At the late Queen’s funeral and again at the new King’s coronation, when the solemn moment arrived at which each cortège, so different in character yet so complementary in constitutional significance, began its progress down the great nave of Westminster Abbey, it immediately became evident that there was a near-obstruction to its passage. 

The grave of the Unknown Warrior is inconveniently placed at the western end of the aisle, forcing even pall-bearers of the more recently deceased to detour around it, sometimes bifurcating elaborate processions of state. The inconvenience is consciously contrived. The anonymous soldier, solitary representative of his innumerable fallen comrades, was deliberately laid to rest in a position that obliges the living to acknowledge him by reverently walking around his tomb.