A funeral like no other... for a man like no other
THE Duke of Edinburgh was laid to rest after a royal funeral like no other yesterday on a sunny spring day atwindsor Castle.
Stooping but steadfast, and showing the fortitude she has displayed throughout the past eight days, the Queen led the nation and her family in mourning the longest serving consort in royal history, the man she described as her “strength and stay” during 73 years of marriage.
Television viewers saw a unique funeral service, taking place amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Inside the 15th century Gothic chapel, the sparse congregation of 30, reduced by the Government’s Covid restrictions from an original projected guest list of between 800 and 1,000, made the occasion all the more striking.
The Queen, cutting a solitary figure, wore a face mask like all the mourners, while due to rules preventing the congregation from singing, a choir of three male lay clerks and a female soprano performed the haunting music the Duke had selected.
It may have been a dramatically pared down ceremony but it was still a day full of pomp and circumstance, involving more than 700 members of the Armed Forces.
In their colourful uniforms, heads bowed, they filled the castle quadrangle and lined the route from the state apartments down the hill to the chapel.
Inside the chapel, where 10 British monarchs are interred, bottles of hand sanitiser, a reminder of the times, had been placed next to a door in the vast nave.
The chapel had been packed with joyous family and friends at three royal weddings in the past few years but yesterday it was stripped of seats; empty save for the four choristers, four Royal
Marine buglers, and the State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry – all socially distanced.
Further into the chapel, near the altar at the eastern end, the Queen and the other 29 mourners sat in their family or social “bubbles”.
The monarch, who
will be 95 on
Wednesday, had no mourners in her bubble so sat on her own, in her customary seat on the second row nearest the altar and her husband’s coffin. The Queen had been accompanied to the chapel by her lady-inwaiting, Lady Susan Hussey, who sat with her in the state Bentley for the procession.
All in black, the Queen wore the large Richmond diamond-and-pearl brooch she inherited from her grandmother Queen Mary. It is a favourite she has worn to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding in 2018 and more than once at the Festival of Remembrance.
After a week of tension, the men wore morning coats with medals to defuse a row over whether the Dukes of York and Sussex should wear military uniform after stepping away from royal duties.
Bedecked in medals including one for serving as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands war, Prince Andrew sat three seats from the Queen, the nearest to her. Further along were Princess Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, then at the end of one row, the Duke of Sussex.
Opposite Harry on the other side of the Quire, his brother the Duke of Cambridge sat with Kate, so often a peacemaker
‘His love of the sea
shone through’
between the brothers and directly in his line of sight.
Prince Charles and Camilla sat opposite the Queen, separated by the catafalque bearing Philip’s coffin. It was covered with the Duke’s 12ft x 6ft personal standard, his Admiral of the Fleet cap, and the sword he was given by King George VI when he and Elizabeth were married in November 1947.
A white wreath chosen by the Queen – consisting of lilies, roses, freesia, wax flower, sweet peas and jasmine – was also placed on the coffin with a personal message to the love of her life.
Philip’s love of the sea and long association with the Royal Navy shone through in the Order of Service, reflecting the detailed planning he had put into his own funeral.
The music included the naval hymn Eternal Father, Strong To Save, with thoughts for those in peril on the sea. A Royal Navy piping party greeted his coffin’s arrival and inside there was a prominent role for Royal Marine buglers.
But there was also a reference to his initial upbringing in the Orthodox church, as the choir sang the haunting Russian Kontakion of the Departed, a burial hymn made famous in the West after it featured in David Lean’s 1965 film of Dr Zhivago.
Philip, who died on Friday last week, two months short of his 100th birthday, was a passionate supporter of conservation and a believer in the force and majesty of nature.
The service reflected his passion with a Bible reading by the Dean of Windsor from Ecclesiasticus. “Those who sail the sea tell stories of its dangers,” he read.
He was also fascinated by engineering and appreciated the lift installed by George III upon which his coffin was lowered slowly
towards the royal vault on a wooden catafalque dressed in purple velvet. The 7ft by 3ft marble lift was last used at the funeral of Georgevi in 1952.
While the coffin descended, the Garter Principal King of Arms proclaimed Philip’s long list of styles and titles. The Pipe Major from the Royal Regiment of Scotland played a lament and then the buglers of the Royal Marines sounded Last Post.
The Household Cavalry State Trumpeters played Reveille and then Royal Marine buglers sounded Action Stations, a call for sailors on warships to assume battle stations.
Earlier, the Dean of Windsor, in the bidding, paid tribute to Philip’s “kindness, humour and humanity”.
