The Queen Consort, Princess of Wales, Duchess of Sussex and Countess of Wessex will travel to Westminster by car. It will be the first time the late Queen’s grandchildren and their spouses will join in the mourning ceremony. At Westminster Hall, Elizabeth II will lie in state until the morning of her funeral on Monday, with an almost constant stream of members of the public filing past her coffin. Some 400,000 people are expected to attend, amid growing concern that the predicted five-mile queues requiring a 30-hour wait will prevent children and the elderly from playing their small part in history.
The Princess Royal accompanies her mother on the last flight
On Tuesday, the Princess Royal accompanied her mother on her last flight, departing at 5.42pm. on an RAF Globemaster C-17 military transport aircraft from Edinburgh to West London as the Queen left Scotland for the last time. The princess said it was “an honor and a privilege to accompany her on her final journeys” as she was with the Queen in the last 24 hours of her life. “The witness of love and respect shown by so many on these trips has been humbling and uplifting,” he said. Hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland turned out to pay their personal respects, with 33,000 people waiting in queues of up to 12 hours to get through as the Queen lay in repose at St Giles’ Cathedral and thronged the streets. At 4.20 p.m. on Tuesday, the coffin was carried from the cathedral to the sound of a lone piper in the hearse, followed by soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Members of the public lined the streets leading to the airport, some removing their hats as the hearse passed, others watching in silence or filming on their cellphones the scenes that encapsulate mourning in the modern age. At Edinburgh Airport, a guard of honor of three officers and 101 enlisted men was formed by the Royal Regiment of Scotland, with an aircraft party provided by the Queen’s Color Squadron, Royal Air Force. The aircraft, recently used for Operation Pitting to evacuate thousands of Taliban defectors, took off at 5.42pm.
