Edward William Fitzalan-Howard, the official accountable for preparations, stated the funeral and occasions over coming days are supposed to “unite folks throughout the globe and resonate with folks of all faiths, while fulfilling her majesty and her household’s needs to pay a becoming tribute to a rare reign.”
Tens of hundreds had been standing in a line Thursday that snaked for greater than 4 miles alongside the River Thames in London, ready to file in silence previous her coffin.
“The queen held a novel and timeless place in all our lives. This has been felt extra keenly over the previous few days, because the world involves phrases together with her demise,” Fitzalan-Howard stated.
On Friday night, King Charles III and his siblings will stand vigil at their mom’s coffin for quarter-hour because it lies in state on the 900-year-old Westminster Corridor on the Homes of Parliament. Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward additionally stood vigil with the coffin when it lay in St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh earlier this week.
After the state funeral on Monday, attended by 2,000 friends, together with U.S. President Joe Biden and different visiting heads of state, Elizabeth’s coffin can be carried by way of the historic coronary heart of London, from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch close to Buckingham Palace on a horse-drawn gun carriage with Charles and different royals strolling behind.
Additionally among the many funeral friends can be practically 200 folks honored by the late queen for his or her work responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and in sectors together with charities, healthcare and schooling.
Amid pomp and pageantry, the coffin will journey alongside just about the identical route, together with down the flag-lined Mall to the one it handed Wednesday in entrance of hushed throngs of mourners when it was taken from the palace to the Homes of Parliament.
London’s Heathrow Airport introduced it’ll halt all flights for quarter-hour earlier than the two-minute nationwide silence on Monday, till quarter-hour after it has completed “to keep away from noise disruption.”
From London, the queen’s coffin will then be pushed within the state hearse to Windsor for a committal service at St. George’s Chapel close to Windsor Fortress, attended by 800 folks, together with members of the queen’s family and Windsor property employees.
On the finish of the service, the coffin can be lowered into the Royal Vault and the sovereign’s piper will play a lament. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will pronounce the blessing and the congregation will sing “God Save The King.”
Members of the royal household will then maintain a personal burial service on the King George VI Memorial Chapel, the place the queen can be interred together with her late husband, Prince Philip, who died final yr at 99.
Comply with AP tales on the loss of life of Queen Elizabeth II and the U.Okay. royal household at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii
