For a few minutes, the tireless undertaking of constitutional responsibility came to a sombre halt.
After another day criss-crossing his realm – with addresses to the parliaments in London and Edinburgh – the King returned with his siblings to St Giles’ Cathedral in the Scottish capital to hold a vigil beside their mother’s coffin.
King Charles joined Anne, the Princess Royal, Andrew, Duke of York, and Edward, Earl of Wessex, to take their places at the four sides of the oak casket just before 8pm, flanked by four suited members of the Royal Company of Archers.
The King, wearing the Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan and white heather from the Balmoral estate in his lapel, had waved at onlookers outside the ancient cathedral as some cried: “Here he is. Here he is. It’s the King.”
Inside, standing in silent reflection at his mother’s side, he bowed his head and clasped his hands together. Anne and Edward cast their eyes downwards, while Andrew closed his eyes for much of the vigil. After 10 minutes, the royal guards took their leave as members of the public – many bowing towards the new monarch – filed solemnly past them.
The procession of people wanting to pay their respects, which had been temporarily paused before the vigil, began two hours earlier.
Shortly after 2pm, the Queen’s coffin, having lain overnight at the Palace of Holyroodhouse following its journey from Balmoral, was carried along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile to the cathedral. The King and his siblings accompanied the casket on foot past crowds which had begun gathering since before dawn.
The silence attending the procession was broken twice, once by a woman who called out “God bless the Queen” and, less decorously, by heckling from a young man apparently directed at the Duke of York before the protester was bundled away.
Amid such sentiment and ritual, there was also a growing drumbeat of the logistics of national grief. In Edinburgh, those waiting to walk past the coffin as it lies in state in St Giles’ before being flown to London on Tuesday were already queueing up to a mile away by lunchtime, amid warnings to expect a wait of many hours.
The vast numbers in Scotland wishing to pay their respects are expected to be dwarfed by those in London. What will inevitably become known as “The Queue” was the subject of predictions that it could, should people’s patience allow, reach a length of up to five miles from Westminster Hall amid a vast logistical operation.
Downing Street went so far as to suggest that regular London commuters should consider changing their travel plans to ease pressure on stations as the capital prepares to host a tide of mourners from Wednesday afternoon until 6.30am on Monday.
Depending on her powers of queuing endurance, there is a good chance that the first among them will be 56-year-old Vanessa Nathakumaran, an administrative assistant from Harrow, north west London, who at midday on Monday became the first person to join The Queue at its expected head by Lambeth Bridge.
Ms Nathakumaran, whose great-uncle had been knighted in her native Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, by King George VI, said she would pass her 48-hour wait by relying on her daughters to bring her warm clothes and glucose bars.
Asked why she had taken her place so early in the line to honour the Queen, she said: “I really, really want to be part of it… I do respect her way of kindness, how she treats everyone equal, the religions and the communities. She sees everyone as equal.”
From Windsor, the Duke of Sussex also made his voice heard by issuing a warm tribute to his grandmother. In a statement, Harry described the Queen as a “guiding compass”, remembered her “infectious smile” and said he was grateful for the “special moments” they shared.
Amid the demands of tradition, grief and the cementing of his nascent reign, the King had time for at least one pensive smile.
On a day of ceremonial solemnity, the twinkle in the royal eye was caused by a gentle reminder of just who is in charge in the relationship between monarch and state.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, used the King’s presence in Westminster Hall to remind him of a visit by the Queen to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution – the moment that established the primacy of Parliament over the Crown.
As Sir Lindsay put it: “It is perhaps very British to celebrate revolutions by presenting an address to Her Majesty.”
It was a small moment of levity amid one of the cornerstone tasks of the nation’s farewell to its longest-serving monarch, that of renewing the relationship and the bonds between her successor and the institutions that will now rule in his name.
The King, who attended Westminster Hall, the oldest building in Parliament, to receive a “humble address” expressing loyalty to the new Sovereign and gratitude for the Queen, spoke of his sense of feeling “the weight of history” in the 900-year-old building which, among other moments, witnessed the trial of Charles I.
The new monarch pledged to follow his mother in upholding “the precious principles of constitutional governance” of the United Kingdom and then borrowed once more from Shakespeare to pay tribute to his mother as a “pattern to all princes living”.
The line from Henry VIII, in which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer greets the infant Elizabeth I, harked back to a different type of royal power. In his speech, Cramner goes on to predict that this previous Elizabeth shall be “loved and fear’d”, adding: “Her own shall bless her/ Her foes shake like a field of broken corn.”
Later, addressing members of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood for the first time as monarch, the King quoted Scotland’s greatest poet, Robert Burns, as he praised his mother’s life of “incomparable service”.
On Tuesday, the King will arrive in Northern Ireland to receive another motion of condolence at Hillsborough Castle and attend a service at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast. On Friday, he will visit at the Welsh Parliament and Llandaff Cathedral.
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