Jubilee Live Updates: St. Paul’s Service Celebrates Queen in Her Absence

The service of thanksgiving for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Friday.Credit…Pool photo by Dan Kitwood

LONDON — With fanfares, pageantry and the ceremonial precision at which Britain excels, Queen Elizabeth II’s seven decades as monarch were celebrated in her absence on Friday at a religious service that saw a rare, carefully choreographed appearance for Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, alongside other members of the royal family.

After three appearances on Thursday at the start of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Queen Elizabeth did not feel well enough to attend a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral, an event that united the elite of the British establishment in paying tribute to the longest-reigning sovereign in the country’s history.

Britain’s embattled prime minister, Boris Johnson, read from the New Testament at the service. And although the jubilee celebrations were a brief respite for him from political pressures, he was reminded of them upon his arrival at St. Paul’s when some bystanders booed him as he entered. Speculation is growing that the prime minister, who was fined by the police for attending a party at Downing Street that violated pandemic lockdown rules, will face a no-confidence vote in the coming weeks.

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, arrived at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.Credit…Pool photo by Matt Dunham

Prince Harry and Meghan, however, were cheered when they arrived. Their entrance was carefully managed to ensure that it came before that of Harry’s father, Prince Charles, and of his brother, Prince William, who were then seated some distance away and at the front of the cathedral.

Prince Harry gave up his royal duties in 2020, when he and Meghan left the country for Southern California. In an interview last year with Oprah Winfrey, Harry described his father and brother as being trapped in their roles, and relations have appeared frosty since.

Yet despite being relegated to the second tier of royalty in the seating plan on Friday, Harry and Meghan were allowed to proceed down the aisle of the cathedral, prompting many necks to crane among the specially invited congregation of about 400 people.

Harry and Meghan were seated in the second row, seen above on the right, on the opposite side of the aisle from his father, Prince Charles, and brother, Prince William.Credit…Pool photo by Aaron Chown

Royal watchers interpreted that as a sign of the queen’s determination to involve her grandson in the jubilee celebrations, and not to exclude him and Meghan from the extended family. Inside the cathedral, the television cameras did not capture any images of interaction between Prince Harry and his brother or father.

With the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, unable to attend because of illness, the task of delivering the sermon fell to the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell. He directed part of it to the queen, who was believed to be watching on television.

Referring to her well-known love of horse racing, the archbishop thanked the monarch for “staying the course,” noting that “race of life” was more like a long-distance course than a sprint. “Your Majesty, we are sorry that you are not here with us this morning, but we are so glad that you are still in the saddle,” he said, adding: “We are glad that there is still more to come.”

Aside from the queen, there was one other significant absentee: Prince Andrew, who — scarred by his association with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender — has been sent into a form of internal exile. Andrew had planned to attend, but Buckingham Palace said on Thursday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and would miss the event.

The service of thanksgiving on Friday was intended to exemplify the queen’s special role in British life as both head of state and head of the Church of England. Also invited were diplomats, charity workers and leading politicians.

In addition to Mr. Johnson, his living predecessors — John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May — attended along with their spouses. Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, was also present, as was London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan.

After an hourlong service, guests were invited to a reception behind closed doors at London’s Guildhall, where, according to the BBC, they were served smoked Norfolk duck breast, smoked salmon, beetroot shortbread and clotted-cream vanilla ice cream.

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, entering St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.Credit…Pool photo by Kirsty O’Connor

LONDON — The most eagerly anticipated guests at Friday’s thanksgiving service arrived well before the senior members of the royal family. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, walked into St. Paul’s Cathedral shortly after 11 a.m., turning every head in the vaulting nave as the couple walked, hand in hand, to their seats.

In the meticulous choreography of royal ceremonies, there was nothing accidental about their highly visible arrival. The couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were given their own moment, drawing a loud cheer from the crowd gathered outside St. Paul’s and the rapt attention of everyone seated inside.

It was the first official royal outing for Harry and Meghan since early March 2020, when they attended a service for the British Commonwealth at Westminster Abbey, shortly before decamping Britain for Canada, and later, Southern California. That service was memorable for the palpably chilly atmosphere between Harry; his brother, Prince William; and their father, Prince Charles. The three barely acknowledged one another.

Harry and Meghan no longer have a formal role as senior royals, a diminished status evident in the very different entrances made by Charles and William after the couple had taken their seats.

As the two princes made their formal entrance at St. Paul’s, proceeding through the nave with their wives, BBC’s cameras did not capture any interaction between them and Harry or Meghan. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were seated a couple of rows behind the senior family members.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William outside St. Paul’s Cathedral.Credit…Pool photo by Henry Nicholls Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, leaving the cathedral after the thanksgiving service.Credit…Pool photo by Kristy O’Connor

Perhaps the most striking thing about the appearance of Prince Harry and Meghan at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday was how unstriking it was. At least at first.

