It’s a day that promises to be gigantic in London this Monday, September 19: while most countries in the world will send a representative to the British capital to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth IIthe entire royal family will be reunited behind the new King Charles III and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla for various ceremonies.
From noon French time (11 a.m. local time), a procession will indeed begin on the banks of the Thames to transport the coffin of Queen Elizabeth from Westminster Hall, where it is currently presented to the public, to Westminster Abbey, for a great religious ceremony. In the audience, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden or even all the European crowned heads who should be numerous to make the trip.
New Prince of Wales, Prince William should be present with his wife Kate and, perhaps, his two eldest, George and Charlotte (9 and 7 years old), more and more accustomed to this kind of official ceremonies. His younger brother, Louis, will probably remain under the supervision of nannies.
His brother Prince Harry will also be present and accompanied by his wife, Meghan Markle. While a beginning of appeasement between the two brothers seems to be visible this week, we can only hope that they continue on their momentum and perhaps, end up burying the hatchet.
After the mass, which should still be quite long, the royal family will then depart for Windsor Castle, where the Queen has been living for the past few months (apart from her last summer, which she spent at Balmoral). There, a new ceremony will be celebrated in a much more private way, and the members of the clan will finally say goodbye to their grandmother, who died Thursday, September 8.
This one will indeed be buried near her parents and her sister in the crypt of the castle. The coffin of her husband, Prince Philip, who died in April 2021 at the age of 99, will soon join her, so that the sovereign will finally find the one she has always considered her rock. The end of a very long week, which saw the coffin cross Scotland, then Edinburgh before being transferred to London where hundreds of thousands of Britons will have rushed to see it one last time.
Then, life should resume its course: having remained in the United Kingdom since the announcement of the death of his grandmother, Prince Harry should in particular return as quickly as possible to the United States where his two children, Archie, 3, are waiting for him. years and Lilibet, 1 year.