A Century Of Grief How The Observer Saw Britain S State Funerals Through The Years Queen Elizabeth Ii
A state funeral, a rare event, must be explained to every generation. Its magnificence and occult tradition are always mysterious. So the news bulletins read like a grim catechism. a list of conventions designed to give identity to a nation. In 1910, after the death of Victoria’s son Edward VII, a writer for the Observer made this point when he praised Westminster Hall and St George’s Chapel in Windsor, quoting the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle who, he thought, “ never spoke a truer word....