A funeral full of history and personality
It is the duty of every member of the Royal family to declare their funeral wishes. Lord Mountbatten spent hours devising his. He told Nehru’s sister, Mrs Pandit, that she would be invited to the interment at Romsey Abbey. As he did not know in which season of the year he would die, he had arranged a summer and a winter menu for the train. He told her that, as she put down her cup of coffee, the train would arrive at Romsey station. She forgot about it until the day, and as she put down her coffee she looked out of the window – “Romsey”.
Prince Philip’s input to his own funeral was more subtle. He had pared down the ceremonial to the minimum for what would happen in London
– a procession between St James’s Palace and Hyde Park Corner. He would have been delighted by the yet more modest funeral accorded to him at Windsor yesterday.
The idea of turning 100 filled him with dread. But he had a more acute sense of history than was evident. Having loved the castle, it having been the birthplace of his mother, he was happy to be back there and determined not to leave it again. I hope the last 24 days he spent there afforded him elements of tranquillity.
How much input he had in the new hastily but meticulously devised plans is uncertain, given the circumstances, but he had plenty before, most obviously seen in the custom-built Land Rover hearse. He would have been sorry to disappoint the many who wished to pay their respects – the lines of Duke of Edinburgh gold award winners and others – but he would have relished no fuss. Even so, to witness the many soldiers from different units of the Armed Forces assembled in the Quadrangle was impressive. A particularly moving moment was the arrival from the Royal Mews of his carriage, such a familiar sight in the Great Park, pulled by two of his ponies, Notlaw Storm and Balmoral Nevis.
Most areas of the Duke’s naval, military and Air Force life were represented in the castle precincts. The funeral service was very much his. It would have been unthinkable not to have the Jubilate in C he commissioned from Benjamin Britten, specifically for St George’s Chapel in 1961. He loved Psalm 104 and requested it be set to music, not so much in poetry but in poetic prose. William Lovelady composed the music in three movements and it was first performed for his 75th birthday. For his 80th birthday service at St George’s it was adapted by the then organist, Jonathan Rees-Williams. It was more traditionally performed to a chant by William Hawes for his 90th, also at Windsor. The earlier version was sung yesterday. The reading from Ecclesiasticus 43 – “Look at the Rainbow” – he heard read at his 90th service by the Warden of St George’s House.
A curious fact will have eluded most commentators. In January 1942, Prince Philip was a mourner alongside the King of Greece, his grandmother and his cousin, Prince Peter, at the wartime funeral of the Duke of Connaught, the last son of Queen Victoria. The 20-year-old Prince Philip watched him descend into the Royal Vault, just as he did so dramatically yesterday. Throughout yesterday’s ceremonial and funeral service, there were so many threads of continuity.