What to expect at the Queen's funeral
CBC
Hello, royal watchers. This is a special edition the newsletter ahead of Queen Elizabeth's funeral. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox.
Queen Elizabeth's funeral on Monday will follow an elaborate and precisely detailed plan — one the monarch will have signed off on herself.
More than 2,000 people are expected inside Westminster Abbey in central London for the hour-long service, which will begin precisely — as royal events do — at 11 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET) and be broadcast to an audience around the world.
At its heart is the traditional Church of England funeral service, along with elements of military pomp and circumstance that find their roots in how Queen Victoria wished to have her funeral unfold more than a century ago.
Still, there is the potential for surprise, whether in the music, the readings or something else the Queen — who died on Sept. 8, at the age of 96 — might have thought of as she planned for the inevitable day.
"She would have listened to advice, she'll have taken input from her children, but essentially hers will have been the final voice," Judith Rowbotham, a social and cultural scholar and visiting research professor at the University of Plymouth in southwestern England, said in an interview.
Elizabeth's funeral is the first for a monarch in Westminster Abbey since 1760, a fact Rowbotham attributes to the sheer scale of the event, and how it just wouldn't have been possible in the more frequent — and recent — locale for royal funerals, St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, west of London.
"Simply to get in the representatives of the Armed Forces, the reserves, all the organizations with which the Queen has been associated … then this huge phalanx of visiting Commonwealth leaders, members of princely families from across Europe who are related, things like that — you couldn't accommodate them in Windsor and then in St. George's Chapel."
Much speculation has circulated around just who will be inside the abbey. Canada will have a delegation (more on that below), and numerous world leaders are confirmed to be attending.
Some will reportedly travel together to the service from a location a few kilometres away to ease the potential for congestion around the historic church, but at least one leader will reportedly make his own way there: U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are expected to arrive in the Beast, his heavily armoured limousine.
The main pomp and ceremony of Monday's events begins at 10:44 a.m. local time (5:44 a.m. ET), when a procession to carry the coffin from Westminster Hall to the abbey will begin. Senior members of the Royal Family are expected to walk behind as the casket is transported on a gun carriage pulled by navy sailors.
The fact that there will be such military pomp goes back to the time of Victoria, who died in 1901 and who, Rowbotham says, wanted to avoid the way in which previous royal funerals had unfolded.
When Princess Charlotte, the only child of King George the Fourth, was buried in a nighttime state funeral in 1817, "the undertakers were so drunk they dropped the coffin," Rowbotham said.
"William the Fourth's funeral by all accounts was absolutely shambolic and Victoria was determined that it wasn't going to be like that for her."
Moubarak Bokhit Ali's memories of his home country of Sudan are punctuated by flashes of violence.
The man behind the Moose Jaw health centre that has claimed “a 100 per cent success rate in stopping the progression and in restoring function of people with ALS” says a recent CBC story about his company is evidence that he is seen as “a direct threat to the ALS drug industry.”
The Neighbour to Neighbour Centre’s trans and non-binary grocery program, which offers free food and household products to community members once a month, began with a simple question: how do we get free menstrual products to trans people without being awkward?
Bill Van Vugt is living a life that's unlike most other people his age, and one which has seen him turn a longtime hobby into championship gold.
The provincial government is taking steps toward improving Alberta's lucrative sand and gravel industry.
As medical labs across Ontario remain understaffed, one medical association is calling on the province to expand labs’ capacity for student placements by funding positions to train them.
The year wrapping up means it's getting closer to tax season, and the federal Community Volunteer Income Tax Program will once again be offering free filing services for Islanders with modest incomes.
It's not so easy to remove a politician from office between elections in Canada.
Natasha Martin-Mitchell says creating art gives her a sense of calmness that acts as a medicine during stressful times.
Gabriel Vilardi scored twice and star goaltender Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves in his first game back from injury to power the Jets to a 5-1 victory over the Washington Capitals on Saturday that snapped Winnipeg's three-game losing skid.
Alberta’s auditor general Doug Wylie says his office's budget will be $1.5 million short next fiscal year.
British Columbia has filed a civil claim against e-cigarette giant Juul Labs, alleging the company developed highly addictive nicotine products and fuelled youth nicotine addiction with “deceptive marketing practices.”
There's been positive reaction in Ottawa to news that the nation's capital could be home to Canada’s first high-speed rail line by the end of the decade.