Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - On Tuesday, tens of thousands of people lined the streets in the rain to see the coffin of the late Queen...
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| Image: Reuters |
On a dark night, the well-lit hearse moved slowly through London from a nearby airport. People stood all along the route, some in the road, others throwing flowers, and many getting out of their cars or running from nearby streets to see the funeral procession.
As it got closer to the London palace, the police officers who had been leading the way stopped and bowed their heads.
A palace spokesperson said that Charles, who became king when his mother died last week, was with his three siblings, his two sons William and Harry, and other senior members of the royal family to receive the coffin.
Elizabeth died peacefully on Thursday at her vacation home in the Scottish Highlands, Balmoral Castle. She was 96 years old. The country will mourn for 10 days.
After the death of Britain's longest-ruling monarch, tens of thousands of people went to royal palaces all over the country to show their sorrow.
Princess Anne, the queen's only daughter, went with the coffin from the remote castle at Balmoral to Edinburgh, where tens of thousands of people came to pay their respects, and then to London.
In a statement, Anne said, "It has been an honour and a privilege to travel with her on her last trips." "It has been both humbling and inspiring to see how much love and respect so many people have shown on these journeys."
At Edinburgh, the casket was put on a transporter plane by a group of bearers from the Royal Air Force. As the plane started to move, an honour guard from the Royal Regiment of Scotland stood with their bayonets fixed while a band played the national anthem. So, Scotland said goodbye to the queen.
As part of a large military procession on Wednesday, the coffin will be taken to Westminster Hall on a gun carriage. There, it will lie in state until the funeral on Monday.
The public will be able to walk by the coffin 24 hours a day until the morning of the funeral. Dozens of world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden.
RECONCILIATION
As part of the carefully planned days of mourning, King Charles is also going to the four different parts of the UK.
On Tuesday, he went to Northern Ireland. As he walked through the crowds of people outside Hillsborough Castle, the monarch's official residence in the province, he was greeted with handshakes, smiles, and warm words.
Given Britain's history in Ireland and the Troubles, which were years of violence in Northern Ireland, the visit was very important from a political point of view.
Alex Maskey, who is the acting speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, praised the queen in a speech at Hillsborough Castle.
"Queen Elizabeth was not just a bystander as relationships in and between these islands changed and grew," said Maskey, a member of Sinn Fein, a group that wants Ireland to be united again.
"She showed by her own actions how positive leadership can help break down barriers and bring people together," he said.
Maskey, who was locked up by the government in the 1970s because he was suspected of being a member of the Irish Republican Army, said Charles had already shown he understood how important reconciliation was and was committed to it.
In 2011, Elizabeth was the first British monarch to visit the Irish Republic since it got its independence from London almost 100 years earlier.
She was a strong symbol of the union, but during the state visit, she did a lot to make up for Britain's bloody past in Ireland. This culminated in a speech where she apologised for centuries of fighting.
A year after her trip to Ireland, the queen met with Martin McGuinness in Belfast. In 1979, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the queen's cousin, was killed by the IRA. At the time, McGuinness was the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.
It was a big step in the peace process that ended most of the violence that had been going on for 30 years between pro-British, mostly Protestant groups and nationalist, mostly Catholic groups who wanted to join Ireland and Northern Ireland together.
Charles told top politicians at the castle that he cared about the well-being of everyone in Northern Ireland. He also showed his respect for Queen Elizabeth.
"My mother lived through important and historic changes in Northern Ireland, and she never stopped praying for the best for this place and its people, whose stories she knew, whose sorrows our family had felt, and for whom she had a lot of love and respect," he said.
BACK FOR CHARLES GOES UP
A new poll, on the other hand, shows that support for Charles has grown since he became king.
Now, 63% of people think he will be a good king, which is up 24 percentage points from March. Only 15% think he will do a bad job, which is down from 31% six months ago.
Charles had made a name for himself by speaking out about things like architecture and climate change. This was different from his mother, who kept her personal opinions to herself during her reign.
Since he became king, he has said many times that he would do what his mother did.
