Queen Elizabeth II took the final farewell to the man she had been married to for 73 years this Saturday, her “strength and support,” Prince Felipe, in a sober military-looking funeral with masks and few guests due to the pandemic.
Funerals for British royalty are often grand, planned for years and attended by monarchs and leaders from around the world.
But the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus forced the funeral of Felipe, who died on April 9, two months before his 100th birthday, to be changed. The ceremony was limited to 30 intimate guests with masks and safety distances.
The event began with a minute of silence before the divine service at St. George, the 15th-century Gothic chapel in the nearly 1,000-year-old Windsor Castle, about 50 km west of London.
The four children and some grandchildren of the royal couple wore their military medals on civilian clothes and accompanied the green Land Rover, specially designed by Felipe to carry his coffin, on foot on a short funeral procession through the castle gardens.
The Queen followed them in an official Bentley with a lady-in-waiting.
However, the monarch, who will turn 95 next Wednesday, sat alone in the chapel to say goodbye to her husband, the man she married in 1947 when she was a princess and whose death leaves her alone in the twilight of her reign.
A chorus of four estranged singers in the huge nave sang themes chosen by the Duke of Edinburgh himself, including two commissioned by British composers Benjamin Britten in 1961 and William Lovelady in 1996.
And Windsor Dean David Conner remembered Philip’s “life on duty.”
After the funeral, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the Anglicans, the Duke was privately lowered into the royal crypt of St. George’s Chapel for burial.
– Guillermo and Enrique –
The Prince Consort has been a constant presence alongside Elizabeth II since, at just 25 years old, she was crowned in 1952, when the United Kingdom was rebuilding after World War II and its empire began to crumble.
The frost posted a poignant personal photo of those relaxing and laughing in Scotland’s Cairngorms National Park on Saturday in 2003.
And images of key moments of the wedding were distributed on the social networks of the royal family.
Numerous royal experts assure that it was Felipe who led a crisis-ridden family with an iron hand and helped the queen weather the scandals.
On Saturday, all eyes were on Princes Enrique and Guillermo, whose relationships are tense.
This was the 36-year-old’s first public appearance with royalty since he and his wife Meghan, who didn’t travel to the UK because she was pregnant, gave up their royal duties and moved to California.
Enrique did not run behind the coffin with his 38-year-old brother. Among them was his cousin Peter Phillips, who sparked speculation about an ongoing dispute.
However, the two left at the close of the ceremony, accompanied by Guillermo’s wife, Catalina, in a possible sign of reconciliation.
– “The country will miss him” –
Due to the corona virus, the British were asked not to travel to Windsor. Still, some decided to make the trip as most of the country watched the event on television, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson did from his field residence in Checkers.
“People shouldn’t come, but this is a great event, the only one in a generation, the Duke was special,” Mark, 57, one of dozens of security guards deployed on the street, told AFP of Windsor.
“It was very important to me to be here today,” said Kaya Mar, a 65-year-old painter who arrived on the first train from 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 cap, and personal banner, the duke’s coffin had been transferred in the morning by carriers of the First Grenadier Battalion – of which Felipe was colonel for 42 years – from the Royal Family’s private chapel to another castle hall.
Before the procession, the royal guards in their long black bear hair hats and dozens of representatives of other military bodies lined the immaculate lawn of the castle’s central courtyard as they played the marching band.
In the radiant sun, the Duke’s personal carriage arrived, pulled by his two ponies and wearing the deceased’s cap and gloves.
On the steps of the chapel stood the representatives of the cavalry, dressed in full clothing, with their metal torsos and helmets with long plumes.
The porters then entered the chest for the final ceremony.