From Meghan’s tilted white hat to her neat cream trench dress and pumps to Harry’s morning coat, royal dress protocol was entirely obeyed. It wasn’t exactly an olive branch to the royal family, but it also wasn’t that far off. It almost looked as if their time in California had never happened.

“Looked” being, of course, the operative word because Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, had actually done something fairly radical.

On the surface, the visuals were entirely of a piece with the subsequent appearance of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge — the prince in the morning dress uniform of the royal family and Catherine in a butter yellow coatdress, a tilted Phillip Treacy hat, a trio of roses tucked under the brim on one side, and her hair, like Meghan’s, in a low bun.

Both women seemed to have taken a fashion lesson from the queen, adopting her favored style of all-in-one-shade dressing, this time in the light tones of a fresh start, and peace (or at least détente). Familial, and otherwise.

But while Catherine’s dress had been made by Emilia Wickstead, a young British designer, and thus served as a predictable moment of national fashion diplomacy, Meghan’s coat — as well as the skirt and shirt beneath it, the gloves, shoes and hat — came from Dior haute couture.

Given the royal family’s longstanding and accepted role in supporting British design by wearing British designers — especially during the most-watched public moments of their lives — Meghan’s decision to eschew a local brand for a storied French name was, sartorially speaking, an unmistakable declaration of independence.

Like Diana, Princess of Wales, who seemed to revel in European luxury fashion after her divorce from Prince Charles, Meghan is now free to wear what she wants. And given all that has gone on, her willingness to toe the royal family line may extend only so far.

Fans crowded the streets surrounding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to get a glimpse of the royal family on Friday.Credit…Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

London’s streets were crowded with visitors and locals enjoying the summer sunshine and a precious few days off to honor Queen Elizabeth II on Friday afternoon, the second of a four-day Platinum Jubilee celebrating her 70 years on the throne.

And in Hyde Park, some also reflected on the past and future of a royal household that has been embodied for seven decades by one woman.

“She has always done her duty, she has always tried to do her best for Great Britain and she has been such a stable figure throughout,” said Marina Burns, 60, who had traveled to London from Oxfordshire to meet her daughter for the celebrations.

How such sentiment will carry over when the queen’s successor, Prince Charles, eventually assumes the throne is an open question.

“Prince Charles, I am sure, is a nice enough gentleman, but it doesn’t have the same feeling,” Ms. Burns said.

Like some other Britons, Ms. Burns is looking to a younger generation of the royal family, and said she felt that Prince William — who is next in line to the throne after Charles — and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, might be more likely to inspire devotion in the way that Queen Elizabeth, 96, has.

“But I do think it feels like the end of an era of the old kings and queens of Europe when she goes,” Ms. Burns said.

Catherine Cooke, 48, and her daughter Lissy, 9, were eating cupcakes on a park bench and talking about the sights they had seen during a two-day visit to the city from their home in North Hampton for the jubilee.

Ms. Cooke came to London 20 years ago for the queen’s Golden Jubilee with her eldest son when he was a newborn, then came 10 years ago with her middle daughter, and now had Lissy by her side. In some ways, she said, it felt like a time of transition for both the nation and herself.

“I have a great respect for the queen — she’s so elegant, so unifying, such a lady,” Ms. Cooke said. “The rest of the family, not so much.”

Ms. Cooke wondered whether William would be a more suitable sovereign than Charles, his father. The nation, she said, needed someone “a bit more in touch, and perhaps he can be that.”

Greg Phelps, 53, from the United States, and Erwin Kunnen, 60, from the Netherlands, seemed to have picked up on the same idea while visiting London for the jubilee.

Referring to the queen, Mr. Phelps said, “Once she passes, how does that change the monarchy?”

Mr. Phelps and Mr. Kunnen both questioned whether Prince Charles would have the same unifying effect as his mother.

“If you want the monarchy to be relevant again, is he going to be a bit too old?” Mr. Phelps said. “Will a younger generation go, ‘I don’t relate to this guy?’”

“But as an American,” he concluded with a laugh, “it’s not my problem.”

Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 70th Jubilee this year to mark the seven decades since she was coronated as queen in 1952.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, celebrating her 70 years on the British throne, is above all a tribute to one of history’s great acts of constancy.

Her reign has spanned virtually the entire post-World War II era, making her a witness to cultural upheavals from the Beatles to Brexit, technological advances from wireless radio to Zoom, and political leaders from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson.

