The Queen was on Tuesday making her final journey home after her unprecedented 70-year reign which touched so many people in countries all around the world.
Huge crowds were expected to line the streets of London on Tuesday evening to pay their respects as her coffin is driven to Buckingham Palace, the symbolic seat of the monarchy. It will rest in the Bow Room overnight before being taken to Westminster Hall on Wednesday to lie in state, ahead of Monday’s funeral.
Britain’s longest-serving monarch was born in a townhouse belonging to her Scottish grandparents, in Bruton Street, Mayfair, on April 21, 1926.
Final preparations were being made on Tuesday for her lying-in-state. Before the sun rose and as the city slept, thousands of soldiers in ceremonial uniform took part in a rehearsal for the procession of her coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall.
At around 4am, a black coffin was placed on a gun carriage pulled by seven black horses through Queen’s Gardens, The Mall, Whitehall, Parliament Street, Parliament Square and into New Palace Yard. Ahead of the real procession on Wednesday, Major General Christopher Ghika, of the Household Division and who is responsible for organising the ceremonial aspects of the funeral, said: “It’s a very sad day, but it’s our last opportunity to do our duty for the Queen and it’s our first opportunity to do it for the King, and that makes us all very proud.”
Hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were prepared to wait 30 hours, were from tomorrow due to file past her coffin in the medieval Westminster Hall.
A massive security operation was being stepped up for presidents, prime ministers and other royalty who were due to fly to London for the funeral in Westminster Abbey on Monday before the Queen is taken to Windsor and her final resting place in the King George VI Memorial Chapel.
At Windsor Castle, locals continued to pay tribute and reflect on their own personal memories of their “neighbour”. Anna Hewitt, who visited with her three teenage children, said she had gone to “pay my respects to the Queen, who absolutely felt like a neighbour to all of us”.
The Queen, 96, passed away at Balmoral Castle in the Highlands last Thursday. On Monday evening King Charles and the Queen’s three other children staged a silent vigil around her coffin at rest in Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral. With their heads bowed, the new monarch, the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and Earl of Wessex stood guard.
Tens of thousands of mourners in Scotland’s capital queued for up to 12 hours to pay their respects to the Queen as she lay in state.
Earlier, King Charles led the royal family in a procession behind her coffin along the Royal Mile from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to the cathedral.
Lord Ian Duncan, a deputy speaker in the House of Lords, said crowds along the Royal Mile were “10-deep”.
He added: “That is an extraordinary outpouring of respect, grief, celebration of an extraordinary woman.”
The Queen’s coffin was due to leave the cathedral at 5pm to start the journey to London. An hour later, the Queen was due to be given a royal guard of honour, when her coffin was carried onto an RAF Globemaster C-17, made up of 96 gunners from the RAF Regiment, the Queen’s Colour Squadron.
She was then leaving Scotland for the last time to be flown back to RAF Northolt in west London, accompanied by the Princess Royal and her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence. “Today is the day that we have long, long planned for but hoped would never come,” Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, head of the Royal Air Force, told BBC Breakfast. The flight’s arrival at RAF Northolt was scheduled for 6.55pm.
Her coffin was then to be transported on a state hearse, accompanied by Anne and Vice-Admiral Sir Tim, to Buckingham Palace. The route was to be along the A40. It was to then travel along Eastbourne Terrace, Lancaster Gate, Bayswater Road, Marble Arch, Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner and Constitution Hill before returning through the centre gate arch of Buckingham Palace.
Waiting to receive the coffin at the palace will be the King and Queen Consort, who this morning flew from Scotland to Northern Ireland before returning to London. The Prince and Princess of Wales will also be present.
A guard of honour formed of three officers and 96 soldiers from The King’s Guard will be mounted in the Palace Quadrangle. At 2.22pm tomorrow, the 38-minute procession taking the Queen to the Palace of Westminster will leave Buckingham Palace. King Charles, members of the royal family and senior staff of both households are expected to walk behind the coffin. Following the state funeral on Monday, the coffin will be taken again in procession from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch. From there it will travel to Windsor in procession to St George’s Chapel via the Long Walk and a committal service will take place in the chapel.
