Plane carrying Queen’s coffin lands in London
The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II let the monarch’s beloved Scotland and landed on Tuesday evening in London, where crowds have gathered along the route it will take to Buckingham Palace.
Her son, King Charles III, returned to London from Northern Ireland, where his visit drew a rare moment of unity from politicians in a region with a contested British and Irish identity that is deeply divided over the monarchy.
The military C-17 Globemaster carrying the monarch’s casket touched down at RAF Northolt, an air force base west of the city, about an hour ater it let Edinburgh.
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and a military honour guard were among those greeting the coffin at the base.
The queen’s body is making a final journey from Balmoral Castle in northern Scotland, where the monarch died Sept.8 at age 96 ater 70 years on the throne.
It will travel past thousands of people who gathered in the rain along the road to pay their last respects. Charles and other members of immediate family will meet the coffin at Buckingham
UK prime minister, Defence Secretary and a military honour guard were among those greeting the coffin at the base; thousands lined streets of Belfast to pay tribute
Palace, where it will spend a final night at the queen’s London home.
It will be taken by horse-drawn gun carriage on Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state for four days before Monday’s funeral at Westminster Abbey.
Earlier, the flag-draped oak coffin was carried from St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh to the strain of bagpipes.
Crowds lining the Royal Mile through the historic heart of Edinburgh broke into applause as the coffin, accompanied by the queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, was driven to Edinburgh Airport.
The Scotish government said 33,000 people filed silently past the coffin in the 24 hours ater it was brought to Edinburgh from Balmoral.
In Northern Ireland, hundreds of people lined the street leading to Hillsborough Castle near Belfast, the royal family’s official residence in Northern Ireland, in the latest outpouring of affection following the queen’s death. The area in front of the gates to the castle was carpeted with hundreds of floral tributes.
Charles and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort,
got out of their car to wave to the crowd and sometimes used both hands to reach out to villagers, including schoolchildren in bright blue uniforms. Charles even peted a corgi - famously his late mother’s favorite breed of dog - held up by one person, and some chanted “God save the king!”
“Today means so much to me and my family, just to be present in my home village with my children to witness the arrival of the new king is a truly historic moment for us all,” said Hillsborough resident Robin Campbell as he waited for Charles, who is on a tour of the four parts of the United Kingdom.
While there was a warm welcome in Hillsborough, the British monarchy draws mixed emotions in Northern Ireland, where there are two main communities: mostly Protestant unionists who consider themselves British and largely Roman Catholic nationalists who see themselves as Irish.
That split fueled three decades of violence known as “the Troubles” involving paramilitary groups on both sides and UK security forces, in which 3,600 people died.
The royal family was touched personally by the violence: Lord Louis Mountbaten, a cousin of the queen and a much-loved mentor to Charles, was killed by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1979.
A deep sectarian divide remains, a quarter century ater Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement.
For some Irish nationalists, the British monarch represents an oppressive foreign power. But others acknowledge the queen’s role in forging peace. On a visit to Northern Ireland in 2012, she shook hands with Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin Mcguinness, a former IRA commander - a once-unthinkable moment of reconciliation.
Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein politician who is speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the queen had “demonstrated how individual acts of positive leadership can help break down barriers and encourage reconciliation.”
In a sign of how far Northern Ireland has come on the road to peace, representatives of Sinn Fein atended commemorative events for the queen and meeting the king on Tuesday.