On Thursday, he and the Queen Consort will finally take time in private to rest and reflect. After a whirlwind tour of Scotland and Northern Ireland, audiences with key figures in UK public life and calls to heads of state, including US President Joe Biden, the King – himself 73 – will take time to read the red boxes he has inherited from his mother away from the public eye at his home in Highgrove. The Earl and Countess of Wessex will meet the public and light a memorial candle in Manchester. It will be a brief pause in ceremonial duties for the royal family, who will reassemble to walk again in unparalleled public spectacle for the full state funeral on Monday, September 19. On Tuesday night, they had spent their last private moments en masse with her coffin in the Bow Room of Buckingham Palace, before paving the way for the late queen’s long-standing and loyal staff to pay their tearful respects. From there, as a royal source said: “The coffin passes through the family, to the state, to the nation.” The first sign of how seriously the nation would take this task came at 1.45pm, when City Hall announced that all public viewing areas for the procession were full. Crowds, surprisingly quiet, patiently awaited the sounds and sights of British pomp and ceremony in full flow. At 2.22pm, to the sound of Beethoven’s Funeral No 1 March, the Queen’s coffin – draped in a Royal Standard and drawn in the same carriage of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery that carried her father in 1952 – appeared , and her mother. 2002. He passed through the gates of Buckingham Palace for the last time.
