Queen Elizabeth’s coffin on its option to remaining resting place By Reuters

By Michael Holden, Kate Holton and Peter Hobson

LONDON (Reuters) -Tens of 1000’s of individuals lined the route taking the late Queen Elizabeth to her remaining resting place at Windsor Fort on Monday, throwing flowers in direction of the hearse and cheering because it departed the British capital following her state funeral.

Many 1000’s extra crammed into central London to witness a ceremony of matchless pageantry attended by leaders and royalty from internationally, a becoming finish for Britain’s longest-serving monarch who gained world respect throughout 70 years on the throne.

After the service, her flag-draped casket was pulled via silent streets on a gun carriage in one of many largest navy processions seen in Britain involving 1000’s of members of the armed forces wearing ceremonial finery.

They walked in step to funeral music from marching bands, whereas within the background town’s well-known Large Ben tolled every minute. King Charles and different senior royals https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/royals-emotions-queen-show-through-ceremonial-pageantry-2022-09-19/ adopted on foot.

The casket was taken from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch, the place it was transferred to a hearse to start its journey to Windsor. There the queen was to be laid to relaxation alongside her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip.

Contained in the majestic Westminster Abbey the place the funeral was held, music performed on the queen’s wedding ceremony in 1947 and her coronation six years later once more rang out.

The coffin entered to traces of scripture set to a rating used at each state funeral for the reason that early 18th century.

The two,000-strong congregation https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/world-leaders-come-london-queen-elizabeths-funeral-2022-09-12/ included some 500 presidents, prime ministers, overseas royal households and dignitaries together with Joe Biden of america and leaders from France, Canada, Australia, China, Pakistan and the Cook dinner Islands.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, instructed the congregation that the grief felt by so many throughout Britain and the broader world mirrored the late monarch’s “ample life and loving service.”

“Her late majesty famously declared on a twenty first birthday broadcast that her complete life can be devoted to serving the nation and Commonwealth,” he mentioned.

“Hardly ever has such a promise been so nicely saved. Few leaders obtain the outpouring of affection that now we have seen.”

Among the many crowds who got here from round Britain and past, individuals climbed lampposts and stood on obstacles and ladders to catch a glimpse of the royal procession.

Some wore sensible black fits and clothes. Others have been wearing hoodies, leggings and tracksuits. A girl with dyed inexperienced hair stood subsequent to a person in morning go well with as they waited for the procession to start.

Hundreds of thousands extra watched on tv at residence on a public vacation declared for the event, the primary time the funeral of a British monarch has been televised https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/over-100-british-cinemas-big-city-screens-show-queens-funeral-2022-09-17/. Across the wider capital, usually bustling streets have been abandoned.

Ben Vega, 47, a nurse from the Philippines standing in the back of the gang on a stool, mentioned he was a royalist.

“I really like pageantry. I really like how the British do that,” he mentioned. “I am from the Philippines, we do not have this, we do not have royal households. It is a unhappy day for me. I have been right here 20 years. I noticed the queen as my second mum, England as my second residence.”

‘INVINCIBLE’

Elizabeth died on Sept. 8 at Balmoral Fort, her summer season residence within the Scottish highlands.

Her well being had been in decline, and for months the monarch who had carried out lots of of official engagements nicely into her 90s had withdrawn from public life.

Nevertheless, consistent with her sense of responsibility she was photographed simply two days earlier than she died, trying frail however smiling and holding a strolling stick as she appointed Liz Truss as her fifteenth and remaining prime minister.

Such was her longevity and her inextricable hyperlink with Britain that even her circle of relatives discovered her passing a shock.

“All of us thought she was invincible,” Prince William instructed well-wishers.

The fortieth sovereign in a line that traces its lineage again to 1066, Elizabeth got here to the throne in 1952 and have become Britain’s first post-imperial monarch.

She oversaw her nation making an attempt to carve out a brand new place on the earth, and he or she was instrumental within the emergence of the Commonwealth of Nations, now a grouping comprising 56 international locations.

When she succeeded her father George VI, Winston Churchill was her first prime minister and Josef Stalin led the Soviet Union. She met main figures from politics to leisure and sport together with Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Pele and Roger Federer.

Regardless of being seemingly 5ft 3ins (1.6m) tall, she dominated rooms together with her presence and have become a towering world determine, praised in dying from Paris and Washington to Moscow and Beijing. Nationwide mourning was noticed in Brazil, Jordan and Cuba, international locations with which she had little direct hyperlink.

“Folks of loving service are uncommon in any stroll of life,” Welby mentioned through the funeral. “Leaders of loving service are nonetheless rarer. However in all instances, those that serve will probably be liked and remembered when those that cling to energy and privileges are lengthy forgotten.”

The tenor bell of the Abbey – the location of coronations, weddings and burials of English after which British kings and queens for nearly 1,000 years – tolled 96 occasions.

Among the many hymns chosen for the service have been “The Lord’s my Shepherd”, sung on the wedding ceremony of the queen and her husband Prince Philip within the Abbey in 1947. Among the many royal household following the casket into the Abbey was the queen’s great-grandson and future king, Prince George, aged 9.

Along with dignitaries, the congregation included these awarded Britain’s highest navy and civilian medals for gallantry, representatives from charities supported by the queen and those that made “extraordinary contributions” to coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In direction of the tip of the service, the church and far of the nation fell silent for 2 minutes. Trumpets rang out earlier than the congregation sang “God Save the King”. Exterior, crowds joined in and broke into applause when the anthem was over.

The queen’s piper introduced the service to an finish with a lament that pale to silence.

Afterwards, the coffin made its method via central London, previous the queen’s Buckingham Palace residence to the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Nook, with the monarch and the royal household following on foot through the 1.5 mile (2.4 km) procession.

From there, it was positioned on a hearse to Windsor Fort, west of London, for a service at St. George’s Chapel. This may conclude with the crown, orb and sceptre – symbols of the monarch’s energy and governance – being faraway from the coffin and positioned on the altar.

The Lord Chamberlain, essentially the most senior official within the royal family, will break his ‘Wand of Workplace’, signifying the tip of his service to the sovereign, and place it on the casket.

It can then be lowered into the royal vault.

Later within the night, in a non-public household service, the coffin of Elizabeth and her husband of greater than seven many years, Prince Philip, who died final yr aged 99, will probably be buried collectively on the King George VI Memorial Chapel, the place her dad and mom and sister, Princess Margaret, additionally relaxation.

“We’re so joyful you are again with Grandpa. Goodbye expensive grannie, it has been the honour of our lives to have been your granddaughters and we’re so very pleased with you,” grandchildren Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie mentioned https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/dearest-grannie-we-miss-you-queen-elizabeths-grandchildren-2022-09-17/.