He said: “We are here today in St George’s Chapel to commit into the hands of God the soul of his servant Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
“With grateful hearts, we remember the many ways in which his long life has been a blessing to us. We have been inspired by his unwavering loyalty to our Queen, by his service to the nation and the Commonwealth, by his courage, fortitude and faith.
REMEMBERING GRANDPA: Prince William and Kate
HEADS BOWED: The Queen and Prince Andrew
Our lives have been enriched through the challenges that he has set us, the encouragement that he has given us, his kindness, humour and humanity.”
In keeping with tradition following the passing of a Knight of the Garter, a laurel wreath was fastened above Philip’s stall in front of the small, enamelled brass plate bearing his name and coat of arms. His stall plate will remain there in perpetuity, along with those of hundreds of other Garter Knights down the centuries.
At the western end of the Quire, Philip’s German relatives were seated. He had been a focal point for that branch of his family, the last link with a generation for descendants of his four sisters who all married German aristocrats.
His great-niece, Princess Xenia of Hohenlohe-langenburg, who was not in the chapel yesterday, said: “He’s been like a glue for the family. He brought all of us cousins together on a lot of family occasions, the last one having been his 90th birthday celebrations 10 years ago at Windsor. It was lovely.” He and the Queen also linked many other royal families around the world. Outside the chapel’s south door, wreaths from many of the crowned heads of Europe lay on the grass alongside those from British politicians and the Armed Forces.
Among them was a wreath of daisies from Queen Margrethe II of Denmark with the word Daisy, her nickname since childhood, in the centre. The deposed Greek royal family, always so close to Philip, had sent two wreaths of olives. There were flowers, too, from King Willemalexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, and from the former Queen, Beatrix, who abdicated in 2013, along with tributes from the royal families of Sweden, Norway and Luxembourg.
Prince Hassan bin Talal, of the Jordanian royal family, described his friend the Duke as a “remarkable human being”.
He said: “I think I was very close to knowing the man, the human being, and in that sense I feel the privilege in having known not only an encyclopaedia of knowledge but also an icon
‘His life was a blessing to us’
MOURNFUL: Prince Charles and the Princess Royal of human dignity.” He said he did not think Philip would mind having a scaled-down funeral due to the pandemic. “On the contrary, I think he had every right to make it as personal and as poignant.”
In the castle quadrangle before the funeral, the military bands played I Vow to Thee My Country, Jerusalem, Nimrod and other patriotic music as soldiers, sailors and airmen stood, heads bowed, before the coffin was carried out to the Land Rover hearse Philip had spent 18 years designing for this very day.
In a poignant tribute to his role in turning carriage driving into an international sport, his grooms and two trusty black Fell ponies, Balmoral Nevis and Notlaw Storm, stood in the quadrangle with his cap, gloves and whip on the seat of his favourite carriage. The grooms also brought along a red pot containing the sugar lumps Philip used to give his ponies.
He took up the sport when he turned 50 and became too old to play polo, and continued to enjoy it noncompetitively in his 90s.
The grooms stood with heads bowed as the procession headed past and down the hill on the Land Rover,
THOUGHTFUL: Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi
followed by members of the Royal Family led by Prince Charles and then Princess Anne.
Behind them, William and Harry, with their cousin Peter Phillips between them, walked with grave faces, Harry glancing briefly up to admire the castle buildings before they went into the chapel.
As the procession passed the chapel’s galilee porch, Camilla, Kate and other mourners not walking behind the coffin stood socially distanced to pay their respects.
When the Queen emerged from her Bentley, she began walking into the chapel but stopped and turned, glancing back for a few seconds apparently waiting and looking for someone.
It was tempting to think she was looking for Philip but, in truth, she was waiting for the other mourners to finish gazing at the cortege heading down the hill.
The service, which was later described as “stunningly moving” by Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, is likely to have brought some measure of comfort to the Queen, who now
faces a solitary future at Windsor. Her husband’s death was the culmination of an awful period for the Royal Family, which still has to navigate its way out of a crisis sparked by claims of racism, neglect and bullying stemming from Harry and Meghan’s decision to quit their official roles.
Meghan, who did not fly to Britain for the funeral because she is heavily pregnant with the couple’s second child, let it be known that she watched the service on television at home in California yesterday.
Friends say that the Queen, who has stayed close to the couple despite the upheaval, hopes grandsons William and Harry can now end their feud.
After the strain of the funeral, there was hope for her last night, as the two brothers chatted amiably while walking back up Chapel Hill towards the castle’s state apartments.
They, like other guests, were meant to take cars but joined most of the royal party in deciding to enjoy a walk and perhaps reflect on the life and legacy of Prince Philip.
‘The brothers chatted away’