Viewers of The Crown will know that ‘Operation London Bridge’ – the term used to describe the complicated plan for what happens after the death of the British monarch – has already swung into effect.
After the Queen died yesterday at her Scottish castle Balmoral, her eldest son immediately became King Charles III. He will address the nation today, before returning to London with his wife, Camilla – now Queen Consort.
The Queen’s coffin will be brought to London and placed in Westminster Hall, where thousands of her subjects will be able to file past and pay their respects.
After the Queen Mother died in 2002, more than 200,000 people came to attend her in the same place.
At some point in the next fortnight, on a hastily arranged public holiday for the whole country, the Queen’s funeral will take place in Westminster Abbey, only a few hundred yards away from the Hall.
The Abbey is associated with many royal events. The Queen was both married there in 1947 and crowned in 1953. It was where the funeral of Princess Diana took place in 1997, and also the Queen Mother in 2002.
Heads of state from around the world are expected to join the new King, other members of the royal family and British public figures for the service. The new UK prime minister, Liz Truss, who met the Queen in Balmoral just three days ago, is expected to read a lesson.
From Westminster Abbey, the Queen’s coffin will be brought to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where the monarch will be buried alongside her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. St George’s was the venue for his funeral last year, and also the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018.
Although her son Charles is now King Charles III, there will be months before he is officially crowned. There was a gap of over a year between the Queen acceding to the throne in February 1952 and her Coronation in summer 1953.
