Queen Elizabeth Set To Be Buried In The UK
The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II is taking place in the United Kingdom.
It is an emotional day for the British public as they bid a final farewell to their beloved monarch, who died on Sept. 8 at the age of 96. The country has come to a standstill, with businesses and schools closed.
The funeral service was held at Westminster Abbey—the Gothic church in central London where the Queen was crowned in 1953. Her coffin then made its way through Central London in a funeral procession more than a mile long that involved thousands of members of the U.K.’s military. Afterwards, the Queen is to be interred at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor—a historic town some 26 miles (42 kilometers) from London that is the location of Windsor Castle, one of the royal residences.
Planning a state funeral of this magnitude in a little more than a week was a logistical nightmare—one that British officials likened to “arranging 100 state visits all in one go.”
Yet despite the throngs of people and the heavily-congested streets, the mood outside the Palace of Westminster, where the funeral procession marched past as it headed towards Wellington Arch, was mostly calm. Thousands of people shuffled past one another to watch the procession go by.
Police officers, some of whom had been brought in from far flung parts of the country, helped guide onlookers along. While many mounted buildings and lamp posts to see over the crowds, others brought camping chairs and step-ladders. Some even climbed on the shoulders of their partners and friends.
The United Kingdom fell silent for two minutes beginning at 11:58 a.m. local time on Monday to honor Queen Elizabeth II. The two minutes of silence began at the funeral for the monarch in Westminster Abbey, but was expected to be widely observed across the nation of 67 million people.
Thousands of people gathered outside the Palace of Westminster fell silent as word got around that the two minutes of silence had begun—slightly behind schedule. For those few moments, the only noises that could be heard were the click of cameras, the occasional hushes among the crowd, and bits of the funeral procession streaming from people’s phones.
The silence ended as quickly as it began when the crowd broke into the national anthem—this time singing “God Save the King” after 70 years of “God Save the Queen.”
As people sang, it was clear that the moment represented for many a palpable sense of transition—from Queen to King and from the end of one age to the start of the next. For most, it was the first time they had sung God Save the King. “It was just a very British moment,” Tina Ferry, 52, from Portsmouth, tells TIME.
Where is the Queen being buried?
Queen Elizabeth is being interred at the late medieval St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, where ten other monarchs lie buried.
The royal vault at the chapel is the final resting place of several members of the British royal family, but the Queen is being interred at an annex known as the King George VI Memorial Chapel. This addition was unveiled at her request in 1969 as a final resting place for her father, whose remains were moved to it from the royal vault.
SOURCE – THE TIMES