The Queen’s funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey on Monday, Sept. 19, at 11 a.m. local time, Buckingham Palace announced on Saturday, shortly after King Charles III was proclaimed as Britain’s new monarch in a traditional ceremony.
The Queen’s coffin is currently in Balmoral Castle where she died. On Sunday, the oak coffin will be taken by car on a six-hour journey to Edinburgh, where it will rest in the throne room of the Palace of Holyroodhouse until Monday afternoon, when there will be a service at St. Giles’ Cathedral. King Charles and other members of the Royal Family will attend the service.
The coffin will remain in the cathedral for a day “to allow the people of Scotland to pay their respects,” officials said.
On Tuesday, the Queen’s coffin will be flown to London and taken to Buckingham Palace. The following day it will move to Westminster Hall, the oldest building in the parliamentary estate, where the Queen will lie in state for four days until the morning of the funeral.
“During the Lying-in-State, members of the public will have the opportunity to visit Westminster Hall to pay their respects to The Queen,” the palace said. The morning of Sept. 19, the coffin will be taken in a procession from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey for the state funeral.
After the funeral, the coffin will be taken in a procession to Wellington Arch and then to Windsor Castle, about 32 kilometres west of London. Windsor is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world and has been the family home of kings and queens for almost 1,000 years.
After the funeral, the coffin will travel to St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle where the Queen will be interred in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, in the North Nave Aisle where her parents and sister are buried.
The coffin of Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband of 73 years who died in April, 2021, is expected to be moved from the royal vault at Windsor to be buried alongside his wife.
With reports from Reuters
Paul Waldie