle of Westminster Hall, to be guarded around the clock.
Her 70 years of service will only really end on Monday with what will probably be the western world’s most watched funeral ever.
But don’t turn on the TV and watch the service for hints of Queen Elizabeth’s famed lighter side.
Instead, such stories will and ought to be told in private homes across Britain, probably over a champagne or two and a few tears.
The Queen once described a royal send-off as “a chance to show to the whole world the British nation united in grief and respect”.
“May we, each and every one of us, thank God for someone who made many, many people happy,” she said.
The Queen was talking about Princess Di’s send-off in 1997.
But she could have been talking about her own.