The Queen’s state funeral will happen at Westminster Abbey at 11am on Monday 19 September, Buckingham Palace has introduced, on a day of mourning that the King has declared can be a financial institution vacation.
At current the Queen lies within the ballroom of Balmoral Fortress in an oak coffin coated with the Royal Customary for Scotland and with a wreath of flowers laid on prime. It’s a “scene of quiet dignity”, permitting her Balmoral property workers to pay their final respects, a palace spokesperson mentioned.
It’s the begin of a journey of processions, guards of honour, church providers and vigils because the nation begins its lengthy goodbye to the Queen and her coffin is moved over the approaching days to Westminster Corridor for a four-day mendacity in state earlier than her funeral.
Throughout this time, the King can be finishing up “all the mandatory state duties”. However “his major focus can be main the royal household, the nation, the realms and the Commonwealth in mourning Her Majesty the Queen,” his spokesperson mentioned.
On Monday, he and the Queen Consort will journey to Westminster Corridor the place, as is conventional, each Homes of Parliament will meet to specific their condolences on the dying of the Queen, and the King will make his reply.
On Sunday, the coffin will journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, a journey of six hours by street, by way of Aberdeen. Six of her Balmoral gamekeepers will carry the coffin from the Balmoral ballroom to the hearse.
It should stay within the throne room at Holyroodhouse till Monday afternoon, earlier than a procession to St Giles’ Cathedral on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, with the King, Queen Consort and different members of the royal household strolling behind. At 3pm there can be a service, attended by the King and members of the family, throughout which the crown of Scotland can be positioned on the coffin.
The Queen will then lie at relaxation at St Giles’ Cathedral for twenty-four hours, enabling the folks of Scotland to pay their final respects, with vigils mounted by the navy. That night, the King and members of the royal household will mount their very own vigil.
The next night the Queen’s coffin can be flown to London, accompanied by the Princess Royal, and arriving at Buckingham Palace at 8pm, the palace mentioned. It will likely be obtained by a guard of honour, with the King, Queen Consort and different members of the family watching, earlier than being carried to the Bow Room, the place a rota of chaplains will maintain watch.
Within the early afternoon on Wednesday, the coffin – adorned with the Imperial State Crown, together with a wreath of flowers – can be taken by procession to the Palace of Westminster for the mendacity in state, the place it should stay for 4 days till the morning of the funeral.
The King, members of the royal household and senior workers of the Queen and King’s households will stroll in silence behind the coffin because it follows a route alongside Queen’s Gardens, the Mall, Horse Guards Parade and Horse Guards Arch, Whitehall, Parliament Road, Parliament Sq. and New Palace Yard.
All through the procession, weapons can be fired at Hyde Park by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery and Massive Ben will toll. The coffin can be carried in procession from the gun carriage to the catafalque positioned within the centre of Westminster Corridor by a bearer get together.
Throughout the mendacity in state, a steady vigil can be mounted across the catafalque from the Family Division, the King’s Physique Guards of the Honourable Corps of Gents at Arms, the King’s Bodyguard for Scotland, the Royal Firm of Archers and the King’s Bodyguard the Yeomen of the Guard.
The Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, who has general duty for the funeral, which the Queen herself would have accredited, mentioned he and others concerned “will perform our obligation over the approaching days with the heaviest of hearts”.
“But in addition, with the firmest of resolve to make sure a becoming farewell to one of many defining figures of our instances; a monarch whom we have been actually privileged to have had as the pinnacle of state of our nation and the realms, and head of the broader Commonwealth,” he mentioned.
“Whereas His Majesty the King was talking about his household, I believe it applies to us all when he mentioned in his broadcast yesterday that ‘we owe her probably the most heartfelt debt’. I believe we are able to, ultimately, repay that debt by finishing up her final needs in delivering Her Majesty the Queen’s funeral.”
On his go to to Scotland, the King can have an viewers with the primary minister, adopted by an viewers with the presiding officer of the Scottish parliament.
The King and the Queen Consort will then attend the Scottish parliament to obtain a movement of condolence.
On Tuesday 13 September they’ll journey by air to Belfast and later go to Wales on Friday 16 September.
The federal government confirmed the day of the funeral would work in the identical method as different financial institution holidays, and that there can be no statutory entitlement to day off, with employers in a position to embody it as a part of a employee’s depart entitlement.
The Division for Enterprise mentioned the announcement didn’t intrude with current contractual preparations between employers and staff, however that they might “anticipate employers to reply sensitively to requests from staff who want to take the day of the funeral off work”.
They mentioned that faculties can be anticipated to shut.