From the sepia-tinted pictures of her coronation in 1953 to her emotional televised address to a nation in the grip of the pandemic in 2020, the queen has been an abiding presence in British life for as long as most Britons have been alive.

Her triumphs — history-making visits to South Africa and Ireland — have lifted the country. Her sorrows — the fraught days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a Paris car crash, or the Covid-enforced isolation of her grieving for her deceased husband, Prince Philip — have become the nation’s sorrows.

Perhaps no living person has met so many famous people, a gallery of heroes and villains ranging from Nelson Mandela to Vladimir V. Putin. But it is her countless meetings with ordinary people that have left perhaps the most lasting imprint of the longest serving British monarch in history.

Queen Elizabeth II visiting Canberra, Australia’s capital, in October 2011.Credit…Cole Bennetts/Getty Images

In some countries in the Commonwealth, the global group of former British colonies, the debate over whether to sever ties with Britain’s royal family has been fierce. In 2020, Barbados decided to remove the queen as its head of state and become a republic, and other Caribbean countries may follow.

Yet in Australia and New Zealand — both of which Britain brutally colonized in the 18th century — questions about whether to keep the monarchy have long been ignored in favor of bread-and-butter political issues.

“It’s not something a lot of New Zealanders wake up worrying about,” said Simon O’Connor, a conservative member of Parliament and former chairman of Monarchy New Zealand, a group that encourages New Zealanders to support the monarchy.

However, a change in Australia’s government and Indigenous calls for constitutional reform have prompted a surge in interest in the role of the monarchy.

Both Australia and New Zealand have complicated feelings toward Britain.

Australia was once used to house British prisoners, inspiring a measure of resentment to this day. And although the country rejected becoming a republic in a 1999 referendum, polls now indicate that the public narrowly favors the idea.

New Zealand maintains closer cultural ties with Britain. It is almost a rite of passage for young middle-class New Zealanders to spend time working there, and a substantial plurality of the public opposes becoming a republic.

Support for the monarchy in both nations is often lukewarm and centered on Queen Elizabeth, and many people expect an uptick in republicanism after she dies.

In Australia, the election last month of Anthony Albanese as prime minister may renew the public’s interest in constitutional questions, which inevitably will raise questions about the monarchy’s role.

In his first speech after being elected, Mr. Albanese — a committed republican — promised to heed a plea from Indigenous Australians about their status in society. That campaign, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, seeks a change to the Constitution to guarantee the participation of Indigenous Australians in political debate and recognize their sovereignty, which Britain denied the existence of 300 years ago.

And on Tuesday, in a further sign of Mr. Albanese’s seriousness about constitutional reform, he noted while announcing his cabinet that he had created a new role of “assistant minister for the republic.”

Peter FitzSimons, the chairman of the Australian Republic Movement, which campaigns for Australia to cut ties with the monarchy, said his organization had received $100,000 in donations in the week after Mr. Albanese’s election.

In New Zealand, earlier this year, Te Pāti Māori, a political party representing Indigenous Māori, called for a “divorce” from the monarchy, driven in part by distrust in an institution that oversaw the theft of their lands.

“We put trust in a monarchy that we thought was acting in good faith,” said Rawiri Waititi, a member of Parliament and a co-leader of Te Pāti Māori. “That didn’t happen.”

The “divorce” is part of a set of changes that the party hopes New Zealand will embrace, including establishing a Māori Parliament and allowing for greater Maori self-governance.

Still, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, a republican, said last year that she had “never sensed urgency” from the public on the monarchy’s role. She has said that she will not act on the matter while in government.

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, leaving Canada after a tour of the country last month.Credit…Carlos Osorio/Reuters

OTTAWA — When Queen Elizabeth II of Britain first took the throne, symbols of the crown and royal coat of arms appeared seemingly everywhere in Canada, which remains part of the Commonwealth, including on mundane objects like mailboxes.

In the decades since, most of those symbols have disappeared — a diminished presence that is reflected as Canada celebrates the queen’s Platinum Jubilee not with an extended weekend or grand tribute, but with a series of low-key, mostly local events.

There will be tree plantings by air cadets in Calgary, Alberta; a geocaching walk in, perhaps appropriately, Cache Creek, British Columbia; plus military parades, garden parties, artistic performances, a photo exhibition and a sound and light show on the nation’s Parliament buildings.

All 325 examples of the Canadian dollar pure-platinum Platinum Jubilee coin are sold out at the Royal Canadian Mint, but Canada Post has plenty of commemorative stamps available.

Queen Elizabeth still commands wide support and respect among Canadians. In an April survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit public opinion agency, 62 percent of respondents expressed a favorable view of the queen.

The following month, Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, made a three-day whirlwind royal tour across the vastness of Canada to mark his mother’s reign.

