Further details have been announced for the Queen's funeral. Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest on Monday, September 19, following four days of lying in state at Westminster Hall. Last weekend, the Earl Marshal, Duke of Norfolk confirmed that the Queen's state funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey at 11am on Monday.
It follows 10 days of national mourning, which is extended by seven days for members of the royal family. The day itself will also be a bank holiday, which King Charles III approved during the Accession Council on Saturday, September 10, in which he was formally declared king following his beloved mother's death.
Today, Thursday, it was confirmed that at 8am on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, the doors of Westminster Abbey will open for the congregation to begin taking their seats. Heads of state and overseas government representatives, including foreign royal families, governors general and Realm prime ministers, will gather at the Royal Hospital Chelsea and “travel under collective arrangements” to the Abbey, the Earl Marshal said.
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He added that other representatives of the Realms and the Commonwealth, the Orders of Chivalry including recipients of the Victoria Cross and George Cross, Government, Parliament, devolved Parliaments and Assemblies, the Church, and Her Majesty’s Patronages will form the congregation, along with further representatives from law, emergency services, public servants and professions, and public representatives.
Members of the British Royal Family who are not processing from Westminster Hall will have arrived at the abbey and been escorted to their seats in the South Lantern. The King will once again lead his family in marching behind the Queen’s coffin when it is moved, at 10.44am on Monday, from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s funeral service.
He will walk with the Princess Royal, Duke of York and Earl of Wessex and behind the quartet will be the Queen’s grandsons Peter Phillips, Duke of Sussex and the Prince of Wales. They will be followed by the late monarch’s son-in-law Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the Duke of Gloucester, the Queen’s cousin, and her nephew the Earl of Snowdon.
The Queen’s coffin will be carried during the procession on a 123-year-old gun carriage towed by 98 Royal Navy sailors in a tradition dating back to the funeral of Queen Victoria. The Procession will be led by a massed Pipes & Drums of Scottish and Irish Regiments, the Brigade of Gurkhas, and the Royal Air Force – numbering 200 musicians.
The procession will arrive at the west gate of Westminster Abbey at 10.52am when the bearer party will lift the coffin from the gun carriage and carry it into the Abbey for the state funeral service, the Earl Marshal said. The service will begin at 11am and will be conducted by the Dean of Westminster.
The Prime Minister and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth will read Lessons, while the Archbishop of York, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Free Churches Moderator will say prayers.
The sermon will be given by the Archbishop of Canterbury who will also give the commendation, while the Dean will pronounce the blessing. At around 11.55am the Last Post will sound, followed by two minutes of silence to be observed in the Abbey and throughout the UK.
Reveille, the national anthem and a lament played by the Queen’s piper will bring the state funeral service to an end at around 12 noon. The bearer party will then lift the coffin from the catafalque and will move in procession through the Great West Door returning to the State Gun Carriage positioned outside the West Gate.
The coffin will be followed by the King and the Queen Consort, the Prince and Princess of Wales and members of the royal family who will walk in the procession to Wellington Arch. The Queen’s committal service will then take place at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle at 4pm on Monday.
The Queen will be buried with the Duke of Edinburg, who died in April 2021, in King George VI’s chapel in Windsor Castle in a private service at 7.30pm the same evening.
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