Massive queue to see Queen Elizabeth II’s final resting place; Camilla to look after horses
Queen Consort Camilla is set to take on a new royal role, as thousands line up to view where Queen Elizabeth II has been laid to rest.
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The Queen Consort is poised to take control of the reins of the royal stables as the King prepares to scale back the number of horses to recoup a $1.71 million (£1 million) a year loss.
The reign of Charles III on the racetrack began with a hearty gallop on Thursday with his mother’s horse Educator coming in second place at Salisbury.
While the Queen was an impassioned equestrian known for her love of the sport, the King flirted only briefly with horses as an amateur jockey in the 1980s and will leave Camilla to handle the relationship with trainers.
“Camilla has a real love of racing and she will be the person who speaks with the trainers each day in the way the Queen had,” a senior racing source has said.
“I don’t think the King will want to keep 40-50 horses with ten trainers. He will want to slim down the operation.”
The Queen spent the last weekend before her death with her bloodstock adviser, John Warren, breeding what he says was her best crop of yearlings in her lifetime of racing.
Educator, who will run in the Radliffe & Co handicap at Salisbury, is now listed as being owned by the King on the British Horseracing Authority website.
An official announcement of plans for Camilla to take over the Queen’s racehorses is expected in the coming weeks.
Camilla and King Charles have had a number of their own thoroughbreds in training over the years, competing at Cheltenham and Ascot. But it was always the late monarch who headed the royal family‘s interest in the ’sport of kings.’
Princess Anne and her daughter Zara Tindall have also had a number of runners in recent seasons. Their focus has been on events – and both are regulars at Cheltenham Racecourse, where Zara was appointed to the committee in 2019.
The Queen has seen her horses compete both over obstacles and on the Flat, a code under which they earned more than £300,000 (A$515,000) in prize money this season.
The King is due to inherit the Sandringham stud – comprising around 40 brood mares at the Royal Stud and another 40 horses in training spread among eight trainers on the Flat and two over jumps – and ownership of Ascot racecourse, where his mother‘s horse Estimate galloped to Gold victory in 2013.
Despite her passing, the Queen’s legacy will live on in horse racing courtesy of the horses she has bred and the races that bear her name, such as the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day and the race of the same name in Australia.
Her love of horses and ponies was deep and enduring. On her fourth birthday she was given her first pony, a Shetland named Peggy, from her grandfather George V, and by the age of six was able to ride and control her.
She became so knowledgeable that it is said she could gauge the going on race day at Ascot of her landau horses by listening to the sound of their hoofs hitting the ground.
ASTONISHING: 6,500 LETTERS IN JUST ONE DAY
As the head of the British monarchy for 70 years, the Queen received an overwhelming 300 letters per day – or more than 60,000 a year – and she famously hand wrote notes for people’s 100th birthday.
And since her death, Buckingham Palace has been besieged with cards of condolences and missives from well wishers to the King and Queen Consort - including an astonishing 6,500 in just one day after the state funeral.
Since the death of Queen Elizabeth, more than 50,000 letters and messages of condolence have landed through the palace letterbox sending members of the correspondence team into a mild frenzy to sort through the post and send responses.
Last year the palace recruited an assistant correspondence officer to help write replies when the Queen’s health deteriorated prompting well wishers to send a flurry of cards and flowers.
The advertisement for the job read that the successful applicant must have administrative experience and “excellent” written communication skills to help write replies and must also be able to handle a large volume of correspondence.
The post staff are based at the palace and the assistance job was advertised at paying $41,000 a year (£23,500) for a 37.5-hour week.
MASSIVE QUEUE TO SEE QUEEN’S FINAL RESTING PLACE
They queued from dawn, many having travelled from France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Canada and further afield to pay one final tribute to Queen Elizabeth II.
Locals came too, as Windsor Castle – the Berkshire home of the late monarch – opened its doors to the public for the first time since her death, and 10 days after she was laid to rest in the King George VI memorial chapel.
