LONDON — I couldn't help but think it should have rained yesterday — positively bucketed down, just as it had done at her coronation over 69 years ago in June 1953. The tableau of a sodden funeral procession for Queen Elizabeth II would have made a fitting bookend for her reign. But instead, the skies over London were a stately grey, the color of the Portland stone that clads so many of the city's buildings, with bits of blue and gentle sunshine sometimes peering through.
Serenity was the mood among the crowds as well, and not just yesterday during the funeral procession. I have been here for the past six days. On Thursday, September 8, when Buckingham Palace released the statement noting that Queen Elizabeth's doctors were concerned for her health, I read the tea leaves. This was Palace cypher — the modern (yet curiously more oblique) version of the statement released by George V's doctor, Lord Dawson, in January 1936: "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close." I booked a hotel and later, a flight, determined to be here to bear witness.
