Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral rehearsal called ‘comedy of errors’

“It’s a miracle that there were no serious disruptions on the day of the funeral.”

The burial of the British Queen Elizabeth II took place the year before last, but only now the inconvenient truth about the organization of mourning events is emerging. The only rehearsal for Her Majesty’s funeral turned into a “comedy of errors.”

During the only rehearsal of the funeral procession, participants in the procession lost their stride, and an officer of the honor escort was almost crushed, according to a biography of the royal family.

According to The Guardian, at the only rehearsal for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, the orchestra performed in the wrong place, an officer of the honor guard was nearly crushed at the Marble Arch, and “everything that could go wrong… went wrong.” , says a new biography of King Charles III.

Journalist Robert Hardman wrote about the chaos behind the preparations for the state procession in his book Charles III: The New King. The New Court. The Inside Story. “It was a comedy of errors,” said Garrison Sergeant Major “Vern” Stokes, who was in charge. for the military and ceremonial aspects of funerals.

The organizers had time for only one full rehearsal before the funeral event itself, which took place during the entire procession four days before in the early hours of darkness. Insiders told Hardman that preparations had been “out of step” from the start.

The front of the procession separated from the coffin – organizers quickly discovered that the guardsman and the Royal Navy recruit walking at the two-ton carriage had different required walking speeds. Then one of the officers – the monarch’s bodyguards – turned the wrong way and was almost crushed between the gun carriage and the Wellington arch.

“It was a minor miracle that there were no major disruptions on the actual day of the funeral,” Hardman wrote. But the state procession, which unfolded on September 19, 2022, went smoothly. The Queen’s coffin made its short journey from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey on a Victorian state gun carriage, pulled by 142 Marines and propelled forward to the music of 200 pipers and drummers.

The military procession that escorted her coffin past the landmarks of London to Wellington Arch was so long that when the front reached Whitehall, the rear was still stretching along Victoria Street. At Wellington Arch, troops successfully fired the royal salute to send the Queen to the State hearse, which will take her to her final resting place next to the Duke of Edinburgh at the George VI Memorial Chapel in Windsor.

An estimated 250,000 people lined up to see the Queen’s coffin as she lay in state at Westminster Hall in the Palace of Westminster. The queue stretched for 10 miles – seven miles from Westminster to Southwark Park, and then a three-mile snaking line inside the park itself.