The moment the heavy doors of St George’s Chapel swung open, at 9am local time, thousands filed in on foot, in wheelchairs, some clutching walking sticks, others cradling babies in their arms, to view the freshly polished black marble ledger stone that now bears the name Elizabeth II above her husband’s Philip.
The 8000-a-day visitor cap to the chapel was broken within the first half of the day.
“It’s a sell out,” trumpeted one steward manning the 1.6km long queue that snaked around the chapel. “There’s never a queue for the chapel, ever … her majesty will be pleased so many came to see her.”
After all the pomp of her funeral, the Queen’s final resting place is a dark, humble, chamber adorned with 13 fresh floral wreaths, where she is at peace with the people she loved most.
The tomb also carries the names of the Queen’s parents George VI 1895-1952 and Elizabeth 1900-2002.
The ashes of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, are the only others in the chapel. Her name is inscribed on a separate stone nearby.
Two stony-faced stewards in red garb stand watch over the five royals on either side of the gated crypt. Visitors are banned from taking photographs.
“It’s beautiful,” people filing past whisper, as a tear falls from the eye of an elderly steward standing guard.
“I can’t help it,” he tells a mourner.
“She was my Queen, it just seems so final, her locked down in there.”
As they filed past her tomb, many bowed their heads, crossed themselves, genuflected and prayed. Others simply stared in silent contemplation.
Catherine O’Keefe had travelled from Switzerland to pay her respects.
“She was my Queen my entire life,” the tearful 50-year-old said.
“I watched the funeral on telly and couldn’t get time off, I needed to come to get closure,” she said.
“When you see that tomb in the ground, you accept it’s the end. I caught the steward’s eye, he was crying too, it was so emotional.
“With Princess Diana, it was sad, but the Queen, she’s always been there, like a mum,” Ms O’Keefe said.
“Seeing her name beside Philip’s … that just got me”.
Royalist Jane Criddle paused a cruise around the coast of England on her 60th birthday to visit the Queen’s resting place.
“I wanted to pay my respects,” she said.
“I love the Queen and I always will, she was a rock that kept the country strong”.
Japanese tourist Tomoe Tanaka, 57, said: “She’s part of history, we love England and the Queen at home, we had to come.”
At 4pm, the stewards called time on the castle’s busiest viewing spot.
In the end it was so simple – a nation still united to mark the passing of its unforgettable Queen lowered out of public sight into a very modest resting place.
NEW HIGH COMMISSIONER TO UK
Former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith has been appointed the new High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Mr Smith, who was a member of the Australian Parliament for 20 years and former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, will take over from acting commissioner Lynette Wood early next year.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong revealed the new posting hinting Mr Smith’s appointment underlined the importance of growing the Australia-UK relationship.
She said the federal government’s approach to senior appointments was different to that of the former coalition government.
“I want to make clear our government is reversing the previous government’s approach,” she told reporters in Adelaide on Friday.
“We are rebalancing appointments towards more qualified senior officials consistent with community expectations and position requirements.
“There is also a clear advantage for Australia to be represented by people who have had distinguished careers beyond the public service such as business people and former parliamentarians.”
A replacement for Australia’s Ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos will be announced at the end of his term in February 2023.
Former Liberal MPs Will Hodgman, Barry O’Farrell and Mitch Fifield, Australia’s ambassadors to Singapore, India and the United Nations respectively, will be replaced at the end of their terms in 2023.
Senator Wong also announced the appointment of six career diplomats as Australia’s new ambassadors to Argentina, Egypt, Kuwait, Portugal, Turkey and Vietnam.
“The eminence of Australia’s relationship with the United Kingdom has long been reflected in the appointment of the former senior Cabinet Minister, so, in keeping with this tradition, the Albanese Government is appointing Steven Smith as Australia’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom,” Ms Wong said.
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Originally published as Massive queue to see Queen Elizabeth II’s final resting place; Camilla to look after horses
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