Guards who bore her aloft and were there to the last
BY delivering a masterclass in ceremonial duties yesterday, thousands of troops paid a most fitting tribute to Her Majesty the Queen.
That was the verdict of leading military figures watching awestruck as the British and Commonwealth personnel pulled off a remarkable display of pageantry.
All eyes, including an estimated television audience of 4billion, were on the eight guardsmen placing the monarch into the royal hearse at Wellington Arch on Hyde Park Corner. The members of the Queen’s Company, 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards, had been handpicked for the prestigious but daunting role. Last night, they were showered with plaudits as hours earlier they had been showered with flowers while marching along the Mall.
The pallbearers, who were flown back from operational service in Iraq to take part in yesterday’s funeral, were guided throughout by Company Sergeant Major Dean Jones.
The tall warrant officer, resplendent in a ceremonial red tunic, walked ahead of Her Majesty’s oak coffin which weighed over 500lb due to its lead lining. His team did not put a foot wrong as first they shouldered her coffin into and out of Westminster Abbey and, later, as they carried her up a flight of steps into St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Dan Jarvis MP, a former major in the Parachute Regiment who served in Afghanistan, said: ‘Special praise must go to those young men who carried the massive weight of responsibility of being a pallbearer.
‘With the eyes of the world fixed upon them, the pressure must have been beyond extreme. That they did it flawlessly brings enormous credit on them, their unit and the armed forces.’
Writer and comedian Stephen Fry spoke for the nation when he tweeted: ‘Bearer
Party, to the pub – quick march. Bearer Party, lift tankard. Bearer Party, down beer. You’ve earned it.’
Also at the forefront of the procession were the 148 sailors who accompanied the State Gun Carriage. The massed ranks of Royal Navy personnel marched arm in arm at 75 paces per minute, drawing the carriage forward by ropes in a solemn tradition dating back more than a century.
The State Gun Carriage was first used at Queen Victoria’s funeral on February 2 1901. The two-and-a-half tonne carriage subsequently appeared at the funerals of three monarchs, King Edward VII, King George V and King George VI, as well as the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten.
Former equerries to the Queen marched alongside her hearse accompanied by members of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms and Yeomen of the Guard. The grand procession was formed of seven groups, each supported by a band. Mounties of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police led the first group, followed by representatives of the George Cross foundations of Malta, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and troops from Australia and New Zealand.
Current and former service chiefs also took
part. Another former military officer, Tobias Ellwood MP, said: ‘The scale and splendour of our military, as we said goodbye to our Queen, was nothing short of outstanding.’
While 1,650 troops took part in the procession from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch, a further 1,000 lined the route through London and another 1,000 performed ceremonial and security duties in Windsor.
In total, 5,948 members of the Armed Forces deployed on Operation London Bridge – as plans for Her Majesty’s passing were known – since her death. And around 175 troops from Commonwealth countries also took part. The Queen’s Company – from which the
pallbearers were drawn – was named after the late monarch and she was its honorary commander. Her Majesty also became Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadier Guards earlier this year, replacing Prince Andrew.
Once she had been driven by hearse to Windsor, there was another symbolic act to acknowledge her affiliation with the Queen’s Company. Moments before she was entombed in the Royal Vault, King Charles III draped its colours over her coffin.
The Queen’s Company is expected to be renamed in the King’s honour later this year. He may also inherit his mother’s honorary colonelcy of the regiment.