Eyes of the entire w
IN A monumental spectacle that will captivate the world, Britain will tomorrow bid farewell to its longest-serving monarch.
An estimated one million people will line the streets of London to witness the scenes of pomp and splendour, punctuated by moments of sorrow and solemnity.
Kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers from nearly every nation will join King Charles for the first royal state funeral in Westminster Abbey in more than 200 years.
Among the 2,000 in the congregation will be everyday heroes: NHS staff who toiled tirelessly during the pandemic, British armed forces veterans awarded the highest honours for bravery, and charity workers who have transformed the lives of those less fortunate.
After the funeral, Queen Elizabeth will be borne by a tremendous procession, featuring more than 4,000 military personnel, that will slowly wend through central London.
To the muffled tolls of Big Ben and the percussive beat of artillery guns that will fire every 60 seconds, the state gun carriage bearing the Queen’s coffin will be hauled along Whitehall and the mall and past Buckingham Palace by 142 royal navy sailors.
It will be the biggest ceremonial spectacle since Winston Churchill’s state funeral almost 60 years ago. ‘The procession will be like nothing any of us has seen, I think, in our lifetimes,’ General Patrick Sanders, the head of the British army, said yesterday.
‘It’s obviously a first and will bring together all the elements of the armed forces and all those who serve in a procession that I hope will be precise and will be immaculate.’
Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the Duke of Norfolk and the earl marshal, is masterminding the
‘The procession will be like nothing any of us has ever seen’
whole occasion. The proceedings will start at 6.30am when the last members of the public file past the Queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall, marking the end of four-and-a-half days of lyingin-state during which, up to 500,000 will have queued up for many hours, to pay their respects.
At 10.35am a company of Grenadier Guards, the Queen’s most senior guardsmen, will lift her coffin from the catafalque and place it on to the state gun carriage. The 2.8-ton carriage has taken four other monarchs on their final journeys, including her father, King George VI, in 1952. It has been hauled by royal navy ratings using ropes since Queen Victoria’s funeral in 1901, when the horses due to pull the coffin reared up.
The short procession from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey, via Parliament Square, will be the first moment of pageantry with 200 military musicians.
World leaders will arrive at the Abbey in a fleet of buses from 8am. In the only exception, US President Joe Biden has been allowed to use his armoured limousine, known as ‘The Beast’.
The hour-long service will start at 11am and will be conducted by the Dean Of Westminster, with the sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a reading by prime minister Liz Truss. At around 11.55am the Last Post will sound and two minutes of poignant silence will then begin.
Minutes later, the coffin, followed by King Charles and the queen consort, will emerge through the Abbey’s Great West Door before its extraordinary procession to Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner, where it will be placed on a hearse for its final journey to Windsor.