Thousands of people pay their respects in overwhelming silence to the British monarch as the funeral procession arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Jean stood looking out from behind the chain-link fence that had been erected in front of the gate to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, as if it were a horizon. There was plenty of time left for Elizabeth II’s coffin-bearing procession to descend Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Offerings of flowers and affectionate messages to the deceased queen surrounded him.
She was at home, with her sick daughter, when on Thursday the concern of the doctors for the sovereign’s health was disclosed and she believed that it would be something temporary. She had noticed in the past months and weeks that the queen had aged, but her voice was still strong. When her death was announced, she burst into tears. “It was a shock, a big shock,” said Jeane. “She had a good life, yes.” She does not identify Elizabeth II’s great achievements, because she has not followed the royalty either, except when she appeared on television, but she highlighted her reaction in the rest of the world. “She was a good person. A great person », she repeats.
Jean declares that she feels fit at 76 years old. She adds that her husband died four years ago, that they had two children, that she now walks around Edinburgh and other places in Scotland. She a good life too, because she is not envious of the wealth of the royal family or anyone else.
The solitary stillness of Jean, who believed that she was not going to stay with her family until the arrival of the procession had depth, but also among those who were beginning to gather around the palace there was calm and silence. Countless bouquets with roses, sunflowers or delias were displayed next to the gates or around the trees in the garden that borders the walls of the house. A policeman greeted the three children of a Romanian couple who were carrying bouquets of red roses.
The floral offerings were accompanied by children’s drawings, photos of the queen with her husband, Philip of Edinburgh, with prints of butterflies and messages of thanks. Some were more elaborate: ‘Queen of Scots, grandmother to us all, you will be missed forever. Like every rainbow that colors the sky, you were unique’.
The Scottish Parliament was designed by the Spanish Enric Miralles, who died before its construction, in front of Holyroodhouse. He had the idea of connecting the foot of Arthur’s Seat, a two-hundred-meter mountain that is the highest in the city, with his building, as a sign that the parliamentary political form would be born from nature.
From the upper channel of the concrete and garden structure that Miralles devised to make this connection, Moira and David observed the general scene, both in their fifties, she a banker (banker, according to the Anglo-Saxons) and he, retired. What David said about the death of Elizabeth II had a close echo of Jean’s words.
His mother is 85 years old and has been dismayed after the death of the queen. David believes that for that generation, in which Jean can also be included, it is the end of his time. “It seemed to them that I was going to live forever,” he says. The couple was walking along the royal mile, observing what was happening in their city. Moira is surprised when her husband comments that he was very emotional when her death was announced.
Independences
Both believe that Carlos will be a good king, a king similar to his mother, “because the monarchy always does the same thing.” And they consider it positive for their desire to preserve the union of the entire kingdom that the Scottish independence supporters advocated during the 2014 referendum for the maintenance of the monarchy in an independent Scotland, and they also think so now.
The chief minister of the Scottish Government, Nicola Surgeon, who wants to convene a new consultation in 2023, has issued a message to her fellow citizens with warm expressions about the late monarch: “Her Majesty’s death at Balmoral means that Scotland has lost one of her most dedicated and beloved servants. The mourning we have seen around the world has been profound and very moving.”
Elizabeth II did not seem impartial about independence, however. She underlined the benefits of union in a speech in 1977 when the Labor Party promoted the organization of a home rule referendum. The proposal was defeated because the condition of the change contemplated that at least 40% of those registered voted for the restoration of Parliament.
Autonomy was restored in 1997 at the initiative of the Government of Tony Blair with a large majority in London and Edinburgh. The queen stepped in again in 2014. Six days before the last consultation, she approached people waiting for her to leave the small Balmoral parish church, telling them on BBC cameras that they had to “think carefully about the future”.
It was interpreted as a message favorable to the ‘no’ campaign for independence. And that the queen had responded to the request of the prime minister, David Cameron, worried about the possibility of a defeat. Cameron boasted after the victory that when he notified her of the result, her happiness could be detected over the phone. The monarch would have been angry with him for breaking the confidentiality of the conversations with the sovereign.
various faiths
The queen’s parish when she resided at Holyrood was the Canongate Kirk. It is a small church with white walls, simple windows, blue benches and military banners. The first row was reserved for the tenants of the palace, with a crown carved in wood on the edge of the backrest. The parishioners deposited yesterday in the queen’s seat a center of small white roses, freesias and green leaves of a plant known as ‘lamb’s ear’.
It is a parish of the Church of Scotland, Presbyterian, whose rights of independence –including that the monarch does not govern them as he does the Church of England– were the object of a promise of protection by Charles III at his confirmation ceremony. But the queen went to that church when she was in Edinburgh.
Very close to there is a room of the United Augustinian Church. These ‘lower churches’ with structures that often do not go much further than the local community of parishioners, are not affected by the change of king. “Carlos is now the king, but our king is God,” said a man repairing a sign on the door. «It is said: ‘To Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’».
A young French couple, osteopaths, Axel and Armande, deviated yesterday from their trip to attend what they described as a historic event. She described Elizabeth II’s career as “magnificent, impressive”, but she would have refused to become monarch at 25 years old. He explained that he could not understand “how there can be so much love for someone who does not rule the country.”
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales proclaim the new sovereign
The funeral procession that transported the remains of Elizabeth II left this Sunday at ten in the morning (11:00 Spanish time) from Balmoral Castle and arrived at the Palace of Holyroodhouse at four in the afternoon. It was a six-hour journey to complete almost 300 kilometers in a slow caravan so that thousands of citizens could say their last goodbye to the queen.
Princess Anne traveled in the procession and, upon arrival at Edinburgh Palace, the coffin – covered with the Scottish standard – was received by the Earls of Wessex and the Duke of York with a nod. Tomorrow he will be flown to nearby St. Giles Cathedral for a farewell day.
Edinburgh, as well as the capitals of Wales and Northern Ireland, was also the scene of the formal proclamation of Charles III as king of the entire United Kingdom. The formal reading in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast concluded with ‘God save the king’. 21 cannon salvos were also fired.
In the case of the Scottish capital, the moment of the reading was interrupted by some boos in Parliament Square after the phrase “God save the king”. The UK national anthem immediately began to be played, sung by many in attendance, including Chief Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
In Northern Ireland, which Charles III will visit on Tuesday after passing through Edinburgh, the proclamation was held at Hillsborough Castle, the monarch’s official residence and also the seat of the British Government’s Northern Ireland Secretariat. The ceremony had a broad political representation, except for Sinn Féin, which had already announced that there would be no deputy of its own because the act was for “those who have their political loyalty in the British Crown.” However, its president, Mary Lou McDonald, acknowledged that Elizabeth II “worked for peace between our islands and the reconciliation of all our people.”
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