The long goodbye: Queen’s casket leaves Balmoral Castle
Prince William and Prince Harry and their wives, Catherine and Meghan, put aside their differences to greet crowds outside Windsor Castle.
Charles has been proclaimed King of Australia and moved to broker peace within his warring family, as Anthony Albanese ruled out any moves towards a republic in Labor’s first term in office.
The King’s confirmation as Australia’s head of state came as Queen Elizabeth II’s casket began its journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh and then London ahead of next Monday’s funeral.
The Windsors’ show of unity came as Mr Albanese ruled out on British television a referendum to replace the King with an Australian head of state within this term of parliament, saying he wanted to use this time to pay respect to Elizabeth II and meet the new King of Australia.
“Now is the time for us to pay tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth II, to give thanks for her service to Australia, to the Commonwealth and to the world,” he told Sky News UK.
“It’s the end of the second Elizabethan era and the beginning of a new one. King Charles, of course, is very well known to Australia. I look forward very much to meeting King Charles ... I look forward to, on behalf of Australia, expressing face to face, person to person, my condolences and the condolences of our nation for the loss, not just of course of Queen Elizabeth as the head of state, but as his beloved mother.”
When asked if there was any chance of a republic referendum before the next election – due by 2025 – Mr Albanese repeated, “No.”
In one of his first acts as King, Charles implored his sons William and Harry and their wives, Catherine and Meghan, to put aside their differences. The couples, dressed in black, met crowds outside Windsor Castle.
It was the first time the couples had been seen together since Harry and Meghan broke away from the royal family two years ago, with the Duke of Sussex saying his relationship with his brother had broken down.
William’s courtiers said the Prince of Wales thought it was important to show unity at an incredibly difficult time for the family. The pictures of the “fab four” back together were splashed across the world. Supporters of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said the rapprochement came at “the 11th hour”.
Later on Sunday, the Queen’s coffin was driven for six hours across the north of Scotland as Princess Anne, her only daughter, followed the hearse to Edinburgh. Crowds lined the route.
The Australian Executive Council endorsed Charles as King of Australia on Sunday morning and he was later proclaimed in a series of ceremonies throughout the nation’s capital cities.
Governor-General David Hurley and Mr Albanese will leave the country later this week for the Queen’s funeral in London on September 19, where they will also meet the new King.
Mr Albanese also declared a public holiday on Thursday, September 22, for a national memorial service for the Queen, which prompted protests from the retailers’ association and the doctors’ union over the lack of planning.
Australian Medical Association president Steve Robson said the planning for the public holiday had been “shambolic”, arguing that it would throw surgeries and medical plans for “tens of thousands” of Australians into chaos.
Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief executive Alexi Boyd said appointment-based businesses like those in allied health or hairdressing would have to move bookings or run at a loss.
Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort, will now prepare to attend a series of memorial services accross Britain with new Prime Minister Liz Truss in the days leading up to the funeral, heading first to Scotland to see the late Queen lie in state.
His past political activism on climate change also came to the fore in both the UK and Australia.
Mr Albanese and Peter Dutton split on the right of the King to speak out on issues he has long campaigned on. “This is a big threat and King Charles has identified that for a long period of time. I think engagement in issues is very different from engagement in party political matters,” Mr Albanese said on Sunday.
The Opposition Leader said that the King should now be an “impartial person” like his late mother when asked if the sovereign should still advocate on environmental issues.
Former Australian high commissioner to the UK and Charles’s former press secretary, John Dauth, told The Australian that the King had inherited the Queen’s absolute sense of duty.
“I think he questions himself and the institutions more than the Queen did, but he knows the rock of the monarchy is duty. He knows what he has got to do and he will do it,’’ Mr Dauth said.
Mr Dauth said the King gives more of himself than the Queen, citing how the King readily accepted a kiss from a woman outside Buckingham Palace. “We have seen that already in the walkabouts where the King has met the people – he is a highly empathetic human being,’’ he said.
The calm between the King’s sons and their wives is expected to continue for the period of mourning and the funeral of the Queen, which will see the largest gathering of world leaders in peacetime to say their goodbyes.
It has been confirmed by the palace that the King, Anne, Andrew and Edward, along with their children, will stand over her coffin in a traditional royal “vigil” on Monday night at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. On Tuesday, the Queen’s body will be flown to London, accompanied by her daughter, Princess Anne.
The Queen’s body will then be transported by car to Buckingham Palace and the following day, Wednesday, she will be carried on a gun carriage down the Mall to Westminster Abbey, where she will lie in state for four days.
Her funeral will take place at 8pm next Monday at Westminster Abbey. At Balmoral, Prince Andrew was allowed to walk with members of the royal family and met wellwishers despite being cut off from all royal duties over his links with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew’s daughter, Princess Beatrice – who is the highest of the Queen’s other grandchildren in the line of succession behind her father and the King’s immediate family – was also named a Counsellor of State and will be able to deputise for the sovereign if necessary. The acceptance of the new monarch – greeted with trumpets, gun salutes, and huge cheers which reverberated through the packed streets of central London when Charles was publicly proclaimed King in an ancient tradition – was mirrored in Scotland on Sunday in another tradition-laden proclamation ceremony.
The King’s Body Guard for Scotland which encompasses the Royal Company of Archers with His Majesty’s State Trumpeters was to march from the Castle Esplanade to the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh with a 21-gun salute as huge crowds began to gather for the later arrival of the Queen’s coffin from Balmoral Castle.
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