The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II arrived at Buckingham Palace in London on Tuesday evening. He must pass at night in the Bow Room, a circular room with marble columns framing each of the monumental windows, where palace staff can bid him farewell in private. On Wednesday, a procession must in particular take place to lead the remains of the queen to Westminster.
After prayers at the palace in the presence of King Charles III, Queen Consort Camilla and members of the Royal Family, the coffin will be transported on a chariot in a grand military procession to Westminster Hall, within the Palace of Westminster. The King, Queen and Royal Family will join the procession, during which the famous Big Ben bell will ring and cannons will be fired from Hyde Park.
The queen’s coffin will be on public display at Westminster Hall from 4 p.m. (5 p.m. in France) until the morning of his funeral, early Monday, September 19. Draped with the royal standard, the coffin will rest on a catafalque (a kind of platform) itself draped in purple. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected.
This Tuesday morning already, a handful of Britons were already braving the capricious weather to wait on the other side of the Thames, before the exhibition of the coffin in Westminster Hall. “We expect a monster queue tomorrow morning”, explains Rumesh, the press evoking up to 750,000 people for more than ten kilometres. “It’s the calm before the storm.” The streets will not be the only ones to be crowded: the hotels in the center are already full and the prices go up. London transport is warning commuters of inevitable disruption and pubs are bracing for busy days. Thousands of police officers have been requisitioned to face this immense security challenge.