charles iii

This is how it ends one of the longest reigns in history. After funeral with great pomp in London, Elizabeth II joined, Monday, September 19, his last resting place, the chapel of Saint-Georges of his castle of Windsor, where the sovereign with planetary popularity must be buried in the intimacy.

Before being lowered into the royal vault of the Saint-Georges chapel, the heavy oak and lead coffin was relieved of the jewels that had adorned it since the death of the sovereign on September 8: the imperial crown, the scepter and the royal orb symbolizing the Christian world.

King Charles III placed a standard there in the colors of the Grenadier Guards, of which the Queen was the Colonel-in-Chief, then the Lord Chamberlain broke his baton and placed it on the coffin, a symbolic gesture to signify the end of his reign.

After ten days of national mourning marked by a huge wave of collective emotiona private ceremony attended by the king and other members of the royal family is still scheduled for 6:30 p.m. GMT.

The remains of Elizabeth II will be transferred, together with that of Philip, her husband died in April 2021 and currently in the Royal Vault, in the Chapel’s George VI Memorial, alongside the Queen’s parents and the ashes of her sister Margaret.

A parade of 6,000 soldiers

Thousands of people lined the roads leading to the west London residence where, still a princess, she had taken refuge during the Second World War and then spent most of her last years.

After the farewells of his family and hundreds of foreign dignitaries at Westminster Abbey, followed by a parade of 6,000 soldiers through London, the procession, framed by royal guards in red uniforms and black fur caps, arrived by traversing the impressive “Long Walk”, the alley crossing the domain, black with people.

On the steps of the castle: the two corgis of the Queen, Muick and Sandy, now in the care of her son Andrew.

>> To see: United Kingdom: the exorbitant cost of the funeral of Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II’s last voyage has come to an end. Since his death on September 8, at the age of 96, at his Scottish residence in Balmoralhis closed coffin crossed his kingdom, in a hearse, a plane of the Royal Air Force, or during slow funeral processions on sad tunes played by brass bands, pulled by horses or sailors.

In Edinburgh and then London, hundreds of thousands of people waited for hours, sometimes all night, to pay their respects to the remains of the only monarch that most Britons have ever known, whose face, present on the banknotes of banks and stamps, was recognized worldwide.

Huge popular emotion

A chapter in world history closes with these farewells to the monarch who has gone through her 70 years, seven months and two days of reign with a constant sense of duty, without ever publicly sharing an opinion, but fulfilling her duties as head of State with seriousness, benevolence and a deadpan humor that is sometimes irresistible.

In Windsor, Pauline Huxtable, 64, came to celebrate the “extraordinary life” of a queen imbued with “dignity”: she was a “mother figure”.

“I will never see another queen in my lifetime, because now it’s King Charles III, then it will be Prince William, then George”, observes Caroline Lachman, 48, present on the “Long Walk”.

“Elizabeth II had this ability to gather for 70 years, she was incredible,” she adds, describing a “sad” but “celebratory” atmosphere.

>> To see: In pictures, the day of farewell to Queen Elizabeth II

The last day of farewell to the sovereign will have been like the 12 days that followed her death: charged with immense popular emotion, carefully staged, with all the pomp of the secular traditions of the British monarchy. It had been planned for two decades.

In the middle of the morning, to the sound of bagpipes, the coffin, surmounted by the glittering imperial crown, left Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament, to reach neighboring Westminster Abbey. Dozens of sailors were pulling her, followed by King Charles III, his siblings and children, the brothers William, the heir, and Harry, the Californian, in cold weather.

In the Abbey, Queen Consort Camilla, Kate, the new Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Harry’s wife, joined them. But also the two eldest of William and Kate, George, 9 years old, now second in the order of succession, and Charlotte, 7 years old, serious in their black outfit.

In the audience, the gratin of the leaders of the planet, including the American presidents Joe Biden and French Emmanuel Macronthe six former British Prime Ministers still alive, from John Major to Boris Johnson, and European crowned heads, from the King of Spain Felipe VI to King Philippe of Belgium via Prince Albert of Monaco.

“God Save the King”

“In a famous speech, delivered on his 21st birthday, Her late Majesty declared that her whole life would be devoted to the service of the nation and the Commonwealth,” recalled the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the Church Anglican which was ruled by the Queen.

“Rarely has a promise been so well kept,” he added, paying tribute to a “joyful, present for so many people, touching a multitude of lives” queen.

After the “Last Post”, a tribute to fallen soldiers in the British army, the ceremony ended with two minutes of poignant silence, observed across the country, before the national anthem which now celebrates Charles III , “God Save the King”.

Applause rang out outside the gothic building where Elizabeth, still a princess, had married the dashing Philip Mountbatten aged 21 in November 1947, before being crowned there on June 2, 1953.

Increasingly frail in recent months, suffering from mobility problems, Elizabeth II still received, smiling, two days before her death, brand new Prime Minister Liz Truss – the opportunity for a last public photo.

She was the oldest serving leader in the world. During her life, she went through the Second World War, saw the dissolution of the British Empire, the entry and then the exit of her kingdom from the European Union.

After exhausting days of traveling through the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom, of walkabouts combined with the loss of a mother, Charles III will have to write his own history.

Some dreamed of a quick transition with the new Prince of Wales, his son William, 40. But the king promised, like his mother, to serve all his life.

If its popularity rating has skyrocketed to 70% according to YouGov, the challenges, many, are only beginning, some Commonwealth countries not hiding their desire to break away from the monarchy.

As of Tuesday, the United Kingdom resumes the course of its life suspended since September 8, with the economic crisis and social movements a premier plan.

With AFP