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| Photo Credit: AP. |
LONDON (AP) — The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II returned to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening, making its way through a drizzly London as crowds lined the route for a glimpse of the hearse and to bid her a final farewell.
People parked
their cars along a normally busy road, got out and waved as the hearse, with
lights inside illuminating the flag-draped coffin, made its way into London. In
the city, people pressed in on the road and held their phones aloft as it
passed.
Thousands outside
the palace cheered, shouted “God save the queen!” and clapped as the hearse
swung around a roundabout in front of the queen’s official London residence and
through the wrought iron gates. Her son, King Charles III, and other immediate
family members waited inside.
The coffin
traveled to London from Edinburgh, where 33,000 people filed silently past it
in the 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral after it had been brought there from
her cherished summer retreat, Balmoral. The queen — the only monarch many in
the United Kingdom have ever known — died there Sept. 8 at age 96 after 70
years on the throne.
The military
C-17 Globemaster carrying the casket touched down at RAF Northolt, an air force
base in the west of London, about an hour after it left Edinburgh. U.K. Prime
Minister Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and a military honor guard
were among those at the base for the arrival.
One who
stood in the rain waiting for the hearse to pass, retired bus driver David
Stringer, 82, recalled watching the queen’s coronation on a newsreel as a boy.
“It’s a
great shame,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t think about her every day, but I
always knew she was there, and my life’s coming to a close now and her time has
finished.”
The coffin
will be taken by horse-drawn gun carriage Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament
to lie in state for four days before Monday’s funeral at Westminster Abbey.
“Scotland
has now bid our Queen of Scots a sad, but fond farewell,” said Scottish First
Minister Nicola Sturgeon. “We will not see her like again.”
Charles had
returned to London from Northern Ireland, where his visit drew a rare moment of
unity from politicians in a region with a contested British and Irish identity
that is deeply divided over the monarchy.
The new king
is making his own journey this week, visiting the four nations of the U.K. –
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Hundreds
gathered around Hillsborough Castle near Belfast, the royal family’s official
residence in Northern Ireland, in the latest outpouring of affection following
the queen’s death. The area in front of the gates to the castle was carpeted with
hundreds of floral tributes.
Charles and
his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, got out of their car to wave to the crowd
and sometimes used both hands to reach out to villagers, including
schoolchildren in bright blue uniforms. Charles even petted a corgi — famously
his late mother’s favorite breed of dog — held up by one person, and some
chanted “God save the king!”
“Today means
so much to me and my family, just to be present in my home village with my
children to witness the arrival of the new king is a truly historic moment for
us all,” said Hillsborough resident Robin Campbell.
While there
was a warm welcome in Hillsborough, the British monarchy draws mixed emotions
in Northern Ireland, where there are two main communities: mostly Protestant
unionists who consider themselves British and largely Roman Catholic nationalists
who see themselves as Irish.
That split
fueled three decades of violence known as “the Troubles” involving paramilitary
groups on both sides and U.K. security forces, in which 3,600 people died. The
royal family was touched personally by the violence: Lord Louis Mountbatten, a
cousin of the queen and a much-loved mentor to Charles, was killed by an Irish
Republican Army bomb in 1979.
A deep
sectarian divide remains, a quarter century after Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace
agreement.
For some
Irish nationalists, the monarch represents an oppressive foreign power. But
others acknowledge the queen’s role in forging peace. On a visit to Northern
Ireland in 2012, she shook hands with Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin
McGuinness, a former IRA commander — a once-unthinkable moment of
reconciliation. On Tuesday the new king shook hands with Sinn Fein Vice
President Michelle O’Neill.
In a sign of
how far Northern Ireland has come on the road to peace, representatives of Sinn
Fein attended commemorative events for the queen and meeting the king on
Tuesday.
Alex Maskey,
a Sinn Fein politician who is speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said
the queen had “demonstrated how individual acts of positive leadership can help
break down barriers and encourage reconciliation.”
Charles
responded that she had tried to play a role “in bringing together those whom
history had separated, and in extending a hand to make possible the healing of
long-held hurts.”
He said he
would draw on his mother’s “shining example” and “seek the welfare of all the
inhabitants of Northern Ireland.”
Still, not
everyone was welcoming the new king.
On the Falls
Road in Belfast, a nationalist stronghold, several walls are decorated with
murals of Bobby Sands, an IRA member who died while on a hunger strike in
prison in 1981, and others killed in the Troubles.
“No, he’s
not our king. Bobby Sands was our king here,” said 52-year-old Bobby Jones.
“Queen never done nothing for us. Never did. None of the royals do.”
Irish
leaders attended a service of reflection at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast
despite tense relations between Dublin and London over Brexit. Since Britain
left the European Union in 2020, the U.K. and the EU have been wrangling over
trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border
with a member of the bloc.
Before being
flown to London, the queen’s oak coffin was carried from St. Giles’ Cathedral
to the strain of bagpipes. Crowds lining the Royal Mile through the historic
heart of Edinburgh broke into applause as the coffin, accompanied by the
queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, was driven to Edinburgh Airport.
“I was
fortunate to share the last 24 hours of my dearest mother’s life,” Princess
Anne said in a statement. “It has been an honour and a privilege to accompany
her on her final journeys. Witnessing the love and respect shown by so many on
these journeys has been both humbling and uplifting.”
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