Yet there is growing national ambivalence in Canada over the monarchy as a whole.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents in the April poll said they opposed the idea of Charles succeeding his mother as Canada’s king. As has been the case in Canada since the end of his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, crowds at the few open public events that Charles attended last month were comparatively small.

For many in Canada’s increasingly multicultural and diverse population, the monarchy either represents historical oppression or is bafflingly irrelevant.

“There may well be a point at which Canadians say, ‘Huh, who’s this dude on my money?’” said Shachi Kurl, the president of Angus Reid.

Still, to prevent Charles from automatically becoming king of Canada when the queen dies would require amending Canada’s Constitution, which makes the British monarch the head of state. Such an effort would need the unanimous approval of Parliament and the governments of all 10 provinces, said Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor at Carleton University and an expert on the monarchy’s role in Canada.

In a country that is often divided on regional lines, getting that sort of agreement is the kind of a monumental task that no politician might wish to take on.

Even as head of state, the queen has even less authority in Canada than she wields in Britain. Nearly all of her powers have long been held on her behalf by the governor general — the queen’s representative, but one selected by Canada’s cabinet. The current officeholder is Mary Simon, an Inuk from northern Quebec who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.

When Charles becomes king, the disappearance of symbols of the crown and the royal coat of arms in Canada’s public spaces may accelerate. And the monarchy itself may just slowly fade out.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica, right, with Prince William in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, during the prince’s Platinum Jubilee royal tour of the Caribbean in March.Credit…Pool photo by Jane Barlow/REUTERS

Of all the places where Queen Elizabeth II remains head of state, the future of the monarchy looks bleakest among the nations of the Caribbean.

Last November, Prince Charles joined Rihanna and other guests at the ceremony in which Barbados dropped the queen as its head of state and became a republic. Now, six other Caribbean nations may follow suit.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, public sentiment toward the monarchy has soured, and calls for reparations for Britain’s often brutal role in the slave trade have been rising.

Separate tours of the Caribbean this year by Prince Edward, Charles’s brother, and by Prince William, the future king’s son, were the subject of protests over the monarchy and Britain’s brutal history with slavery. The protests forced the cancellation of some stops.

Standing next to William during his visit, Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, said his country was “moving on” from Britain’s monarchy. “We intend to fulfill our true ambitions and destiny as an independent, developed, prosperous country,” Mr. Holness said.

In 1972, Arthur Foulkes was present as an opposition delegate to the Bahamas Independence Conference in London. Five decades later, he says it is time for a Bahamian head of state to replace the British monarch.

“I have great respect for Queen Elizabeth II,” Mr. Foulkes said. But he added: “The time has come for us to look beyond the monarchy. I think a lot of us have been thinking that way.”

While the appearance of William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, stirred debate locally, the couple was not met with notable protests or obvious resentment during their stop in the Bahamas.

The government of the Bahamas has not said that it plans to change the nation’s head of state. But Fred Mitchell, the minister of foreign affairs, has long pushed for the country to become a republic.

“We should have gone to be a republic at independence, but for various internal political reasons, it couldn’t be done,” he said. “When the Bahamian people are persuaded that that’s the direction they want to go in, we will head that way. But there’s no campaign at the moment for constitutional change in that direction.”

Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, a Bahamian author and historian, said discussions about who should be the head of state missed larger and more important questions.

“I’d rather use my voice to talk about those things that we need to fix in our own country,” Ms. Glinton-Meicholas said. “There are major problems from having a slave and colonial past.”

She said that it would be more productive if Caribbean nations pushed for reparations from Britain for slavery and colonialism, and that she would like them to take the form of educational institutions and museums that deal with the history and effects of slavery.

“We should be focusing on how we should repair the damage done,” Ms. Glinton-Meicholas said. “With reparations, give us institutions. Give money for that out of the wealth you acquired from these colonial territories.”

Rachel Knowles-Scott contributed reporting from Long Island, the Bahamas.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson, in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Friday.Credit…Pool photo by Phil Noble

LONDON — When Boris Johnson, Britain’s embattled prime minister, gave a reading from the New Testament at a service in St. Paul’s Cathedral during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations on Friday, it was a chance for him to step back from domestic political pressures, stride the global stage and rub shoulders with royalty.

Mr. Johnson has faced acute criticism after the publication of an top civil servant’s report that was highly critical of the culture in Downing Street, where lockdown-breaking parties were held during the pandemic. The prime minister himself was fined by the police for attending one such event, and there is growing speculation about a no-confidence vote in his leadership.

