The world watches an incredible spectacle
Thousands line the streets of the capital for funeral procession
Crowds 10-deep in places fell silent as the Queen’s coffin was transported from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. The Pipes and Drums of the Scottish and Irish regiments led the ceremonial procession with members of the Royal Air Force and the Gurkhas.
The route was lined by members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and a guard of honour made up of all three military services stood in Parliament Square, as the procession was accompanied by a Royal Marines band.
The bearer party from the Queen’s Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, lifted the coffin from the catafalque in Westminster Hall where the Queen had been lying in state to the State Gun Carriage outside the building’s North Door shortly after 10.35am on Monday.
The 123-year-old gun carriage drawn by 142 Royal Navy service personnel set off shortly before 10.45am
The carriage was last seen in 1979 for the funeral of Prince Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten and was used for the Queen’s father, George VI, in 1952.
The King, members of the royal family, members of the King’s household and members of the household of the Prince of Wales followed the coffin from New Palace Yard through Parliament Square, Broad Sanctuary and the Sanctuary before arriving at the West Gate of Westminster Abbey just before 11am.
The bearer party then solemnly lifted the coffin from the State Gun Carriage and carried it inside for the state funeral service.
The doors of Westminster Abbey had earlier opened to the congregation to take their seats for the funeral service at 8am.
Nine-year-old Prince George and his seven year-old sister Princess Charlotte joined their father and grandfather to walk behind the late Queen’s coffin as it was carried into Westminster Abbey, the place she was married in 1947 and crowned queen in 1953.
Their parents are understood to have thought “very carefully” about whether to involve their two elder children, who called the late Queen “Gan Gan”.
George walked beside his father William– two future
kings together – with Charlotte beside her brother and their mother Kate next to her daughter.
George and Charlotte’s fouryear-old brother Prince Louis was considered too young to attend.
Heads of state and overseas government representatives, including foreign royal families, governors-general and prime ministers gathered at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, before being transported to the abbey for the service.
Westminster Abbey’s tenor bell tolled once per minute for 96 minutes in a nod to the years of the Queen’s life.
The King travelled to the funeral procession with his two sons Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex who have set aside their differences for the time-being.