Queen Elizabeth’s funeral: With just one word, this was goodbye

It wasn’t until the national anthem was played, and suddenly we were all singing God Save the King, not God Save the Queen.

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth is carried by pallbearers in Westminster Abbey on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

It wasn’t until the national anthem was played, and suddenly we were all singing God Save the King, not God Save the Queen.

She who had been revered by those words at major sports events and Gallipoli Anzac Day services for 70 years was now farewelled. A mourner nearby dug in her bag for some tissues.

Around me, in the north transept of the abbey, just next to the foreign royals, some of the household staff who had known the Queen for many years, started sobbing. The Queen was no longer; it was the King. Just the one word being changed in the ­anthem was a powerful moment: this was the goodbye.

Even the congregation, the collection of heads of state, presidents, prime ministers, many hardened by years of attending vigils, services, and official events, suddenly looked downcast, bowing heads.

Across the lantern, where the royal family was standing just ­metres from their beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother’s coffin, King Charles blinked, trying to keep the tears at bay. Queen Consort Camilla, next to him, looked sorrowful. For him, saying goodbye to his mother was the moment he had been dreading.

Prince Harry, in a morning suit looked grim, while his wife ­Meghan beside him was wearing a wide hat covering her eyes. They sat directly behind the King and Queen Consort.

Further down on the front row quite apart from the Sussexes were Prince George, 9, and his sister Princess Charlotte, 7, next to their parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Their part in the procession, reinforcing the line of succession and future of the monarchy was the subject of much murmuring when people had first taken their seats two hours before the service began. How would they handle this unprecedented occasion for their great-grandmother? With aplomb as it turns out.

The children also sang, heads down, but they had clearly been the stars of the show. Charlotte ­fiddled with her hat only occasionally, while George was concentrating hard and appearing to read the official program.

By the time the Queen’s Piper, warrant officer Paul Burns, played Sleep, Dearie, Sleep, fading off into the background, the one-hour service, which had been resonant and supremely stately, dissolved to become deeply personal and emotional. There had been some sparks of light relief that broke up the perfect symmetry of the pageantry and solemnity of the ­occasion. The Queen, who loved it when perfectly planned events had small hiccups, would have ­approved.

One of the bishops dropped a piece of paper, and it fluttered to the door. Then, on the floral wreath on top of the coffin near to the Imperial State Crown, a stowaway spider suddenly crept onto Charles’s handwritten note.

Pallbearers carry Queen Elizabeth’s coffin from Westminster Abbey. Picture: Getty Images

“It was just beautiful, really splendid actually,’’ said one guest who worked in the library at Windsor Castle and had known the Queen “for too long to ­remember”.

An impeccably dressed man with some military medals remarked dolefully as we filed out the north door, “well, finally she is at rest; even in death they have been making her work so hard’’.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby caused some raised eyebrows during his sermon when he appeared to be directing some comments to politicians, some of the 500 heads of state and scores of foreign royals, when he alluded to “service”. “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life,’’ the archbishop said. “Leaders of loving service are still rarer. But in all cases those who serve will be loved and remembered when those who cling to power and privileges are forgotten.”

Soon the archbishop was back on track, recalling the Queen’s Covid lockdown message to the nation about how “we will meet again”.

The timelessness of this extraordinary state funeral had been evident in two words when I received my hand-signed black-edged invitation. It had mandated a solemn dress code, arriving three hours early and in capitals for emphasis, absolutely no swords.

Seated early in the abbey, heads of state were easily spotted: Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron were perched near 20 diamond-laden European royals. Other guests filled the abbey in the nave and quire.

A quiet murmuring of instructions, questions and small talk echoed among the walls as the organist played Orlando Gibbons and Elgar. The tenor bell of the abbey started to toll over an hour an a half before the 11am service began, one a minute for the Queen’s 96 years, as the guests were shown to their seats.

The British foreign office had clearly spent some time on the seating plan, ensuring that in the quire and nave, North Korea’s representative was some distance from South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol, and Iran’s ambassador was well away from Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

For many this may have been a very rare occasion where they had to wait for something, rather than be waited upon. Then at 10.44am precisely Big Ben struck a single note, and the distant sounds of a funeral march could be heard.

Immediately there was a hush.

Certainly, for much of the service, Charles looked ashen-faced, the strain of the past 11 days touring the country and cementing his accession to the throne, with state receptions, governors-general lunches mixing with his grief at losing his beloved “mummy”. During the two-minute silence there was not a sound, not even a cough or a shuffling of feet, just absolute emptiness. And then it was all over and the Queen’s coffin was carried out of the abbey, into bright sunlight shining upon central London.