The coffin with the remains of Queen Elizabeth II, who died at the age of 96, left this Tuesday from Edinburgh airport, in Scotland, to London, where tomorrow a burning chapel will be installed in the Palace of Westminster.
Source: EFE
The coffin left this afternoon in a funeral procession from St Giles Cathedral, where more than 33,000 people have paid their respects to the monarch since Monday, to be transported on a military plane, accompanied by her daughter Princess Anne, to the Northolt Air Base, west of London, where it will land around 7:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT).
The departure of the remains of Elizabeth II from Scotland puts an end to the so-called Operation Unicorn, the plan designed in the event that the British sovereign died in the British nation, as happened last Thursday. The queen herself passed away at Balmoral Castle, the residence where she used to spend her summers.
“Over these last few days, we have seen how much Her Majesty meant to the Scots,” said Scotland’s chief minister, the nationalist Nicola Sturgeon.
Princess Anne, for her part, highlighted in a statement the “honor and privilege” that it represents for her to accompany her mother “on her last trips.”
Elizabeth II’s coffin will rest tonight in a room at Buckingham Palace, where members of the royal family and Crown employees will be able to bid her last farewell before Wednesday’s procession that will take her to the Houses of Parliament.
Between tomorrow and next Monday, when the funeral chapel will be closed and the state funeral will be officiated, some 400,000 people are expected to pay their respects to the sovereign of the United Kingdom for the last seven decades.
The queue to access the Palace of Westminster, which will be open to the public day and night, is expected to reach several kilometers on the south bank of the River Thames as it passes through the center of the British capital.
King Charles III and Camila, queen consort, traveled to Northern Ireland on Tuesday, after having been in Scotland yesterday, where the sovereign died last Thursday.
During that visit, the new king received a message of condolence from the president of the Northern Irish Autonomous Assembly, Alex Maskey, leader of Sinn Féin, the former political arm of the already inactive IRA.
