LONDON —
Britain said farewell to
Queen Elizabeth II on Monday at a historic state
funeral attended by world leaders, before a last ceremonial journey through
London streets packed with sorrowful mourners.
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Huge crowds
gathered to watch as the queen’s coffin was carried slowly to a gun carriage
from parliament’s Westminster Hall where it had lain in state since Wednesday.
To the tune of
pipes and drums, the gun carriage — used at every state funeral since Queen
Victoria’s in 1901 — was then drawn by 142 junior enlisted sailors in the Royal
Navy to Westminster Abbey.
The thousand-year-old church’s tenor bell tolled 96
times at one-minute intervals — one for every year of her life — and stopped a
minute before the service began at 11am.
In his funeral
sermon, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby praised the queen’s life of duty
and service to the
UK and Commonwealth.
“People of
loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are
still rarer,” he told the 2,000 guests, who included US President Joe Biden and
Japan’s Emperor Naruhito.
The coffin was
then borne, to the rhythmic strains of funeral marches, towards the queen’s final
resting place at Windsor Castle, west of London.
All along the
route, a sea of arms were raised aloft, clutching mobile phones, to record the
choreographed display of military precision.
The queen — the
longest-serving monarch in British history — died at Balmoral, her Scottish
Highland retreat, on September 8 after a year of declining health.
Her eldest son
and successor,
King Charles III, dressed in ceremonial military uniform,
followed the solemn processions, alongside his three siblings.
Charles’ sons
princes William and Harry, and other senior royals, accompanied them.
William’s two
eldest children, George, 9, and Charlotte, 7, who are next in line to the
throne, also followed behind the coffin in the abbey.
Britain, a
country much changed since the queen’s coronation in the same abbey in 1953,
has dug deep into its centuries of tradition to honor the only monarch that
most of its people have ever known.
Those unable to
be in London gathered in cinemas and churches around England, Scotland, Wales, and
Northern Ireland to watch the service and procession on big screens.
The funeral —
watched by the crowds in silence — lasted just under an hour.
It was brought
to an end by trumpeters playing “The Last Post”, two minutes of silence in
memory of the queen and the reworded national anthem, “God Save the King”.
Driven to Windsor
The long procession filed past Downing Street, government buildings in
Whitehall, through Horse Guards Parade and up The Mall, the tree-lined avenue
that leads to Buckingham Palace decked out in red, white and blue.
At nearby
Wellington Arch, 6,000 members of the armed forces who had marched in lockstep
halted and the coffin was transferred to the royal hearse.
Charles saluted
and the national anthem played again before the hearse headed west by road to
Windsor Castle.
The queen will
be buried alongside her father king George VI, her mother queen Elizabeth, and
sister princess Margaret. The coffin of her husband, Prince Philip, who died
last year aged 99, will also be transferred to lie alongside her.
From monarchies to
republics?
In the abbey pews was Liz Truss, whom the queen appointed as the 15th
British prime minister of her reign just two days before her death, in her last
major ceremonial duty.
All of Truss’s
living predecessors were there plus her counterparts and representatives from
the 14 Commonwealth countries outside Britain where Charles is also head of
state.
Whether they
remain constitutional monarchies or become republics is likely to be the
defining feature of Charles’s reign.
The queen’s
death has prompted deep reflection about the Britain she reigned over, the
legacy of its past, its present state, and what the future might hold, as well
as the values of lifelong service and duty she came to represent during her 70-year
reign.
Hundreds of
thousands of people are estimated to have queued, sometimes for up to 25 hours
and overnight, to file past the queen’s coffin as it lay in state.
Private internment
Throughout the procession after the funeral, Big Ben, the giant bell
atop the Elizabeth Tower at one end of the Houses of Parliament, tolled and
military guns fired at one-minute intervals.
At Windsor, the
Sebastopol Bell — captured in Crimea in 1856 — and the Curfew Tower Bell also
sounded.
A vast
television audience was expected to watch the funeral worldwide and live
online, in a sign of the enduring fascination with the woman once described as
“the last global monarch”.
With Elizabeth
seen as Britain’s final link between its imperial past, victory in World War
II, and the modern era, many of those lining the streets said they had to bear
witness.
At Windsor, the
queen’s crown, orb and scepter will be removed and placed on the altar at a
committal service.
The most senior
officer of the royal household, the lord chamberlain, will break his “wand of
office” and places it on the coffin, symbolizing the end of her reign.
The lead-lined
oak casket, draped with the queen’s colors, will be lowered into the Royal
Vault as a lone bagpiper plays a lament.
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