Yet this week’s jubilee events have ushered in a brief truce in the political infighting within Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party as politicians from across the political divide gather to celebrate the queen’s seven-decade reign. There were, however, some boos from the crowd when Mr. Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson, arrived at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Queen Elizabeth has a regular audience with the prime minister, a ritual that in her case began with meetings with Winston Churchill. Yet despite being head of state, she has little real power and defers to elected politicians on matters of policy. She also avoids public statements that might give any indication of her personal views.

Given the history, tradition and global interest in the monarchy, political leaders and other establishment figures have long valued appearing at royal events because it gives them access to some of the stardust of royalty.

Alastair Campbell, who served as spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair, described in his diaries his attendance at the queen’s Golden Jubilee media reception at Windsor, in 2002, and observing the impact of her presence on the assembled British journalists.

“There was something truly pathetic about these so-called hardened hacks, many of them self-proclaimed republicans, bowing and scraping the whole time,” he wrote. Queen Elizabeth, he added, “moved effortlessly between them and left grown men in little puddles of excitement as she moved on.”

When the queen attended a dinner for former prime ministers in Downing Street, the atmosphere was also good enough to prompt conversations among hardened political adversaries.

Other politicians have described Queen Elizabeth’s mastery of small talk and her skill at retaining a poker face, including Alan Clark, who served as a minister under Margaret Thatcher’s government.

“Not for the first time I wondered about the queen,” he wrote after one encounter, “Is she really rather dull and stupid? Or is she thinking ‘how do people as dull and stupid as this ever get to be ministers?’”

About 280 million pounds will be spent on Platinum Jubilee souvenirs and gifts in Britain, according to one estimate.Credit…Tolga Akmen/EPA, via Shutterstock

What with all the bunting, flag waving and street parties, it is clear that many people are spending a significant amount of money over the Platinum Jubilee weekend. In fact, by one estimate, there will be more than 400 million pounds (about $501 million) in jubilee spending, with £280 million of that on souvenirs and gifts alone.

For many businesses, the four-day weekend will bring a welcome boost and some cheer amid a long-running stream of economic problems, including pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, frighteningly large energy bills, hiring challenges and rising food and commodities prices exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

Sixty percent of small- and medium-size businesses said they expected their revenues to be higher in this quarter compared with a year ago, in part because of the royal celebrations, according to a survey by Barclays. Hospitality businesses are expecting to be the biggest beneficiaries: Industry groups said they believed pubs, bars, restaurants and other venues could earn £400 million more than during a typical Thursday to Sunday at this time of year.

“At last, our beleaguered sector is able to look forward to the sort of trading period that will give it a massive boost as it sets out on the long road to post-pandemic recovery,” the groups said in a joint statement.

Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UKHospitality, an industry group, said the effect of the bank holiday might be muted because of darkening economic clouds and because the extra days off fall during an existing school vacation, when many families will be away.

“Undoubtedly people are a bit more nervous in the sector that you won’t get that boost and uplift that you’d normally get from a bank holiday because of the suppression of demand you are getting from the talk about a cost of living crisis,” she said.

But even with Pimm’s flowing for four days and endless excuses to socialize, the overall economic impact is relatively small. On the grand scale of Britain’s economy, bank holidays actually decrease the country’s economic output. Many economists are factoring the long weekend into their forecasts that the economy will slow this quarter.

St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.Credit…Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Friday as part of the jubilee celebrations was intended to exemplify Queen Elizabeth II’s special role in British life as both head of state and of the Church of England.

As Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the queen appoints archbishops, bishops and deans of cathedrals on the advice of the prime minister — hence the symbolic importance of the service in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The recently restored Great Paul, the largest church bell in Britain, was rung, followed by a peal of bells before a service featuring Bible readings, anthems, prayers and congregational hymns to express thanks for the queen’s seven-decade reign.

The State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry greeted the royal arrivals, and the congregation heard a new anthem by Judith Weir, Master of The Queen’s Music, which sets to music words from the third chapter of the Book of Proverbs.

The choirs of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Chapel Royal also came together to sing “I Was Glad” by Hubert Parry — a work that is performed at the coronation of British monarchs.

The royal family takes its role as the guardian of the church seriously, and its senior members regularly attend services, whether at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle or the more modest surroundings of the churches near the royal estates at Sandringham and Balmoral.

Also invited to be among about 400 people in attendance on Friday were diplomats and leading politicians, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his surviving predecessors, and the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer.

Mr. Johnson gave a reading from the New Testament at the service, illustrating the constitutional links between the government and the monarch, who — though head of state — defers on political matters to those who are elected.

Queen Elizabeth has a regular audience with the prime minister, a ritual that in her case began with meetings with Winston Churchill. Yet the queen is expected to be above politics and invariably avoids venturing opinions on anything that might identify her own views.

