Details have been announced of the arrangements for the Queen’s state funeral next week.
Two thousand people, including world leaders and foreign royals, will gather inside Westminster Abbey in London on Monday, which has been made a bank holiday.
Thousands more are expected to line the streets of the UK capital to witness the processions to and from the Abbey, while millions will tune in worldwide to the proceedings broadcast live on television.
Tasked with organising the historic occasion was the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, who described the task of organising the historic occasion as “both humbling and daunting. An honour and a great responsibility”.
Britain’s most senior peer said the funeral would “unite people across the globe and resonate with people of all faiths” and pay a “fitting tribute to an extraordinary reign”.
Here are the details that have been set out so far.
Attendees
Doors will open at Westminster Abbey from 8am on Monday for the service, which is set to begin at 11am.
As well as the Royal Family, guests at the service will include world leaders like US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Heads of state and overseas government representatives, including foreign royal families, governors general and Realm prime ministers, will gather at the Royal Hospital Chelsea and “travel under collective arrangements” to the Abbey.
Representatives from law, emergency services, public servants and professions, as well as charities the Queen supported, will also be invited.
The procession to the Abbey
Rehearsals are already underway for the processions to and from the Abbey on Monday, involving thousands of military personnel in ceremonial uniform.
Setting off at 10.44am from Westminster Hall, where the Queen has been lying in state, the coffin will be carried in a procession on a 123-year-old gun carriage, towed by 98 Royal Navy sailors in a tradition dating back to the funeral of Queen Victoria.
The procession will be led by a massed Pipes & Drums of Scottish and Irish Regiments, the Brigade of Gurkhas, and the Royal Air Force, involving around 200 musicians.
The King will lead his family in marching behind the coffin, walking with the Princess Royal, Duke of York and Earl of Wessex. Behind them will be the Queen’s grandsons Peter Phillips, the Duke of Sussex and the Prince of Wales.
They will be followed by the late monarch’s son-in-law Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the Duke of Gloucester, the Queen’s cousin, and her nephew the Earl of Snowdon.
The procession will arrive at the west gate of Westminster Abbey at 10.52am when the bearer party will lift the coffin from the gun carriage and carry it into the Abbey for the state funeral service.
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The service
The service will begin at 11am and will be conducted by the Dean of Westminster.
The Prime Minister and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth will read Lessons, while the Archbishop of York, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Free Churches Moderator will say prayers.
The sermon will be given by the Archbishop of Canterbury who will also give the commendation, while the Dean will pronounce the blessing.
At around 11.55am the Last Post will sound, followed by two minutes of silence to be observed in the Abbey and throughout the UK.
Reveille, the national anthem and a lament played by the Queen’s piper will bring the state funeral service to an end at around 12 noon.
The procession from the Abbey
After the service has concluded, the bearer party will lift the coffin from the catafalque and will move in procession through the Great West Door returning to the gun carriage positioned outside the Abbey’s west gate.
The coffin will be followed by the King and the Queen Consort, the Prince and Princess of Wales and members of the royal family who will walk in the procession to Wellington Arch at Hyde Park.
The route will be lined by the Armed Forces from Westminster Abbey to the top of Constitution Hill at the Commonwealth Memorial Gates.
The procession is formed of seven groups, each supported by a service band. Mounties from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will lead, immediately followed by representatives of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, NHS staff, and detachments from the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth.
At Wellington Arch the royal family will watch as the Queen’s coffin is transferred to the new state hearse, whose details the Queen approved, before it begins its journey to Windsor Castle.
The burial
The hearse is due to arrive in Windsor just after 3pm, where it is likely to be welcomed by the public lining the route.
A televised committal service will take place at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle at 4pm, before the Queen is buried with the Duke of Edinburgh in King George VI’s chapel at Windsor Castle in a private service at 7.30pm.
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