A family’s farewell as well as a national catharsis

In life, the Queen drew all eyes to her. A diminutive figure, she dressed brightly to stand out among the crowds who came to see her.

In death, too, amid all the distractions of a state funeral, she still remained the very centre of attention at Westminster Abbey, her small coffin, draped in the primary colours of the Royal Standard, our last mortal link to her mighty reign.

Like at a royal garden party, her arrival – just before 11am at the Great West Door – sent a frisson through the waiting ranks. The congregation and the entire nation held its breath as her presence was announced, first by the silencing of the massed pipes and drums, playing the Mist Covered Mountains, and then by the orders bellowed to the bearer party: “Stand Still; Slow March.”

For those inside the church and for most of us watching at home, this was the goodbye scene – though her final journey ends in Windsor – the Abbey bookending her 70 years as Queen.

At its beginning were characters from another age, with Winston Churchill, Field-Marshal Montgomery and Jawaharlal Nehru attending her coronation in 1953.

As President Macron so eloquently put it, “She who stood with the giants of the twentieth century on the path of history has now left to join them.”

She, the great survivor of a bygone epoch, was seen on her way today by seven of her 15 British prime ministers, and the 14th American president she had met. 

In a service that was solemn but not sombre, there were the familiar hallmarks of Anglican worship, with the procession through the Abbey accompanied by the Burial Sentences, sung in settings by William Croft and Henry Purcell.

The coronation was marked by trumpets blazing and Zadok the Priest but the Queen’s funeral was, for the most part, a gentler affair, with traditional hymns, including The Lord is my Shepherd – said to be her favourite, amid more contemporary anthems.

Of the latter, Scottish composer (and staunch Unionist) James MacMillan’s Who Shall Separate Us, commissioned for the occasion, most likely by King Charles, will surely enter the musical canon for royal funerals to come.

While the Queen’s coronation was witnessed by her beloved husband, today she was dispatched as a widow. But, of course, she was not alone.

Among the more than 2,000 mourners were heads of state and overseas government representatives, including foreign royal families, governors general and Realm prime ministers, and other representatives of the Realms and the Commonwealth.

The Orders of Chivalry were in the congregation, too, including recipients of the Victoria Cross and George Cross, and representatives of government, Parliament, devolved parliaments and assemblies, the Church, and Her Majesty’s patronages, along with those from the emergency services, the loyal staff of the royal households and members of the public.

And then there was her family, the children and grandchildren who have grieved in the “brightest spotlight”, as Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said in his tender sermon.

An apparently late decision to bring the second and third in line to the throne, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, aged nine and seven, added more poignancy, if it were needed, to this unparalleled pageant.

In the ten days since her death, we have seen such a public outpouring of love for the Queen – symbolised most memorably over the past four and a half days by the Queue, but also in rural Aberdeenshire as her Scottish neighbours lined the first leg of her departure south, and in the streets of Edinburgh, at St Giles, and in the procession from Buckingham Palace to her lying in state at Westminster Hall – we may have wondered how the funeral itself could match the tributes already paid.

But in the event, we were reminded that this was both a family’s farewell and a moment of national catharsis. As Robert Janvrin, a former private secretary to the Queen, said, the funeral is “for the public, giving her back, letting her go”.

This was also a celebration of the Queen’s extraordinary life, one – as Welby stressed – that was grounded in service, to her people and to her profound faith. His echo of her Covid broadcast – “We will meet again” – will have brought comfort to those closest to her and to her mourning public.

With every detail beautifully choreographed with military, palace and civil service precision, the funeral ended as it had begun, flawlessly.

The Last Post, sounded by the State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry from the steps of the Lady Chapel, was followed by a nationwide two-minute silence, and then came the Reveille, and God Save the King.

The finale, fittingly for one so true to her Scottish roots, was delivered by the Queen’s piper, Pipe Major Paul Burns, who played the haunting lament, Sleep, dearie, sleep.

As the coffin procession moved on to Windsor for the committal and burial services at St George’s Chapel, London – and the whole country – began to pick up where it left off on September 8; we will all move on too.

Our longest reigning Queen devoted her days to upholding a constitutional monarchy that, for its enduring stability, became the envy of the world. By all accounts, she was completely at ease in her role, and happy throughout her reign, even in the days before she died.

For as she herself said, in her Easter message in 2020, “as dark as death can be — particularly for those suffering with grief —light and life are greater”.