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The funeral service for Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband of more than seven decades, will take place at Windsor Castle on Saturday afternoon.
While the ceremony will include some of the traditional grandeur of a significant royal event, there will be just 30 mourners inside St George’s Chapel for the funeral service because of Covid-19 restrictions.
There will be no public procession, all the congregation will wear masks, and the queen, who says the death has left a “huge void”, will sit alone.
“She’s the queen, she will behave with the extraordinary dignity and extraordinary courage that she always does. And at the same time, she is saying farewell to someone to who she was married for 73 years,” said Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will help officiate at the service.
He said he expected the funeral to resonate with the millions of people around the world who have lost loved ones during the pandemic.
“I think there will be tears in many homes because other names will be on their minds, faces they’ve lost that they don’t see again, funerals they couldn’t go to as many haven’t been able to go to this one because it is limited to 30 in the congregation,” he said. “That will break many a heart.”
Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had been by his wife’s side throughout her record-breaking 69-year reign, died peacefully at the age of 99 last week at the castle where the royal couple had been staying during a recent lockdown.
A decorated Royal Navy veteran of the second World War, his funeral, much of which was planned in meticulous detail by the prince himself, has a strong military feel, with personnel from across the armed forces playing prominent roles.
Army bands, navy pipers and Royal Marine buglers will take part, while his coffin will be conveyed from its resting place inside the castle to the chapel on the back of a specially-converted Land Rover that he helped design himself.
There will be a minute’s silence before the service starts.
The congregation will be limited to members of the royal family and Philip’s family, with no place for political figures such as prime minister Boris Johnson, who will watch the event on television where it will be broadcast live.
The entire event will be held within the walls of Windsor Castle and the public have been asked not to congregate outside or at any other royal residences to show their respects.
Much media attention will focus on the royals’ behaviour towards Prince Harry, as it will be his first public appearance with his family since an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he and his wife Meghan Markle outlined the challenges they experienced as members of the royal family.
He will walk apart from his brother Prince William in the procession behind Philip’s coffin, separated by their cousin Peter Phillips.
Mourners will eschew the tradition of wearing military uniforms, with newspapers saying that was to prevent embarrassment to Harry.
Despite serving two tours in Afghanistan during his army career, he would not be entitled to wear a uniform having been stripped of his honorary military titles.
“We’re not going to be drawn into those perceptions of drama, or anything like that,” a Buckingham Palace spokesman said. “This is a funeral. The arrangements have been agreed, and they represent her majesty’s wishes.”
The palace has emphasised that while the occasion would have the due pageantry that marks the passing of a senior royal, it remained an occasion for a mourning family to mark the passing of a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
The couple’s second son Prince Andrew has said his mother was being stoical in the face of a loss that she had described as “having left a huge void in her life”. – Reuters