The service of thanksgiving on Friday was held to honor the queen’s special role in British life as both head of state and head of the Church of England.Credit…Phil Noble/Reuters

The archbishop of York praised Queen Elizabeth II for “a staunch constancy and a steadfast consistency” in her service to Britain, during the sermon at a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Friday.

“Thank you for continuing to be faithful to the pledges you made 70 years ago,” the archbishop, Stephen Cottrell, said at the event, which was part of a four-day celebration of the queen’s Platinum Jubilee. “Thank you for showing us how service and faithfulness matter. People of all faiths and no faiths and people of good will can learn from this.”

The queen did not attend the service, after experiencing discomfort on Thursday, the first day of jubilee festivities. Archbishop Cottrell was filling in for the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who withdrew from jubilee events after testing positive for Covid last weekend.

In a nod to the queen’s long affinity for horse racing, Archbishop Cottrell referred to two of Britain’s most famous racecourses when he said, “Since the scriptures describe life as a race set before us, let me observe that your long reign reflects the distance of Aintree more than the sprints of Epsom.”

“Your Majesty, we’re sorry you’re not with us this morning in person, but we are so glad you are still in the saddle,” the archbishop said. “And we are all glad that there is still more to come.”

The queen attended a service at Westminster Abbey in central London in 2019.Credit…Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via Shutterstock

Queen Elizabeth II occupies a unique place in British culture, serving a constitutional, religious and ceremonial role, as both head of state and head of the Church of England, a role held by British monarchs for centuries.

The monarchy’s role in the church dates back to the time of Henry VIII, who in 1534 separated the church in England from the Roman Catholic Church when he renounced the authority of the pope and became the “supreme head on Earth” of the Church of England.

Because of this, Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 had both a religious and ceremonial element. She appoints archbishops, bishops and deans of the Church of England, who swear an oath of allegiance to her. She does not lead the church on spiritual or practical matters, however. That is left up to the General Synod, the national assembly of the Church of England.

Over the seven decades of the queen’s reign, Britain’s population has grown more secular and more religiously diverse. And as Buckingham Palace describes it, “The queen acknowledges and celebrates religious diversity and tolerance in the U.K. and the Commonwealth.”

Great Paul, cast in the late 1800s, weighs over 16 tons.Credit…Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis, via Getty Images

LONDON — The history of Great Paul, the St. Paul’s Cathedral bell that was rung for a service commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebration on Friday, is one of toil and grandeur.

It is also a story that involves a giant furnace, over 16 and a half tons of metal and now, of muscles and sweat.

The largest bell ever cast in the British Isles, and the largest still being rung there, Great Paul was commissioned in 19th-century Britain, when a penchant for ambitious, monumental objects was reflected in a high demand for large, deep-toned bells.

Several cities around the country got one, but Great Paul “was destined to outrival all competitors in size, weight and public acclaim,” Trevor S. Jennings, an author who specializes in bells, wrote in his book “The Story of Great Paul.”

The bell, made of bronze, was intended to resemble those of cathedrals in continental Europe. But the foundry that created it — run by John Taylor in Loughborough, a town north of London — made it clear that to reach the note that the cathedral was going for, the bell would need to weigh at least 15 tons.

So the foundry built a new, larger furnace to melt copper, tin and old bells from other British churches, and the workers took four days to load more than 40,000 pounds of metal into the furnaces.

Workers at the John Taylor & Co. bell foundry in Loughborough, England, in April.Credit…Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

When the bell was completed, Mr. Taylor invited locals and workers to a celebratory luncheon, and hundreds of visitors from miles away came to see the bell.

But the work was not over. To transport the huge bell to London, about 140 miles away, options like trains and boats were rejected, because of overly complex logistics, as were elephants — because they weren’t exactly abundant in Britain.

The bell was finally loaded onto a carriage drawn by a steam engine. It took 11 days to reach London, in a large convoy attended by reporters but also vandals trying to inscribe their initials on the bell with chalks and chisels. In May 1882, Great Paul arrived in the cathedral’s southwestern tower, where it still hangs.

Its primacy was tested in 2012 by Britain’s Olympic bell, which weighs about 23 tons but was cast in the Netherlands and is now displayed, silently, in London’s Olympic Park.

Great Paul was also largely silent for over four decades after its electronic motor broke a few years after being installed in the 1970s. After the bell was restored last year, the church’s ringers began sounding it manually so that its powerful, low-pitched chime could resonate across its central London neighborhood.

That is a two-person job, said Simon Read, 26, a member of St. Paul’s Cathedral guild of bell ringers who will ring Great Paul before Friday’s service celebrating the queen’s 70 years as monarch. And it requires tackling the rope with their full bodies to swing the 16-ton bell.

