The dignity of the Queen’s queue

The scenes of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II this week are riveting, and importantly, they are not unique. I’ll get to that second thought a little later.

But let’s start with the extraordinary spectacle that London presented to the world. No one does ceremony better than the British. Can one imagine a sight more dignified than that of the sovereign’s coffin on a red catafalque within the thousand-year-old walls of Westminster Hall, draped in the Royal Standard, surmounted by the crown, and guarded by officers of the Household Division?

The answer is surely that if there is a sight yet more dignified it must be that of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children lining the River Thames for miles into East London as far as the docks to be able, many hours later, to pay their respects to the monarch who ruled them for 70 years.

Some bowed or curtsied, a few genuflected, most simply looked in reverential silence at a spectacle they’ve never seen before and may never see again.

It was an additionally compelling scene for me because I have, as the saying goes, “been there, done that.” On a bitterly cold night in January 1965, nearly 57 years ago, when I was a small boy, I joined a long line with my mother and elder brother to file past the coffin of Sir Winston Churchill, the last person to lie in state in the British capital.

The queue was not as long as for the Queen, but it was long enough. My recollection is that we joined the line on the Victoria Embankment, inched westward along the north side of the Thames, crossed the river to the south side, perhaps over Waterloo Bridge, then snaked along the south bank before crossing the river back to the north side over Westminster Bridge more than three hours later into Parliament Square.

This also brings me back to the point I made above — that this week’s scene was not unique. Churchill’s coffin was on the identical spot in Westminster Hall, on an identical red catafalque of four steps, with guards and tall candles at each corner. The only difference was that his coffin was covered by the Union Flag rather than the Royal Standard, and there was no crown.

It does not properly capture the essence of the matter to say the ceremonials surrounding the Queen’s death are traditional or done by the book, though they were. What they displayed was not similarity but purposeful and nearly identical continuity with the past.

Continuity underpins much of what people admire about Britain, and what Britons are proud of. It is a civilization of great antiquity. The 12 days of official mourning provide the nation with long threads of memory that, like the roots of a tree, nourish the living.

The Queen’s death has reconnected the nation with its history, revived the membership of this dynamic, imaginative, and colorful people in an ancient culture, and, without turning them away from the future, reminded them of who they are.