Queen’s funeral may have been the last roar of the British empire

The long, public life of Queen Elizabeth II drew to a close as she was laid to rest in the family vault in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle after a private ceremony on Monday evening. It was the last act after an extraordinary funeral service which began in bright sunshine and a stretching, imperious military procession through the historical arteries, lined with mourners, that run between Buckingham Palace and Westminster.

The nation, given the day off, watched on big screens and at home.

World leaders, both prominent and obscure, gathered in Westminster to experience the rare sensation of being invisible while in full view. All attention was riveted to the small casket which was moved, in a show of precious care, from Westminster Hall, where the queen lay in state for four days, and placed on the historical gun-carriage and rope-pulled by navy officers as a succession of marching regiments and guards escorted her to Westminster Abbey. All morning, canon guns sounded across the city as vast crowds gathered to witness a process which might serve as the last roar of the vanished British empire.

The queen’s 70-year reign as monarch has coincided with the dissolution of Britain as a colonial power and, in more recent decades, with intense media scrutiny and a series of controversies which have cast the royal family in an unflattering light. But her unwavering commitment to her duty as monarch and her place as a figurehead in British life through seven decades of immense change renders her an irreplaceable figure in the eyes of the millions who have mourned her this week.

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“People of loving service are rare in any walk of life,” noted Reverend Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, during his homily.

“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 long forgotten. The grief of this day felt not only by the late queen’s family but all around the nation, the commonwealth and the world, arises from her abundant life and loving service now gone from us.”

Words directed, perhaps, at some of the political figures in the pews. The symbolism and architecture of the long-planned funeral exceeded any comparable ceremony for a public figure. It merged the heavily symbolic- the imperial crown, orb and scepter placed on the casket- with the personal touches of the late queen’s corgi dogs and pony awaiting her arrival at Windsor.

The uniquely British occasion represented an unprecedented concentration of world power in London and bestowed upon the royal family an intensely warm wave of public emotion.

The new monarch, King Charles III, led the royal family in mourning its matriarch. At 73, he inherits an estate worth many billions but his ascension to the throne comes at a fraught time for the future of the United Kingdom and, perhaps, for the monarchy itself. The youngest of the royal mourners included Princess Charlotte and her older brother George, who is a future heir to the throne. At just nine, he may have been too young to absorb the full significance and implications of a day when all of Britain’s ancient rites and sounds were paraded, in full glory, before the watching world. One day, he will.