It was the beginning of the end. Out went the official notice on the closely followed queue tracker: “To avoid disappointment please do not set off to the join the queue”. Mathematics dictated that, with the lying in state due to end on Monday at 6.30am, and a 13 hour wait forecast, the queue was half a day from closing.
The waits had felt necessary for some, making friends and telling stories as they went. But it was not so easy for others: more than 1,000 people have had to received medical care since the lying in state began on Thursday, the London ambulance service, said. A total of 136 had even ended up in hospital.
Others, though, were only just arriving. Joe Biden, the US president, had landed on Saturday night to pay his respects at the funeral, taking his armoured limousine, ‘the Beast’, from Stansted airport. Many, like the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, signed a condolence book at Lancaster House. Plenty also chose to make their own journey to Westminster Hall to see the Queen’s coffin.
Jair Bolsonaro, the rightwing president of Brazil, on his first official trip to London, was one of those, arriving on the elevated viewing gallery for foreign dignitaries with his wife, Michelle. It is two weeks from a presidential election yet the incumbent, behind in the polls, felt it appropriate to travel to Britain, arriving at the embassy in the capital to a crowd of perhaps a couple of hundred supporters.
It is not supposed to be a political trip for any of the world leaders coming to London. But that did not stop the Brazilian leader, who, a few minutes later, addressed the crowd in the street from the balcony, wielding a microphone and delivering a none-too subtle campaign speech. “We are a country that does not want to discuss the legalisation of drugs, that does not want to discuss the legalisation of abortion and a country which does not accept gender ideology,” Bolsonaro declared.
Not everybody wanted to be the story. A to and fro over Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, accused of orchestrating the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was apparently resolved on Sunday when the Foreign Office confirmed he would not be attending the funeral. Protests are planned in London on Monday and his presence would have undoubtedly been a distraction.
Others, though, opted for style. Emmanuel Macron, arrived on foot around Westminster with his wife, Brigitte, wearing shades, a navy scarf, charcoal grey trousers and – in common with his partner – dark trainers; attending the lying in state by the coffin inside Westminster Hall later, however, the couple wore formal black. Biden arrived in the late afternoon, driven in that limousine. On the balcony inside Westminster Hall, accompanied by his wife, Jill, he made the sign of the cross and placed his hand on his heart.
Remembering the past is often the easy part. The future, however, is less certain. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, appearing on the BBC on Sunday morning, said she believed it was “likely” that New Zealand would become a republic in her lifetime. “Even the Queen herself has observed and acknowledged the evolution over time in our relationships,” she said; although the 42-year-old leader said a change in constitutional status was not one she had “any intent of instigating”.
King Charles III was not short of meetings and activity a day before his mother’s funeral. There was an audience with Liz Truss at 12.15pm, then a meeting with prime ministers from the Commonwealth realms, countries that still have the British monarch as their head of state. One of those was Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, who last week, following the death of the Queen, said he wants to hold a referendum becoming a republic within three years, although the monarch appeared cheery enough in the photo of their meeting.
With time running out, it was inevitable that some would crash into the news agenda. Prince Andrew chose Sunday to release his own statement of tribute. The 62-year-old was stripped of his royal duties and essentially exiled from the royal family after he had paid out around £12m to settle a claim of alleged sexual abuse brought by Virginia Giuffre after she was trafficked by his friend and convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein.
“Mummy, Mother, Your Majesty,” it began mawkishly enough. “Mummy, your love for a son, your compassion, your care, your confidence I will treasure forever,” he added. Accompanying the statement, his PR adviser sent out a picture of the Queen holding the prince as an infant shortly after his birth in 1960. But it is not likely he will return to royal duties again, such is the cloud that hangs over him.
As the day turned to evening, world leaders headed to Buckingham Palace in the early evening for a pre-funeral reception hosted by the King. Coaches, not buses, deposited most of the dignitaries – including the likes of European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and president of the European Council, Charles Michel at just after 6pm. Biden, of course, continued to be exempt from the mass transit.
The wait time for the queue to Westminster Hall, at one point at 14 hours, shortened to 9.5 hours as people appeared to pay heed to the government’s warning. In any event, although some would continue to line up, the focus was shifting elsewhere. Crowds gathered at Windsor and Sandringham, where people came to offer floral tributes. Others queued, as there wwere not enough queues already, to lay flowers in London’s Green Park, and stayed to contemplate notes written by others.
But while the crowds gathered in certain places, attention was quietly shifting elsewhere. Gradually, from around lunchtime, it was becoming clear that people, folding chairs in hand, were positioning themselves in central London and Windsor to secure a vantage point for the funeral at Westminster Abbey and subsequent committal at Windsor Castle.
With temperatures forecast to drop to 10 degrees it promised to be a cool night, with tents not allowed in Windsor. Nevertheless, some were determined to have a front row seat come Monday. A final act in the 10 day long period of national mourning was looming, one that would propel the Queen to her final burial alongside her late husband and the nation to a new chapter where the status of the monarchy would perhaps be less certain it had been for the past 70 years.
• This article was amended on 20 September 2022 to distinguish between dress worn by the Macron couple for a walk around Westminster, and that worn when paying respects at the Queen’s coffin.
