Queen Elizabeth II said goodbye this Saturday to her 73-year-old husband, her “strength and support”, Prince Felipe, in a sober military-looking funeral with masks and a few guests from cause of the pandemic.
Funerals for British royalty are often large, planned for years and attended by monarchs and leaders from around the world.
But coronavirus restrictions forced plans to change the funeral plans for Felipe, who died on April 9, two months before his 100th birthday. The ceremony was limited to 30 intimate guests with masks and safety distances.
The event began with a minute’s silence before the service of St. George’s Church, a 15th-century Gothic chapel in nearly a thousand-year-old Windsor Castle, about 50 miles west of London.
Wearing military medals on civilian clothes, the four children and several of the royal couple’s grandchildren accompanied Land Rover on foot, specially designed by Felipe to carry his coffin on foot during a short funeral procession through the castle gardens.
The queen followed them in an official Bentley with a waiting lady.
However, the monarch, who turns 95 next Wednesday, sat alone in the chapel to say goodbye to her husband, the man she married while still a princess in 1947 and whose death leaves her. alone in the twilight of his reign.
A choir of four alien singers from the huge ship sang themes chosen by the Duke of Edinburgh himself, including two he commissioned from British composers Benjamin Britten in 1961 and William Lovelady in 1996.
Windsor Dean David Conner also recalled Philip’s “service life.”
After the funeral, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Anglicans, the Duke was taken down in private to the royal crypt of St. George’s Chapel to be buried.
– Guillermo and Enrique –
The consort prince was a constant presence with Elizabeth II, because, at only 25 years old, she was crowned in 1952, when the United Kingdom was rebuilding after World War II and its empire began to collapse.
The monarch posted a strong personal photo of the two relaxed and smiling people in Cairngorms National Park in Scotland on Saturday, 2003.
And images with key moments of the marriage were broadcast on the social networks of the royal family.
Many royal experts say that Felipe was the one who managed with an iron fist a family marked by crises, helping the queen to resist scandals.
On Saturday, all eyes were on Prince Enrique and Guillermo, whose relationship is strained.
This was the 36-year-old man’s first public appearance with royalty, since he and his wife Meghan, who did not travel to the UK because she was pregnant, abandoned their royal duties and moved to California. .
Enrique did not walk behind the coffin with his 38-year-old brother. Among them was his cousin Peter Phillips, who fueled speculation about a persistent dispute.
However, the two left to speak at the end of the ceremony, accompanied by Guillermo’s wife, Catalina, in a possible sign of reconciliation.
– “The country will miss” –
Because of the coronavirus, the British were asked not to travel to Windsor. However, some decided to make the trip while most of the country watched the event on television, as did Prime Minister Boris Johnson at his residence on Checkers.
“People shouldn’t come, but this is an extraordinary event, the only one in a generation, the duke was special,” said Mark, 57, one of dozens of security guards on the streets. AFP. From Windsor.
“It was very important for me to be here today,” said Kaya Mar, a 65-year-old painter who arrived on the first train in London with a large portrait of Felipe under his arm. “He was a good man” and “the country will miss him,” he said.
Covered with his sword, navy hat and personal banner, the duke’s coffin had been transferred in the morning by the bearers of the First Grenadier Battalion – of which Felipe had been a colonel for 42 years – from the royal family’s private chapel to another castle hall.
Before the procession, the royal guards, with high black bear hair hats and dozens of representatives of other military corps lined the impeccable lawn in the central courtyard of the castle while playing the marching band.
In the bright sunlight, the duke’s personal carriage arrived, pulled by his two ponies and wearing the deceased’s hat and gloves.
On the steps of the chapel were positioned the representatives of the cavalry, dressed in suits, with their metal torso and helmets with long panels.
The bearers then entered the coffin for the final ceremony.