Relive Queen Elizabeth’s coffin procession through the streets of London

Six days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96, a procession took place in the streets of London on Wednesday. His coffin arrived Tuesday evening from Edinburgh heading for Buckingham Palace where he spent the night. This Wednesday, a procession towards Westminster Hall took place in the afternoon. Shortly after 6 p.m., the public began to gather in front of his coffin.

The public gathers in front of the queen’s coffin

The public began to gather in front of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday in London, in the oldest chamber of Parliament in Westminster, which will remain open until the funeral on Monday.

Parading on both sides of the coffin placed on an imposing catafalque, the first members of the public, obviously moved, addressed kisses to the queen or bowed their heads in sign of respect, sometimes their eyes red with tears. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected, but the waiting time is counted in tens of hours in a line that can stretch up to 16 kilometers.

The coffin has arrived at Westminster Hall

In a solemn procession with millimeter unfolding, the oak coffin transported on a gun carriage, and on which the imperial crown had been deposited, left the palace at 3:22 p.m., Paris time, followed on foot by its four children and grandchildren. -son William and Harry, reputed to be cold but side by side for this historic event.

The procession began by descending the famous Mall, the prestigious artery that connects the palace to Trafalgar Square in central London, before reaching Westminster Hall, the oldest chamber in the British Parliament where the closed coffin of Elizabeth II, who died on the 8 September at the age of 96, will be exhibited to the public for a final farewell.

To the sound of funeral marches by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin played by a military band, tens of thousands of people, often in tears, watched for about forty minutes as the draped coffin of the Royal Standard, on which rested the imperial crown, passed. .

A colossal crowd

The British are present by the hundreds of thousands to go and meditate closer to their adored monarch, unanimously hailed for her total devotion to the Crown during her reign. For the occasion, Westminster Hall will be open 24 hours a day, from Wednesday 5 p.m. to Monday 6:30 a.m., the day of his funeral at Westminster Abbey. But you will have to be patient, with long queues that could stretch for about fifteen kilometers.

On Wednesday, there were already thousands waiting on the bank opposite Parliament. The first to arrive had spent the night there. Before her long farewell to the London public, the coffin of Elizabeth II has already been exposed for 24 hours in Edinburgh, from Monday evening to Tuesday. Sometimes moved to tears, some 33,000 people waited for hours to go and gather briefly. A rock of stability in crisis and change, the Queen has been a reassuring image to millions of Britons during her decades on the throne.

A real logistical challenge

Full hotels, disrupted transport, crowded pubs, the British capital is preparing feverishly for the funeral of the century next Monday, in the presence of hundreds of leaders and crowned heads, a huge security challenge. To see the coffin, the government warned of “draconian restrictions”, worthy of airports. The press evokes some 750,000 people ready to brave a wait that could be counted in tens of hours. The precise queue route published by the government stretches along the south bank of the Thames for 15 kilometers to Southwark Park in the south-east of the capital.