Unforgettable outpouring for the Queen shows the monarchy is here to stay
REPUBLICANS across Britain are astounded that tens of thousands of people have been slowly shuffling in a five-mile queue to pay their last respects to the Queen.
The proof of overwhelming support for the monarchy and Britain is on the streets.
Watching the silent pilgrims wind their way after the long shuffle from Tower Bridge and even beyond on to the Embankment opposite Parliament, heading for Lambeth Bridge with the end in sight, is a sobering experience.
In a procession of remarkable simplicity, every type of person, nationality and background is represented.
All are anonymous and yet instantly recognisable as ambassadors of not just Britain but of every nationality.
Decency, humility and grief is etched on every face.
Similar loyalty brought me with my two eldest grandsons, Leo, 13, and Ben, 11, to Westminster Hall on Thursday evening.
Like thousands of others, I came to pay homage to the incarnation in one person of Britain’s unique virtues — stability, humour, generosity, tolerance, courage, duty, modesty and an abiding love of democracy.
The monarch’s lying-in-state was started 400 years ago, by the Stuart kings.
First in Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace, but only staged in Westminster Hall since 1910, after the death of the Queen’s great-grandfather, Edward VII.
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SPONTANEOUS PRAISE
Twenty-six years later, a nervous nine-year-old Elizabeth had been taken to Westminster Hall to pay respects to her beloved grandfather George V.
Pale and quivering, Elizabeth mentioned the overwhelming silence.
It was as if, she said, “the King was asleep”.
Unlike her grandfather, the Queen’s death has attracted extraordinary recognition across the globe.
Few other world leaders could expect their death to herald such spontaneous praise and an unrequited desire to attend tomorrow’s funeral.
As Big Ben showed six, we entered Westminster Palace and then Westminster Hall.
Momentarily, I was paralysed by the awesome simplicity of the sight. Inside the draped coffin, lit by chandeliers, was the woman who had shaped our destiny.
And so we arrived at the top of the wide stone steps at the south end of the hall, ready to walk past the coffin.
How strange to be part of this remarkable silent vigil.
Ushers, in their black britches and white ruffled shirts, gently nudged the mourners on to the carpet that led down the steps.
The dark oak beams, one thousand years old, soared above us.
Mourners quietly walked in two files on each side of the coffin.
Ahead, the Imperial State Crown, made for the coronation of King George VI in 1937.
Set with more than 3,000 jewels — diamonds, pearls, sapphires, emeralds and just five rubies — it sits on the purple velvet cushion, which in turn lies on the gold and red Royal Standard.
Its importance is not its priceless value but that the first jewels were owned by the Royal Family in 1367.
The crown caught the late afternoon light but looked surprisingly small. It weighs just 2.3lb.
Alongside is the coronation orb made for Charles II, the King who restored the monarchy in 1660 after Britain’s unhappy flirtation with Oliver Cromwell’s republic.
Nestling nearby is a wreath of white roses and dahlias, studded with pine from the royal estate at Balmoral in Scotland, and lavender and rosemary from Windsor, each with their own significance.
We see the casque, resting on the raised platform, draped with purple cloth.
Strange to think that the coffin, lead lined, was said to have been made more than 30 years ago.
The Westminster Cross stands at its foot.
Our timing was perfect — as we stood there, the tap, tap...tap, tap, called for the changing of the guard.
The procession of mourners was paused. Slowly, immaculately, the ten guards, resplendent in their red and gold uniforms, emerged from a door on the left at the far end.
Step by precise step, they marched. Time seemed to hang between each step. Tap, tap...tap, tap.
And the manoeuvres planned to the inch were completed in a matter of a few minutes.
There the new guards will stand for precisely 20 minutes, hardly seeming to breath, let alone blink, until the next changing of the guard.
As we walked slowly down the steps, each person, young and old, mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, grandchildren, who came to pay their respects, brought their own memories.
Some stopped for a few moments to raise their hands to pray, most just bowed their heads or paused, and moved silently, reluctantly, towards the door and the courtyard.
I stopped momentarily to look back at the coffin, towards the vast stained-glass window in St Stephen’s Porch. It was all over so quickly. But will never be forgotten.
As I stood in the hall, I wondered about the Queen’s life, especially her relationship with all her Prime Ministers because, by strange coincidence, I had spent the previous day touring the battlefields and cemeteries of Gallipoli, in Turkey — the scene in 1915 of Winston Churchill’s catastrophic invasion to speed Germany’s defeat in the First World War.
I recalled that Churchill, the Queen’s first Prime Minister, resigned from the Admiralty because of his responsibility for the catastrophe and carnage.
Yet 50 years later, the Queen had unprecedentedly attended Churchill’s funeral after he lay in state in Westminster Hall — a very rare honour for a politician, only matched by William Gladstone.
Last Thursday, as the guards stood to attention around her coffin, I wondered whether during the Queen’s fabled audiences with her first Prime Minister, she had asked him about his responsibility for those young men’s gravestones.
Did Churchill have a conscience? The question was more than usually relevant because in 1965, along with school friends, I had queued to pass the statesman’s coffin in Westminster Hall.
Fascinated by history, I regarded Churchill as the nation’s saviour.
Etched in my memory is also that rainy day in 1953 when I watched the Queen’s Coronation.
Through his work, my father knew someone who owned a TV, a rarity in those days.
Sitting cross-legged with other children in front of a black and white screen encased in a polished mahogany box, with the adults on chairs behind, we silently watched what seemed like a mediaeval ceremony.
The unforgettable image was not the young Queen wearing a huge crown, but the sight of Prince Charles looking down on the ceremony.
Even at such a young age I did feel a strange kinship to the prince, who was just one year younger.
For the millions who lined London’s streets in 1953, the Coronation was the curtain-raiser to a new, affluent era.
For those born just after the war and, like me, whose playgrounds were London’s bombsites, we can recall the local butcher and grocer cutting out a numbered square from the crudely printed ration book.
We remember the lack of sweets and the cold homes.
But at my stinking Victorian school the lesson was that Britain still had an empire, its Navy ruled the waves and there was the promise of better times coming.
To mark the new Elizabethan era, every school child was given a blue pen inscribed with the Coronation date and a book about Britain’s history.
FILLED WITH PRIDE
I cannot honestly say that both remained treasured possessions but, for my post-war generation, the Royal Family was our family.
Watching the Pathe News reports of the Queen’s global tours at the Kentish Town Forum cinema — invariably before a John Wayne cowboy film — filled me with pride.
Pathe’s reports of the Queen being welcomed by smiling dignitaries around the world and waving to bystanders reaffirmed my belief in Britain.
Of course, the country has changed beyond belief but the spectacle of Westminster Hall reaffirms the strength of continuity.
Among the symbols of Britain’s deep-rooted traditions is the knowledge that the Queen lies underneath the Royal Standard in an oak coffin.
Oak trees have a special place in British history. Symbolising the country’s permanence and its steadfast true values, we learnt at school that mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
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Glancing at my fellow pilgrims as we walk past the Queen, I know that they too have made this unforgettable visit to tell their children and grandchildren that they witnessed history.
Joined by hundreds of thousands on London’s streets tomorrow, they send an irrefutable message of loyalty to the monarchy and our new King, King Charles III.
