LONDON—Britain bid a final farewell Monday to Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest-serving monarch, during a historic funeral and solemn military procession that drew hundreds of thousands of people to London and Windsor Castle and was watched by millions around the globe.
The state funeral, which paid tribute to her deep Christian faith and life of service, closed the chapter on the second Elizabethan age, a reign that lasted 70 years and saw an era of radical change for Britain as its empire was dismantled. The queen, however, remained a hugely popular head of state who gave people both in Britain and abroad a valued sense of continuity and proved a powerful symbol of the country’s identity.
“People of loving service are rare in any walk of life,” said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, during his sermon at the state funeral in Westminster Abbey. “Leaders of loving service are still rarer.”
During six hours of tightly choreographed pageantry, the nation and hundreds of dignitaries from across the world paid tribute to her reign. It was the first British state funeral since Winston Churchill’s in 1965 and one of the biggest set-piece events in the nation’s history, as her coffin was taken in a procession, on foot and by hearse, from a state funeral in Westminster Abbey in central London to its final resting place in Windsor Castle.
After a committal service in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, her crown, orb and scepter—symbols of a monarch’s power—were removed from her coffin and placed on the altar. The Lord Chamberlain, the most senior official in the royal household, then broke his wooden wand of office over the coffin to symbolize the monarch’s passing. The Dean of Windsor read a Christian prayer, “Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.”
The day’s proceedings slowly shifted from the public to the…
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