On a day laden with ceremony and symbolism, one of the stranger moments of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II was a ceremony known as the “breaking of the wand”, an event that has not taken place since her father, King George VI, was buried in 1952, and which had never been widely seen by the public before.
The “wand” at the royal funeral had nothing to do with the Arthurian legend of Merlin, or indeed a more modern British wizard in Harry Potter, but was actually a symbol of the lord chamberlain, Lord Andrew Parker, known as the “wand of office”.
