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| Thursday, April 25, 2024 |
Miles from the Mainstream |
D.
R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor |
September 19, 2022 -- LPR here offers its visitors tapes of two different telecasts of the procession, September 14, of the Queen's coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall where the Queen will lie in state until the funeral, September 19. The CBS News telecast starts earlier than the Fox News coverage, and has commentary during he procession. The Fox coverage offers just the sounds of Big Ben and the music of the procession -- no commentary. The camera coverage seems identical, which might be explained by pool coverage. For LPR, its first view of the horse-drawn gun carriage carrying the coffin brought home the reality of the passing of the monarch whose coronation in 1953 took place one month after LPR's bar mitzvah. (LPR recalls seeing tv coverage of the coronation, based on film, 69 years ago.). LPR therefore has hazy recollections of the time the Queen was the elder daughter of King George VI. (LPR always thought sister Margaret was the prettier royal princess.)
LPR's favorite image of Queen Elizabeth II was of her on horseback, in military uniform, including meadows, at an official function with her mounted troops -- as in this image; As for the procession, it confirms LPR's view that no one does pageantry as well as the Brits on royal occasions -- perhaps reason enough to remain a monarchy.
King Charles III -- Humble and dignified At this service of prayer and reflection at Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, Wales, September 16, the audience at the end of the service, attended by KIng Charles III and the Queen Consort, sang God Save the King. In the week since he ascended the throne Charles had heard this anthem to the monarch several times. LPR was struck by his demeanor on this occasion: humbly dignified -- if not emotional as he was reported to be, hearing the anthem at Westminster Hall, previously. There is just a quick glimpse of the king -- at about the one hour and eleven minute mark on this video, but it should be enough to get LPR's point. |
The vigil of the children of Elizabeth at her lying-in-state September 16, 2022, in Westminster Hall, members of the public continue to pay their respects to Elizabeth II as King Charles III, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward (all in military uniform) stand vigil at the coffin of their mother.
The Grandchildren... On Saturday, September 17, 2022 (the 235th anniversary of the Constitution) the eight grandchildren of the Queen stood vigil at her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall. Here is tape of this sad, and impressive, ceremony honoring Elizabeth II. The grandchildren enter the hall at the ten-minute mark on the video. The eight grandchildren are William, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. (King Charles III); the untitled Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips (Princess Anne, Princess Royal); Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie (Prince Andrew, Duke of York); and Lady Louise Windsor and James Windsor, Viscount Severn (Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex). Prince Harry reportedly was in military uniform at the request of his father, King Charles. Two bits of trivia about the September 14 cortege to Westminster Hall Included among the mourners walking behind the coffin were her nephew, David Armstrong, 2d Earl of Snowden, son of Princess Margaret, the Queen's sister, and HRH Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the only cousin of the Queen to walk in the procession. (His father, Prince Henry, was one of the brothers of George VI, the Queen's father.) Here's more on Prince Richard This royal highness was the youngest of the grandchildren of George V, born August 26, 1944. At that time he was fifth in line of succession to the crown, behind Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, his father and elder brother, Prince William of Gloucester, killed in a plane crash on August 28, 1972, two days after Richard's 28th birthday. (William was the first of the grandchildren of George V to die.) Today? The Duke of Gloucester is fiftieth in succession to the crown; first in his line, but there are all those descendants in the George VI line ahead of him.
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