They stood silently inside the great hall, eyes cast down in sorrow, each lost in personal memories of their monarch and much-loved matriarch.
They listened out for the clatter of hooves and the crunch of approaching footsteps, wondering how their husbands were coping on their harrowing march of sorrow.
For as the royal men – and Princess Anne – escorted Her Late Majesty’s coffin to her lying in state at Westminster, the mourning wives of Windsor were waiting, as ever, to support them.
