The body of Queen Elizabeth II, on her “final journey”, as Charles III defined it, arrived in London at 18:55 this Tuesday (13), local time (14:55 GMT). The sovereign died on Thursday (8), at Balmoral Palace, in Scotland, and her eldest son was proclaimed on Saturday (10) the new king of the British.
The flight left Edinburgh airport at 5:44 pm (1:44 pm in Brasilia), and who accompanied the coffin was Elizabeth’s only child, Princess Anne. The arrival in London took place at an RAF (Royal Air Force) base in Ruislip, in the far west of the English capital.
The body spent the night at Saint Giles Cathedral, in the Scottish capital, where at least 26,000 people, according to the government, paid their last respects in person – members of the royal family remained on vigil.
From Ruislip’s base, the Queen’s body goes straight to Buckingham Palace, where it will be welcomed by the King, Queen Consort Camilla and other royals. He will spend the night at the official residence of the monarchy, in private ceremonies. This Wednesday (14), he will be taken in procession to the Palace of Westminster, seat of the British Parliament. Tens of thousands of people are expected on the streets, in an amplified version of the movement seen in recent days in front of the monarchy’s castles.
According to the official schedule, the procession should reach Westminster around 3 pm, when the beats of Big Ben, the famous clock of Parliament, will mark the passage of the procession. From 5pm on Wednesday, Westminster Hall will be open to the public until Monday morning, when the funeral and burial will take place.
Perhaps the people most interested in these details across the UK are a group that is on the banks of the River Thames, close to Lambeth Bridge, 850 meters from Westminster. It was there that the police decided to organize the front of the line to see the queen. At 2 pm on Tuesday, there were about 15 people, and the first two women have been there since Monday (12).
The fourth person in line was Sarah Langley, a railroad worker who took the opportunity to spend her two days off in the open air. She had arrived at 12:30 am on Tuesday and spent the first night sleeping on the grass. “This small sacrifice is the least I can do for someone who is irreplaceable. There will never be anyone like Elizabeth again,” she told Sheet.
Dressed in a shirt, a sweatshirt and jacket over it, as well as a pair of black Doc Martens boots, Sarah, 55, carried a plastic bag with sandwiches, protein bars and water. “I got off work last night and came here. I’ll be back at work at 6:30 on Thursday. But at 5:00 tomorrow I’ll be one of the first to see the queen,” she said. She had already spent 14 hours there and had another 27 hours to go. On Tuesday morning, it rained insistently across the city.
At 85 years old, Michael Darvill arrived at that moment to take the torch from the queue. “I never had the opportunity to do anything like this,” he said. “I was 10 when she married Philip in 1947. They were so beautiful. And I was about 15 when King George the Sixth, a great man, died in 1952. All this I watched on the black and white television of the time, with a tiny screen. So now I wanted to be here in person.”
The short queue attracted many press teams; some even spent the night there next to Vanessa Nathakumaran and Anne (no last name known), the first two people in line. This Tuesday, the interest was so great that the police organized a queue of about ten journalists so that each one could speak to them — plus the third — in an organized and efficient manner.
According to a source in the Evening Standard newspaper, the costs of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will exceed 6 billion pounds. That figure includes the factor of a national holiday being declared next Monday – that alone could cost the public coffers 2.9 billion pounds – and the coronation of Charles III, which will probably only take place next year.
The amount will not be officially disclosed. Elizabeth’s mother’s funeral in 2002 cost around £5.4m (not billion like the Queen’s now), while Princess Diana’s in 1997 was between £3m and £5m.
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