The Queen's funeral represents a look back in memory and ahead in transition
CBC
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Amid their shared grief on Monday as the Royal Family led the funeral for Queen Elizabeth, there was also a sense of continuity and transition for the institution she was so devoted to serving in her 70-year reign.
Deeply personal and symbolic moments came up against the pomp and carefully choreographed military ceremony of a state funeral the likes of which few have seen.
"What stood out to me was the amount of emotion on the faces of the members of the Royal Family," Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris said in an interview.
"It was clear that for the new King Charles III, this was both a profound personal loss, but also a moment of transition for him.
"He has been leading the mourning of Queen Elizabeth II, and now there is going to be increased scrutiny on the new King and his role as sovereign."
At the heart of the funeral — one based on the traditional Anglican funeral service — was the desire to honour and remember the longest-serving British monarch, who died at 96 on Sept. 8 at her Balmoral estate in Scotland.
"Fundamentally, today was about her and what she did," Craig Prescott, a constitutional law expert at Bangor University in Wales, said in an interview.
But as much as that was on display — whether through reference to her deep devotion to duty and Christian faith, or more personal references that came through moments like the skirl of a lone bagpiper playing a lament from a balcony of Westminster Abbey — there were unmistakable signals that one reign had ended and another has begun.
"I think the most affecting part for me actually was at the committal service when the crown, the orb and sceptre were removed from the coffin," Prescott said.
"I think that punctured, drew a clear line that I suppose in one sense ... at that point the Queen was no longer Queen."
State funerals are rare — the last one in the U.K. was for Winston Churchill, the prime minister, in 1965.
Only those a bit older than 70 might remember the last state funeral for a monarch — for the Queen's father, King George VI, in 1952. And for that one, the TV cameras stopped at the door (in that case, at the smaller St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where Monday's committal service was held).
Not today, however, as cameras broadcast the funeral, military procession and committal service around the world, showing a royal funeral much changed from how previous monarchs were once remembered at the end of their reigns.
