The Queen will be reunited with the Duke of Edinburgh when she is interred alongside her late husband in the King George VI Memorial Chapel. The King will be joined by the Royal Family for a 'deeply personal' private burial service on Monday evening in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, following the Queen’s state funeral and committal service.
The tiny King George VI Memorial Chapel houses the remains of the Queen’s father George VI, her mother the Queen Mother and sister Princess Margaret. When Philip died 17 months ago, his coffin was interred in the Royal Vault of St George’s – ready to be moved to the memorial chapel when the Queen died.
A senior palace official said: “The service and burial will be entirely private, given it is a deeply personal family occasion.” It will take place at night, beginning at 7.30pm, conducted by the Dean of Windsor.
It will be attended by a grieving King Charles III, the Queen Consort, the Queen’s children, the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the Royal Family. The central feature of the pale stone memorial chapel annexe, which was added on to the north side of St George’s behind the North Quire Aisle in 1969, is a black stone slab set into the floor.
It is inscribed with “George VI” and “Elizabeth” in gold lettering and accompanied by their years of birth and death. Princess Margaret, who died in 2002, was cremated and her ashes were initially placed in the Royal Vault, before being moved to the George VI memorial chapel with her parents’ coffins when the Queen Mother died weeks later.
The princess wanted to be cremated because she found the alternative royal burial ground at Frogmore in Windsor Great Park too “gloomy”. Lady Glenconner, a lifelong friend of the princess, said in 2002 that the princess preferred the memorial chapel.
“She told me that she found Frogmore very gloomy,” Lady Glenconner said. “I think she’d like to be with the late King, which she will now be. There’s room I think for her to be with him now.”
George VI died in 1952. He was first interred in the Royal Vault and moved to the memorial chapel when it was built 17 years later.
