Families with young children, groups of friends, tourists dragging their travel bags, workers, students, housewives, pensioners, City executives and other professionals have come to the Buckingham Palace gates this Friday to honor Elizabeth II, the “global grandmother and queen”, who died on Thursday at her residence in Balmoral, in the Scottish Highlands, after a year of mild and slow physical deterioration.
The emotion has overcome many visitors, who have burst into tears remembering the British monarch, constant stability and serenity in their lives. Roses, carnations and sunflowers have been dedicated to her, stuffed animals, sports shirts, framed photographs, pennants and hundreds of thousands of farewell notes and expressions of admiration have been left for her. There were candles and torches lit on the floor. At noon, the tolling of bells from nearby Westminster Abbey to Windsor Castle and hundreds of other churches across the country marked the official start of ten days of national mourning.
In the afternoon, the new king has given an unexpected surprise to the masses concentrated next to Buckingham Palace. Carlos III, accompanied by his queen consort, Camila, personally greeted the public, which erupted in cries of ‘God save the king’. His presence has helped momentarily lift spirits, although really people simply wanted to convey their condolences for the death of the beloved and admired 96-year-old matriarch.
“I feel enormous sadness. She represents everything I know. I associate her with my mother, that she is her age and she is still alive; I used to look at her as if she were my grandmother… and now we have lost her forever », exclaims Sandra, after placing a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the palatial gate. She recently retired at 67 years old, and with a good command of the Spanish that she studied decades ago, she identifies Elizabeth II as the “queen of the whole world.” “She was a global queen. A force of stability and constancy for so long. Heads of government come and go, but she was always with us. And although she was a long reign, 70 years, her death is still shocking. We are going to miss her », she says ruefully.
Lines of people were constantly arriving in the area, which has been cut off to road traffic. Some walked from Piccadilly through Green Park and others walked the royal promenade of The Mall, which links the official London headquarters of the British monarchy with Trafalgar Square. With grim expressions and without raising their voices, they moved slowly through the various queues that formed throughout the enclosure, under the watchful eye of security employees and Scotland Yard agents. Nobody tried to sneak in and everyone ended up finding a hole to put their memory or an appropriate view to take a ‘selfie’ with their mobile.
Floral offerings are removed every twelve hours from some sections of the fence, a sign warned. The wooden frame with the official part of the death of the monarch was, in turn, framed between branches and crowns attached to the same rails. “She grew up with us. She is part of our lives and she is gone. She is horrible. Very sad,” Paul sighs. He still wears the yellow vest and the protective helmet of the construction union and has taken advantage of the lunch break to pay tribute to the respected Isabel. Camilla, 28, leaves a bouquet on behalf of her grandmother and the rest of her family, who live in central England. “They will come to see the procession of the funeral procession,” she explains.
cannon salvos
At 1:00 p.m. local time (both in Spain), the monarch was fired with 96 salvos, one for each year of her life, launched from Hyde Park, the Tower of London and other emblematic spaces in the capital. The cannon shots also resounded in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Plymouth, Gibraltar, Jersey and other dependent territories of the Crown. Representatives of the Commonwealth – the club of 56 nations and states mostly linked to the former British Empire – sent condolences to their royal president in emotional notes left outside the palace. “A stateswoman of incomparable integrity was the rock and champion of the Commonwealth,” one read.
“It is a sad day for the country. All British people adored her, even the anti-monarchists appreciated the queen for her character and her personality », observes Edward, a 20-year-old university student. He wears a ‘tweed’ jacket and a black tie, as a sign of “respect” for the Windsor matriarch, who died at Balmoral Castle sheltered by some of her descendants. A couple of days earlier he had received the new prime minister, Liz Truss, in audience and accepted the resignation of the previous head of government, Boris Johnson. The alarm for his health jumped on Thursday, although the physical decline has been apparent for almost a year, when he suspended a trip to Northern Ireland of constitutional relevance.
“It’s going to be weird without the queen. Carlos has been preparing to be king for many years, but even so, it will take time to get used to his reign », says the student of Politics and International Relations. Also the pensioner Sandra believes that the transition on the throne from mother to son will be difficult to digest. “Continuity is the pillar of the monarchy, but it will take us a long time to get used to saying king, instead of queen,” she smiles. Still, she points to the many young people who are flocking to Buckingham, Windsor and Balmoral, in marked respect for the late queen, as a sign of the “good health of the monarchy.” “But we are going to miss the judicious presence of the queen,” says Sandra.
For Olivia, a twentysomething American, Elizabeth II was an example of “civility throughout history.” «I do not see it as the end of an era, but as the disappearance of a great international figure who had been with us for a long time. She was everyone’s grandmother », she affirms. Evandre Beckford, an operating room assistant at a London hospital, highlights the queen’s “sense of duty” and the responsibility she faced her entire life. “She carried the country on her shoulders,” compares this young man who always thought that the queen would live to be a hundred or more years old.
Maggie has bought almost all the newspapers for the day and is looking for a copy of the free Metro, which also dedicated a special supplement to the missing lady. “Our hearts are broken,” the Daily Mail headlined on its front page. “A life of service,” The Times acknowledged. “Thank you Ma’am,” City Am said. “I’m sad, but at the same time I’m relieved for her. She will now be able to forget about the upsets and disappointments that some members of her family are causing her and she will be reunited with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh », warns this woman in her forties. She recognizes the end of the second Elizabethan era, after the death of a “brilliant woman”, and she would like to truncate the monarchical change so that the crown passed directly to William. “She has more empathy and people skills than her father, Carlos. We need a modern monarchy.”
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