Preparations for Queen Mother's funeral

Royal advisers were today meeting to finalise the details of the funeral for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The format of the mourning period and funeral had already been decided in advance but the timetable for each element of it was being discussed today.

The nation will pay homage to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother when she lies in state in the medieval setting of Westminster Hall.

The solemn vigil precedes her last journey from Westminster Abbey, after the ceremonial funeral service, to Windsor, where she will be interred beside her husband in St George’s Chapel, shrine of British royalty.

Vast crowds are expected to queue to file past the coffin. It will be placed high on a purple-draped catafalque on the same spot where King George VI lay in state in February 1952, and be guarded round the clock by a contingent of Gentleman at Arms and Yeomen of the Guard.

The ancient hall is an incomparable setting for the public’s tribute to the royal lady they have loved and respected for so many years.

Most of the patient crowd who pass within a couple of yards of the candle-lit coffin will be closer to the Queen Mother in death than in life.

The Queen Mother will be only the second British royal consort in modern times to lie in state. Her mother-in-law Queen Mary, who died in April 1953, was the first.

The first royal coffin to be placed on solemn public view at Westminster was that of King Edward VII in 1910 an impressive vigil repeated on the deaths of King George V and George VI.

The coffin will be brought to Westminster Hall from the Queen’s Chapel at St James’s Palace, close to Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s London home.

Members of the Royal Family will pay their own private tributes in the chapel.

The lying in state will be followed by a ceremonial funeral service in Westminster Abbey conducted by the Dean of Westminster.

The coffin will then be taken by road to Windsor.

Its arrival will be signalled by the tolling of the Sebastopol bell, which was captured from the Russians in the Crimea War and used only for Royal obsequies.

The interment, in the black marble vault of the George VI Memorial Chapel, specially built as the King’s final resting place, will be in the early evening.

The chapel was dedicated in March 1969 in the presence of the Queen and the Queen Mother. The remains of King George VI were transferred there from the nearby vaults of the main chapel 17 years after his death.

It remains to be seen whether the Queen Mother’s grandsons the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York and Prince Edward will repeat the moving tribute paid to King George V by his sons.

A few minutes after midnight, on the night before the old King’s body was taken to Windsor, King Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, led his three brothers down the flight of steps at the back of Westminster Hall to take their place around the catafalque. For 20 minutes they stood guard, motionless, bent over their swords.