Our fitting ritual

There are few more dignified and moving events in the national calendar than the annual Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph. This year’s was even more poignant given the absence of the late Queen, who for seven decades represented the nation at the ceremony. In recent years, as she gradually succumbed to the infirmity of age, the task of laying the wreath on behalf of the country fell to the Prince of Wales, now King.

Last year, his late mother was unable to make the ceremony at all, an early indication that her life was drawing to a close. She was a living link with the last war and few are now left who served in that conflict.

It is just eight weeks since her coffin was drawn on a gun carriage past the Cenotaph on its final journey and while the country has moved on, great events such as these are a reminder of the central role she played in the nation’s life for so long.

Yesterday, continuity was the guiding principle as the King led the wreath-laying, watched by the Queen Consort from a balcony overlooking Whitehall and the Lutyens-designed Cenotaph, inaugurated as the nation’s central monument for remembering its war dead in 1920.

The familiarity of the ceremonial enhances its symbolism. The Cenotaph service is first and foremost staged to honour the fallen; but it also acts as an annual renewal of the symbols of the nation for which they died and whose continuation is evidence that their sacrifice was not in vain.

It is a fitting ritual that honours those who have given their lives for their country. But it is also redolent with the symbolism of nationhood. The Crown, Parliament, the Armed Forces, the Church, the Commonwealth – the institutions that define the United Kingdom.