King’s solemn duty
In her 70 years of duty at the Cenotaph, so the story goes, the late Queen Elizabeth II did not feel a drop of rain. As the new King honoured the nation’s war dead for the first time in his own right yesterday, his mother’s good fortune held out.
Under cloudy but dry skies, the next generation of the Royal family undertook their most solemn of duties
seamlessly, just as the late Queen would have wanted and just as she prepared. As the King laid a wreath signed Charles R, and thousands upon thousands of military veterans streamed past, it seemed at once as if both everything and nothing had changed.
New was the thoughtful rendition of God Save the King, sung by crowds who seemed to already be used to the lyrics of the Carolean era.
One wreath, placed by an equerry, was signed “Camilla R”. The late Queen, of course, was missed.
But for those present, it was continuity in the face of change that provided comfort.
The King who, as Prince of Wales, had been representing his mother at the wreath-laying since 2017, followed
in her footsteps to put duty to the fallen first.
In well-practiced ritual, he stood still and inscrutable, perhaps thinking of generations of sacrifice, as well as a lost wartime generation that for the first time includes both his parents.
On the balcony, the Queen Consort and Princess of Wales watched together, standing close for moments of intimate conversation as if to showcase their new dual role at the heart of the Royal family.
Below them on Whitehall, the King, Prince of Wales, Earl of Wessex and Princess Royal took their positions in silent tribute to Britain’s lost service men and women. The absence of the
Duke of Sussex and Duke of York did not much register among observers, who had turned out in their droves to pay their own respects.
As the Royal family slimmed down, the ranks of politicians swelled: seven former prime ministers – Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – taking their places in the ceremony.
This year, Falklands veterans were at centre stage for the 40th anniversary of the conflict, wearing handknitted scarves in the distinctive blue and green of their South Atlantic Medal ribbon. The eldest generation were represented by 101-year-old D-day veteran Stanley Elliss, marching for the first time from the Royal Air Force Servicing Commando and Tactical Supply Wing, joined by 100-year-old James Fenton from the Burma Star Memorial Fund, and 97-year-olds Mervyn Kersh and Stan Ford from the Spirit of Normandy Trust.
The youngest, each of whom had received a letter from the absent Duke of Sussex in advance of the procession, were the 55 children of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, aged from eight years old and representing their parents lost to war.
It was, as it could never fail to be, terribly moving.
The Royal British Legion’s guest list, nearly 9,800 people from 300 Armed Forces and civilian associations, arranged themselves into columns: some shuffling into position with the old muscle memory of decades in the Forces, others following their lead uncertainly and looking around in awe. Children were ushered to the front and lifted on shoulders.
At moments, the music of the Massed Bands of the Guards Division and the Pipes and Drums brought levity, with Last Night of the Promsstyle bobbing to their rendition of
Rule, Britannia. As the wreath-layers took their places, murmurs began in earnest as the first of the recognisable faces – the politicians – were met with a sea of camera phones.
By the time the Royal family were glimpsed, the length and breadth of Whitehall was full; from red berets to bowler hats as far as the eye could see.
Just before 11am, the Queen Consort and Princess of Wales stepped on to the central balcony of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The Countess of Wessex took her place with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester on a balcony to the left; the Duke of Kent and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence to the right. Princess Alexandra, 85, who had been expected to attend, was absent.
The Queen Consort wore the brooch of The Rifles, representing her treasured role as Colonel-in-chief of the regiment she inherited from the Duke of Edinburgh, and the emblem of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment.
The Princess wore diamond and pearl drop earrings once used by her late mother-in-law. Both women wore a trio of poppies, exchanging what appeared to be warm words before falling silent as their husbands stepped out below. The King, wearing the great coat of a No.1 Field Marshal, was followed by his eldest son the Prince of Wales, the tallest of his family in the uniform of the Royal Air Force, and siblings the Earl of Wessex and Princess Royal, with equerries carrying wreaths behind them.
At 11am, beginning at the stroke of Big Ben, London – and those watching and listening from home – fell silent.
Then, at the measured, respectful laying of the wreaths, the moment of reality: a first Remembrance Sunday in which Queen Elizabeth II was gone and King Charles III led the nation.
In the event, it was not jarring. She had, after all, been preparing her family and the nation for life without her for years.
The King was poised, laying a wreath “in memory of the glorious dead”, which featured his racing colours, just as his mother’s and grandfather’s did before him.
The Princess Royal, her footsteps quiet after the clip of men’s heels, was the consummate stalwart the public expects. She alone in the family did not reach for a programme to recall the words of hymns during the service. Her brother, the Earl of Wessex, was later given the honour of taking the salute of the March Past of the exservice and civilian organisations.
From there, it was the crowd who carried the day, with the stamina and determination to clap each veteran marching or wheeling past them.
Andy Lawless, who served as a pilot in the Falklands and marched past the Cenotaph for the first time this year, met a fellow veteran who confessed to once nearly accidentally shooting down his Chinook in the confusion of battle. “I thought, that’s nice to find out 40 years later,” Lawless, 65, said of their chance conversation.
Summing up the thoughts of many after the ceremony, he spoke of the absence of the late Queen as a “huge change” after being his Commanderin-chief for his “whole career”.
But the King, he said, had taken the role “seamlessly”, with the Forces’ respect for the Royal family undimmed. As the streets gradually emptied that family may have breathed one particular sigh of relief.
“The Queen said she had never been rained on at the Cenotaph in 70 years,” the Prince of Wales said in September. “So we will see what happens this year.” They may feel, looking back, it was auspicious.
The King, he said, had taken the role ‘seamlessly’, with the Forces’ respect for the Royal family undimmed