The Duke of Edinburgh was quite clear about what he wanted after his death: the absolute minimum of fuss.
What happens over the next few days, therefore, will be strictly in line with his wishes. Now, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the arrangements for his send-off will be even more low-key than was originally planned.
Those plans, drawn up years ago under the code name Operation Forth Bridge, laid down that there would be no state funeral or lying in state.
“He doesn’t see himself as important enough for that,” an aide once said when asked the Duke’s opinions on lying in state.
The arrangements for Philip’s funeral, which is due to be held in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, have yet to be announced. However, it will take place without any crowds present. The royal family is anxious to keep to coronavirus regulations, which limit the number attending a funeral to a maximum of 30 people.
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Any ceremony is likely to be kept well away from the public gaze to avoid the possibility of crowds gathering.
Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty magazine, said: “Clearly they have planned for a Covid funeral and I know that Philip’s would be a pretty understated royal funeral compared to that which would be held for his wife.
“But in the midst of a pandemic, it’s going to be pared back so much. It will be behind castle walls at Windsor and we won’t get to see much of it at all.
“It will be a great shame that he has to have such a quiet send-off. But, in saying that, he didn’t want all the pomp and pageantry anyway so I suppose in a way it would suit his purpose.”
Philip was originally due to have what is known as a royal ceremonial funeral, the same level of honour as was given to the Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales. Unlike their funerals, however, Philip’s would not be held in the majestic setting of Westminster Abbey, but in the far more intimate surroundings of St George’s Chapel.
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The original plan was to hold the funeral eight days after his death, which would imply next Saturday.
The decision not to hold a lying in state for the duke is a break with recent tradition, as the honour has been bestowed upon the past three sovereign’s consorts.
Both the Queen Mother, the wife of George VI, and her mother-in-law Queen Mary, the wife of George V, lay in state in the vast, medieval Westminster Hall in the Palace of Westminster, in 2002 and 1953 respectively. Queen Alexandra, the wife of Edward VII, lay in state in Westminster Abbey in 1925.
During a royal lying in state, the coffin is draped in a royal flag, usually a personal standard, and rests on a catafalque — a decorated platform, covered in purple cloth, flanked by military guard around the clock.
In 2002 an estimated 200,000 people turned out to pay their respects to the Queen Mother, filing slowly past her coffin, which lay in state for more than three days in Westminster Hall.
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Prince Philip was always a practical man and his thinking may have also been to limit both the disruption and the costs incurred after his death.
Under the original plans the royal family and the household would have been able to pay their respects to the duke in private while his coffin, presently at Windsor Castle, was at rest in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace before the funeral. It seems probable that the coffin will remain at Windsor Castle until the funeral.
While relatively modest in scale, at least by royal standards, the arrangements for Philip’s funeral have been meticulously planned to reflect his lifelong association with the armed forces, especially his career with the Royal Navy during and after the Second World War. The service was expected to include the sailors’ hymn, Eternal Father, Strong To Save.
The plans have been years in the creation, given the great age to which he lived. It is understood that it used to give Philip wry amusement that many of the individuals involved in the planning of his funeral died long before he did.
Many elements of the original plan are likely to be discarded. For instance, on the day of the funeral the coffin would have been taken from the Queen’s Chapel at St James’s Palace by a bearer party of the Queen’s Company, 1st Bn Grenadier Guards — Philip was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards and Senior Colonel, Household Division until 2017 — to a gun carriage of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery waiting outside in Marlborough Road. From there it would have been drawn by a Royal Navy gun crew to Wellington Arch. All that now seems highly unlikely.
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However, the arrangements at the end of the funeral service, whatever form that takes, may well keep to the original plan, which would have seen the coffin being lowered in to the Royal Vault in St George’s Chapel, where many members of the royal family are buried, including George III, George IV and William IV.
Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg — known after her marriage as Princess Andrew of Greece — was the last royal to be buried in the vault, in 1969. In 1988 in accordance with her wishes her remains were moved to the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Philip’s coffin will remain in the vault until the death of the Queen, when they will be buried together in the George VI Memorial Chapel.
The chapel, on the north side of the quire of St George’s Chapel, is the last resting place of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret’s ashes.
