Queen Elizabeth II's funeral: History passing before us, never to be forgotten

The British have done it again: Caught history passing by and beamed it to the world.

The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II will not be forgotten by those who were there or the billions watching a poignant panoply of images, sounds and silences, as the United Kingdom bid a sublime final goodbye Monday to a beloved and long-reigning queen.

The queen is dead but the monarchy lives on and the succession is set. Continuity is a key message of royal funerals and no one knew this better than the queen, who helped plan so much of her own farewell.

To underscore that point, Prince George of Wales, 9, second in line, and sister Princess Charlotte of Wales, 7, third in line, attended the funeral with their parents, Prince William and Princess Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales. Both children were beautifully behaved; they have already learned how to be royal in public.

They are old enough to long remember the funeral, as will other children their age who watched it. Television and films will help. American children of the era can vividly recall the 1963 funeral of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, much of which was televised live at the time.

George and Charlotte were there because they're the queen's great-grandchildren, but also because they are a tangible link between the queen, her ancestors stretching back centuries, and the future. They are in line to the throne. The children's presence was a way of saying to the British: Be not afraid, there will be a future.

And to the U.K.'s republicans, as anti-monarchists are known, it says: Top this.

It has been decades since the British have mounted such a moving display of mourning and celebration; not only have they not lost their skills, they have adapted to new technologies. This is the first state funeral for a monarch to be televised live. Not to mention tweeted.

As anticipated, it was a pitch-perfect tribute to a monarch inextricably linked to the identity of the nation for an unprecedented 70 years. Queen Elizabeth, the only monarch most Britons alive today have ever known, died Sept. 8, age 96, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.

The people in the streets stepped up to the dignity of the day, thronging London parks and the route of the funeral cortege without pushing or shoving or throwing too many flowers at the hearse.

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It will be some days before we learn how many, or how few, people were arrested during the funeral, but less than three dozen were detained in the runup to Monday, according to Metropolitan Police in London, which mounted the single largest policing operation in its history for the funeral.

One of the more remarkable aspects of huge public ceremonies in Britain (such as the 1997 funeral of Princess Diana) is the tendency of so many Brits to behave well in large crowds and follow directions. Moments of silence really are silent.

People packing the streets of central London and throughout the U.K. stopped talking or moving for two minutes at the end of the abbey service, many with heads bowed. Even the TV commentators stopped chattering. And all this came after hundreds of thousands of people peaceably waited for hours to pay respects during four days of the lying-in-state.

It was a day for sadness, of course. Is there any sound more plaintive than a bagpipe? At the end of the service in Westminster Abbey, the Sovereign's Piper, who played for the Scotland-loving queen most mornings throughout her reign, played the traditional lament, "Sleep, dearie, sleep," as the wail of the pipes slowly faded away in the cavernous abbey.

Ritual – religious, military, musical – can be enormously comforting to people in mourning, as the queen's family, led by King Charles III, certainly are. Unlike his mother, the new king has always been more open with his emotions in public, and especially so in a church echoing with beautiful music. The tears on his face at times during the day were unmistakable, as they were during his father's funeral last year.

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Ritual can be just as much a consolation to everyone else watching, in London and Windsor or around the world, now that the U.K. looks ahead with a new prime minister, economic uncertainty, and without the reassuring presence of the queen. Pacing through rituals, watching those rituals, helps people cope with loss and face the future with purpose.

Moreover, the carefully choreographed (and rehearsed) details of the funeral services, and the ceremonial flourishes that the British do so well, tend to concentrate the mind, helping family navigate the strain of grieving in public while marching down a street in front of thousands of people.

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Thus, the solemn processions, the marching regiments, the muffled drums. Big Ben tolling once a minute for 96 minutes, one for every year of the queen's life. The prayers and readings from Scripture, and especially the soaring choirs: There were three for this funeral, the Choir of Westminster Abbey, the Choir of the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, and the Choir of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

The two separate services, the funeral at the abbey and the committal service at St. George's Chapel, where the queen will be buried, lasted about an hour each and each featured, practically every minute, traditions, readings, hymns and gestures.

At the end of the committal service, King Charles placed on the foot of the coffin the Queen’s Company Camp Color, the crimson-and-gold silk standard of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, traditionally the bodyguards of the queen and the pallbearers of her coffin. (The battalion's name will change to the King's Company now, and the queen's color will be retired.)

The Lord Chamberlain, the title given to the head of the queen’s Household, then broke his thin white Wand of Office and placed it on the coffin, signifying the end of his service.

Again, another piper played a lament, "A Salute to the Royal Fendersmith," as the coffin was lowered to the Royal Vault below. The TV cameras pulled away and focused on the piper, as the sound of his pipes echoed through the church and faded away.

The burial later Monday was to be private, in a burial chapel commissioned years ago by the queen for her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, her sister, Princess Margaret, and her late husband, Prince Philip, who died in April 2021.

Yet tradition blended with sentimental touches. At Windsor, one of the queen's Fellponies, Emma, held by a groomsman with bowed head, greeted the cortege at it moved down the Long Walk. And the queen's two surviving corgi puppies, Muick and Sandy, a gift from second son, Prince Andrew, who will now adopt them, were spotted lounging nearby with handlers who were chatting with Andrew.

Tradition called for the queen's coffin to be topped by the Royal Standard and the State Imperial Crown, the Scepter and the Orb. These Instruments of State, as they are called, were on the coffin during four days of lying-in-state at Westminster Hall. They remained there until the end of the committal ceremony when they were ceremonially removed and placed on the altar, to be used later at King Charles' coronation next year.

For the funeral, a striking wreath of color and symbolism was added to the top of coffin, with a touching note from the king attached: “In loving and devoted memory. Charles R,” it read. The wreath was assembled, at the king’s request, from flowers and foliage cut from the gardens of royal palaces and residences.

The foliage was chosen for its symbolism: Rosemary for remembrance. Myrtle for the ancient symbol of a happy marriage, cut from a plant grown from a spring of myrtle in the queen’s 1947 wedding bouquet. And English oak, symbolizing the strength of love.

And in a small sign of the change of reign, there was no floral foam in the wreath, at the direction of the new king, a longtime advocate of environmentalism and sustainability; instead the wreath was formed in a nest of English moss and oak branches.

Kudos for the transcendent success of the queen's funeral belong first to the queen herself, and to her family. But credit also goes to the Earl Marshal, the hereditary office of the Dukes of Norfolk, whose job over centuries has been to organize ceremonies such as this.

The current holder of the office, the18th Duke of Norfolk Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 65, won't have a lot of time to rest on his laurels: His next job is even more daunting: Organizing King Charles' coronation.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, monarchy continues