On Friday, September 16 2022, the day the queue to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state in Westminster Hall first reached its ten-mile capacity and had to be closed to new entrants, one social media commentator tweeted that it was “our 21st-century pilgrimage”.
The idea that these crowds of mourners waiting through the night to view the Queen’s coffin were pilgrims was subsequently promoted by the press. It was also enthusiastically taken up by the public.
“We were coming slowly down the Mall and, because you’re with thousands of others all making the same journey, it almost felt like a pilgrimage,” an IT engineer told the Independent. Even the Bishop of Southwark agreed, which is remarkable given that, until relatively recently, pilgrimage in Protestant Britain was considered a Catholic aberration.
