Duke to be interred in vault, then in a tiny chapel when Queen dies
PRINCE PHILIP will be interred in the Royal vault in the chapel at the end of the service, which will be conducted by the Dean of Windsor, David Conner.
But the vault will not be his final resting place.
When the Queen dies, Philip will be transferred to the Gothic church’s King George VI memorial chapel to lie alongside his devoted wife.
The tiny chapel houses the remains of the Queen’s father George VI and her mother the Queen Mother, who are buried are there, with the ashes of Princess Margaret.
The central feature of the pale stone annexe, which was added on to the north side of St George’s behind the North Quire Aisle in 1969, is a black stone slab set into the floor.
It is inscribed with “George VI” and “Elizabeth” in gold lettering and accompanied by their years of birth and death.
Today, the Duke’s coffin will
be interred in the Royal Vault – a burial place set beneath St George’s Chapel – for the time being.
It will be placed on a catafalque on a marble slab in the Quire and lowered into the vault by electric motor. It is not known whether the moment the coffin descends will be televised or if cameras will pan away.
The Royal vault at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, was created between 1804 and 1810 for George
III, who died in 1820 and is one of three kings buried there.
Also interred in the vault are George IV and William IV.
Others buried there include George III’s wife Queen Charlotte and their daughter Princess Amelia, George IV’s daughter Princess Charlotte and Queen Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent.
Princess Margaret, who died in 2002, was cremated and her ashes were initially placed in the Royal vault before being moved to the George VI memorial chapel with her parents’ coffins when the Queen Mother died just weeks later.
The Princess wanted to be cremated because she found the alternative Royal burial ground at Frogmore, in Windsor Great Park, too “gloomy”.
Lady Glenconner – a lifelong friend of the Princess – said in 2002 that the Princess preferred the memorial chapel instead.
George VI died in 1952 but was first interred in the Royal Vault and moved to the memorial chapel when it was built 17 years later.