The effort it must have taken the 95-year-old widow, who stood gingerly with her cane for all hymns and prayers, could be seen in a fleeting lapse of stoicism, in her teary eyes and lost expression.
For a moment, uncharacteristically, she simply looked deflated, defeated. Behind closed doors, there must have been moments she felt exactly this.
The Queen battled ill health and mobility issues to be there for Prince Philip, using every ounce of energy and sheer will she could muster to say a final goodbye to the love of her life.
The man she called her devoted “strength and stay”, the husband who supported her, without complaint, always a step behind, for 73 years.
But it was her decision to have shamed Prince Andrew by her side at the service of thanksgiving for the Duke of Edinburgh that provoked astonishment and shock.
Despite withdrawing from public life and just three weeks after paying suspected millions to settle a civil sexual assault case, Prince Andrew took the limelight at the service in Westminster Abbey.
While some have suggested the Queen’s decision may have been purely practical, or simply a mother’s natural wish for comfort on a difficult day from her favourite son, it was hard not to see it as an endorsement.
He, of course, has not admitted wrongdoing, but his attitude and treatment of his accuser has been widely condemned. It was left unconfirmed until the morning whether the monarch would attend, nearly a year on from the Duke’s strictly reduced Covid-secure funeral last April.
When she did arrive, it was through a side door near Poets’ Corner, walking a short distance holding the elbow of her disgraced son with her left hand.
Using a cane as the 1,800-strong congregation sang Monk’s Gate, she then left Andrew’s side to make her own way with a slight smile, gingerly, to her seat, padded with an extra cushion.
The moment proved overwhelming for her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice. The mum-of-one, 33, was unable to hold back tears. Stripped of his titles, this is believed to have been Andrew’s final official outing as a serving royal.
He was in a front-row seat next to his younger brother the Earl of Wessex.
The Queen was seated next to Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. Abuse survivors reacted with anger at Andrew’s prominence, and the Queen’s apparent support.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, said: “There is no thought whatsoever for survivors here.”
The 40-minute service gave thanks for the life and work of the Duke, who died aged 99 at Windsor with the Queen by his side on April 9.
Also there were the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer and royals including Prince Albert of Monaco, Denmark’s Queen Margrethe, King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway, and Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia.
