A touching vigil for the Queen saw her four children reunite and surround her coffin just hours after an emotional procession saw it taken along Edinburgh's Royal Mile.
The first of several Vigil of the Princes at St Giles' Cathedral was carried out by King Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, and Princess Anne on Monday evening. Her children guarded the four corners of the coffin for around 10 minutes with solemn looks on their faces.
Queen Consort Camilla, Sophie Wessex and Princess Anne's husband Sir Timothy Laurence looked on as the vigil took place. Charles wore a kilt made of Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan and white heather in his lapel from Balmoral while Andrew was in a morning suit, the Mirror reports.
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Meanwhile, Anne - the first woman in history to take part in such a ceremony - and Edward were in military dress as members of the public filed past the coffin.
Andrew kept his eyes closed for a period of time during the vigil, while Anne and Edward had their eyes fixed towards the floor. The King kept his hands joined and also looked towards the floor.
The four royals stood alongside four suited members of the Royal Company of Archers, who were standing guard dressed in long-feathered hats and armed with arrows and quivers.
The Archers have been completing 20-minute periods of standing guard at the coffin, which will remain at St Giles’ for 24 hours before it is taken to London to lie in state.
It came just hours after the King led the royal family in a poignant display of respect for the late Queen by walking behind the monarch’s coffin with his siblings on the Royal Mile this afternoon.
Expressionless and looking straight ahead, Charles was joined Anne, Andrew and Edward as they followed the hearse carrying the Queen’s oak coffin.
In bright autumn sunshine, the procession set off at a slow walking pace, with the Queen’s children arranged by age, with the eldest Charles on the right and Anne, Andrew and Edward on his left, with Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence behind them.
A hush descended on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile as the crowds 10-deep first caught sight of the procession which featured the coffin’s bearer party – servicemen from the Royal Regiment of Scotland – flanking the hearse and they in turn were flanked by the King’s Body Guard for Scotland.
All those in the procession walked in step, moving from side to side as one, within touching distance of the coffin draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland with a wreath of Balmoral flowers on top.
Following in a car was Camilla and Sophie but the new Prince of Wales, Prince William and his brother Prince Harry did not take part in the procession.
The procession travelled from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the sovereign’s official Edinburgh home, to St Giles Cathedral, where a service of thanksgiving for the life of the late monarch was held before the public were able to pay their respects.
The Queen’s coffin will remain at St Giles’ Cathedral tomorrow, when it will be flown to London ahead of the monarch lying in state at Westminster Hall from Wednesday, before the state funeral next Monday.
Meanwhile earlier today, King Charles received a motion of condolence at Westminster Hall - and sat on his throne for the first time as the monarch along with Queen Camilla.
The new King and his wife took their seats while the Speaker of the House of Lords pledged his loyalty and shared the "deep sympathy" that Parliament felt over the royal family's grief.
The King quoted Shakespeare in a tribute to the Queen as he addressed Parliament for the first time since becoming monarch. "As Shakespeare said of the earlier Queen Elizabeth, she was a pattern to all princes living," he said.
Addressing members of both Houses of Parliament, the King said the late Queen "set an example of selfless duty which, with God’s help and your counsels, I am resolved faithfully to follow".
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