It is, Mr. Read said, a mixture of music and exercise. “I’ll be doing biceps,” he said.

Great Paul is housed in the cathedral’s southwest tower, seen above on the right.Credit…Grant Smith/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

Mr. Read, who has swung bells hundreds of times over the past 12 years, said that Friday’s was the most important performance of his career. His fellow guild members have also helped Britain commemorate notable events: One, who is 90, rang the cathedral’s bells for Winston Churchill’s funeral in 1965, and another rang them for the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1981.

On Friday, bells in churches across Britain rang as Great Paul sounded before the service. St. Paul’s bells will then also ring for four hours after the event, which includes Bible readings, anthems, prayers and hymns to honor the queen for her faith and service.

Mr. Read said he planned to get a good night’s sleep and drink some Gatorade before climbing the narrow stairs to the dark, dusty room above the cathedral’s clock to ring Great Paul for the queen.

“I feel very proud and special to be able to ring the biggest bell in the country,” Mr. Read said, adding, “I would hope that she notices that the bells are ringing.”

Queen Elizabeth II making her first Christmas broadcast to the British nation from Sandringham House in Norfolk, England, in 1952. She ascended to the throne after her father, King George IV, died that February.Credit…Fox Photos/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

This week’s Platinum Jubilee festivities feature an abundance of royal pomp and circumstance. But on the actual anniversary of the queen’s accession to the throne, back in February, Elizabeth spent a quiet Sunday at her country estate, Sandringham, where her father died on Feb. 6, 1952.

Accession Day has always been a melancholy anniversary for the queen, as much about the death of her father as her own ascension to the throne. Although George VI had been seriously ill, his death was traumatic for the 25-year-old princess, who was by all accounts very close to him.

Still, Elizabeth managed some low-key festivities on this year’s anniversary, cutting a cake and playing host to members of volunteer groups. Among her guests was Angela Wood, an 88-year-old onetime cooking student who created “coronation chicken,” the dish served to 350 V.I.P.’s at the banquet on coronation day in 1953.

Mrs. Wood and the queen discussed the recipe, which calls for diced chicken, tomato paste, a dash of curry powder, brown sugar, a pinch of salt, a splash of red wine, later mixed with mayonnaise and puréed apricots.

“For a month or more,” she told the BBC, “I was cooking a chicken a day, and we had to alter the balance of the spices in the sauce to get it right.”

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Queen Elizabeth II spoke in Tweedbank, Scotland, on the day she became the longest-reigning monarch in Britain’s history.

AP TELEVISION – AP CLIENTS ONLY Tweedbank – 9 September, 2015 SOUNDBITE (English) Queen Elizabeth II: “Prince Philip and I are very grateful for the warmth of your welcome on this occasion. Many, including you First Minister, have also kindly noted another significance attaching to today. Although it is not one to which I have ever aspired, inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones. My own is no exception. But I thank you all and the many others at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness. So now to the business in hand. It is my very happy duty to declare the Borders Railway open.” SOUNDBITE (English) Queen Elizabeth II: “Inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones, my own is no exception. But I thank you all and the many others at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness.”

Queen Elizabeth II spoke in Tweedbank, Scotland, on the day she became the longest-reigning monarch in Britain’s history.CreditCredit…Scott Heppell/Associated Press

On Sept. 9, 2015, Elizabeth II became Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, surpassing the record set by Queen Victoria. On that day, Steven Erlanger, who was The New York Times’s London bureau chief at the time, wrote about the milestone. Below is an excerpt from that article.

She became queen at 25, and as of 5:30 p.m. British time on Wednesday, at 89, Elizabeth II had ruled for 23,226 days, 16 hours and about 30 minutes, according to the BBC, surpassing Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother.

The first Queen Elizabeth gave her name to an age, as did Victoria, in an ever more powerful kingdom. But that is unlikely to be the legacy of this Elizabeth, who has reigned over Britain’s long transition from empire to Commonwealth, from world power to relative international insignificance.

Yet through it all, she has managed to maintain public respect and belief in the monarchy — despite the sometimes scandalous behavior of her children and the spectacular death of Diana, the Princess of Wales — by her regal quiet.

“She has made it an absolute rule to say nothing about anything,” the historian David Starkey told the BBC.

In private, many attest, the queen can sometimes be sharp and even malicious, and a good mimic, Mr. Starkey said. But “in public utterance,” he said, “a very firm and large padlock is placed upon the royal lips.”

In this, the queen has embraced the wisdom of Walter Bagehot in “The English Constitution,” published as a book in 1867, when he said that to preserve a constitutional monarchy, “we must not let in daylight upon magic.”

She has also been rigorous about her responsibilities, again heeding Bagehot when he wrote that a sovereign has “three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.” He added, “And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.”

