Scotland said its final goodbye to the Queen in strong autumn sunshine, as her coffin began its journey to London escorted by daughter Princess Anne.
Before the Queen’s coffin was carried out of St Giles’ Cathedral to a growing ripple of applause from onlookers by soldiers of the Royal Regiment of Scotland on Tuesday, a lone piper playing the Flowers of the Forest could be heard from within its precincts, where the Queen had lain at rest for a little over a day.
Outside, two ranks of the Royal Company of Archers, the monarch’s honour guard in Scotland, saluted, with their two standards lowered to the stone setts in the cathedral’s square.
Before the coffin was lowered into the hearse, the Princess Royal had taken part in a short private service attended by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister; Alister Jack, the UK government’s Scotland secretary; and Alison Johnstone, the Scottish parliament’s presiding officer.
The brief ceremony brought an end to an unprecedented six-day farewell by Scots to the UK’s longest serving monarch, who had died at Balmoral in Royal Deeside on Thursday, with members of her family at her side.
With members of the public lining the route to Edinburgh airport, Princess Anne escorted the coffin to RAF Northolt and then onto Buckingham palace, where it will rest in the Bow Room overnight on Tuesday. It will then lie in state at Westminster Hall before the Queen’s state funeral on 19 September.
Tens of thousands of people had queued in Edinburgh, some for five hours or more, to view the coffin as it lay covered by the royal standard of Scotland under the medieval cathedral’s arched roof, guarded round the clock by Royal Company of Archers personnel, dressed in their customary dark green uniforms, white gloves and caps carrying eagle feathers.
Dawn Davidson, 48, who was one of the last people to see the Queen lying at rest on Tuesday afternoon after travelling from Glenrothes, said it had been a “surreal” experience. “It can’t be anything else,” she said. “It’s just a moment in history. It was absolutely beautiful.
“I admire her service to the country for 70 years, just a strong woman. I’m certainly not against royalty but the Queen was a special lady.”
Rev Dr Iain Greenshields, the moderator of the Church of Scotland, who had spent the weekend with the Queen at Balmoral just before she died, said Scotland had shown its capacity for restrained spectacle.
“With the Queen’s genuine fondness for Scotland, I think she would have been absolutely delighted at the clear and dignified way Scots came out to say farewell,” he said.
“More than that, they were making a statement about how important to them she was. When we lose a mother or father it’s often only then we realise how fundamental they were to our lives and the same is true of the Queen.”
Jayne Hopp, 53, who had travelled to Edinburgh from Peterborough for a friend’s 50th birthday, said as they neared St Giles’ the mood in the queue changed. There was an air of expectation.
“We’re surprised how we reacted to it,” she said. “But I felt compelled. I felt if I didn’t do it, I’d be sorry.
“I sometimes feel people need things to bring them together particularly with the things going on in the world. We’ve just met some lovely people in the queue. People are more generous in spirit when these things happen.”
Jo Williams, who was one of the first to see the Queen lying at rest in St Giles’ on Monday, drove to Edinburgh from Manchester and hurriedly had to source a replacement electric wheelchair after her own broke down, but said the effort was worth it.
“There was a lot of security of course but when you got inside it felt really calm and dignified,” she said. “I felt at rest but also emotional: it was like she was there.”
Greenshields said the unique sequence of events the royal family and Scotland encountered with the Queen’s death on Royal Deeside offered a lesson about the social and political value of allowing all parts of the UK to experience momentous events.
Many well-wishers and mourners, including those who gathered in massed ranks in the village of Ballater, closest to Balmoral, those who saw the Queen’s funeral cortege process 170 miles from Balmoral down Scotland’s east coast on Sunday, and then watched as King Charles III walked on foot behind his mother’s coffin on Monday, had noted how important it was that Edinburgh was able to become a counter-weight to the consistently London-centric focus of great national events.
“There lies a lesson not just for Scotland, but the north of England, Yorkshire, that if we are to succeed in belonging together then each of us has to feel valued,” he said.
