Pandemic forces Queen to sit alone at funeral

SYMBOLIC of her devastating loss, the Queen sat alone, separated from her family in the age of a pandemic, as she paid a heartbreaking farewell to the man she relied upon above all others.

Seventy three years, four months and 28 days before, she was a 21-year-old princess in a bridal gown in an abbey, marrying the dashing lieutenant whom she fell in love with at first sight. Now, Britain’s longest reigning monarch, four days from her 95th birthday, was clad in black, without her loyal consort at her side as she said her last goodbye to him.

As the Queen first took her seat St George’s Chapel, she was entirely alone, while the other members of her family were walking in the procession. Yet even when they arrived, coronavirus rules dictated the space next to the monarch usually occupied by Philip - must remain empty, and the one next to it also.

As the world watched, she bowed her head during the national minute’s silence in honour of her lost loved one.

The setting was the beautiful quire of St George’s Chapel, with its magnificent towering fan vaulted stone ceiling and impressive stained glass windows.

Husband and consort, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, and a military man of strong character who never liked a fuss, the duke’s decades of service and his commitment to royal duty have been heralded as exemplary.

But the irony would in no way have been lost on Philip that when, as a young Prince of Greece and Denmark, he first began to court the future Queen, old-school courtiers disapproved.

After his wedding, Philip wrote to his mother-in-law: “Lilibet is the only ‘thing’ in the world which is absolutely real to me and my ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us but will have a positive existence for the good.”

Together they faced the ups and downs of the Queen’s reign, the trials and tribulations of family life – an irreplaceable bond, united at key moments of history, witnessed from the unique viewpoint of a monarch and her consort.

Now the Queen, still head of state and five years from her own century, as duty dictates will have to endure the remainder of her reign without her “strength and stay”.