In his memoir, Tony Blair recounted his first meeting with her as prime minister: “You are my 10th prime minister,” the queen told him. “The first was Winston. That was before you were born.”

The queen spent Wednesday in Scotland, doing her queenly duty. The Duke of Edinburgh, her husband, joined her to open the Scottish Borders Railway, and they rode on a steam train with Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

There was more fuss in London, where regular business in the House of Commons was postponed for 30 minutes so that legislators could pay tribute.

A flotilla of historical vessels, leisure cruisers and passenger boats took part in a procession between Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. The flotilla did not, however, include the Royal Yacht Britannia, which the queen loved but decommissioned in 1997 in response to public agitation for savings. It is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

The monarchy and the queen are hardly without critics, and the republican movement, which regards the monarchy and its many branches as a waste of space and money, remains vocal.

Graham Smith, head of the anti-monarchist group Republic, said in a statement: “The queen has said nothing and done little that anyone can remember over 63 years in office. So instead, we see commentators and cheerleaders projecting the nation’s history, changes and achievements onto the monarch.”

The Elizabeth Line will eventually run for more than 62 miles, extending east and west beyond the city limits.Credit…Tolga Akmen/EPA, via Shutterstock

As crowds of people flock to jubilee events across London, some of them can take advantage of a new subway line that opened last week and is named for Queen Elizabeth II, who made a surprise visit to the new line at Paddington Station a week earlier.

The Elizabeth line officially opened at 6:30 a.m. on May 24, after years of construction, delays and a price tag of more than $22 billion. Among the dozens who rode the first train was Prateek Karandikar, 33, a public transit aficionado who lives in central London. He woke before dawn to get there on time and, like other fans who came, dressed in head-to-toe purple — the official color of the Elizabeth line.

“The Elizabeth line is the most significant thing to happen to London’s transport for the last few decades,” Mr. Karandikar said. “So I just knew I had to be there on the first train to see it.”

The line, also known as the Crossrail, will eventually run for more than 62 miles, extending east and west beyond the city limits. Now, the line is partly operating, with full service scheduled to begin in May 2023.

When the queen attended the opening ceremony on May 17, she met workers who had helped build the line and some of those who will run and maintain it. Her youngest son, Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, accompanied her.

The queen was given an Oyster card, the transit pass used in London, and shown how to use it on a ticket machine.

At the station, she was welcomed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson; London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan; and Andy Byford, the commissioner of the city’s transit authority and the former leader of New York’s subway system.

“We’re all incredibly touched and moved and grateful to Her Majesty for coming to open the Elizabeth line today,” Mr. Johnson said at the event, according to the BBC. “It was fantastic to see her.”

Crowds gathered along the Mall in central London on Thursday for the Trooping the Color parade.Credit…Pool photo by Aaron Chown

From Thursday to Sunday, Britain is celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, commemorating her 70 years as monarch — a first for a British queen or king.

Thousands of events are taking place around the country and the Commonwealth, and London will host a series of official ceremonies. The celebrations are timed to coincide with her official Queen’s Birthday, an annual public holiday, although Elizabeth’s actual birthday is April 21.

Where to watch it

The New York Times is covering the events for an international audience.

In the United States, ABC News has been covering the jubilee celebrations on “Good Morning America” and “GMA3: What You Need to Know,” broadcast from London and Windsor, England. A Sky News YouTube stream broadcasting some of the events is available in the United States.

In Britain, the events are being livestreamed on the BBC.

What’s on

Friday:

A service of thanksgiving for the queen’s reign will be held at St. Paul’s Cathedral in central London. Great Paul, the largest church bell in Britain, will be rung before the service.

Afterward, members of the royal family are scheduled to attend a reception at London’s Guildhall.

Saturday:

The traditional Derby Stakes, known as the Epsom Derby — one of Britain’s best-known horse races — will be held in the afternoon. The queen had initially been scheduled to attend but canceled to “pace herself” through the weekend, according to the BBC, and then also canceled her appearance on Friday after experiencing “discomfort” on the first day of festivities. Her daughter, Princess Anne, will attend on her behalf.

A Platinum Party concert will take place in the evening at Buckingham Palace, with performances by acts like Elton John, Alicia Keys, Queen, Duran Duran, Andrea Bocelli and Elbow performing. About 22,000 people are expected to attend.

Sunday:

Over 10 million people across Britain and the Commonwealth are expected to join Big Jubilee Lunches.

In the afternoon, a parade featuring dancers, military displays, musicians, gymnasts, key workers and community representatives will be held on the Mall in central London. Ed Sheeran, the British pop star, is scheduled to perform in the parade’s finale.