Details for a week of national mourning, with times and places needed to pay your respects to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
King Charles III will start the day with a visit to Westminster Hall, where later this week the Queen will lie-in-state in parliament’s most ancient building. Both Houses of Parliament, the House of Commons and House of Lords, will come together in joint session.
At 10am, the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament, Sir Lindsay Hoyle and Lord McFall, will present ‘addresses of condolence’ that the King will respond to. Members of the legislatures of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will also attend.
The new monarch will then leave, along with Camilla, the Queen Consort, to fly from RAF Northolt to Edinburgh – which will become the focus of national mourning for the next 24 hours.
Following a six-hour journey from Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s coffin spent Sunday night in the throne room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
At 2.30pm, following a ‘Ceremony of the Keys’, a solemn procession will leave Holyroodhouse, travelling up the Royal Mile. A service, led by Reverend Calum MacLeod, is expected to last about an hour and will begin around 3pm.
From 5pm, for a period of 24 hours, the Queen will lie in rest on a raised platform known as a catafalque. The coffin will be draped in a royal banner of Scotland and will be guarded at all four corners by the The Royal Company of Archers. It is expected King Charles III will perform this duty at some point.
Mourners will be able to view the coffin, with a queuing system in place. There will be strict security checks and restrictions on mobile phones, with photography and recording prohibited.
The Queen’s coffin will leave St Giles’ Cathedral in late afternoon, accompanied by Princess Anne. The 40-minute flight from Edinburgh airport to RAF Northolt is expected to arrive in the capital around 7pm.
It will then travel by road to Buckingham Palace, with thousands expected to line the 15-mile route, along the A40 and into central London. With hundreds of thousands expected to be in the capital, the Metropolitan Police are planning what they claim will be their biggest security operation of all-time.
The King and his wife, accompanied by Prime Minister Liz Truss, will start the day in Belfast, receiving condolences from local politicians at Hillsborough Castle. They will also attend a service of prayer at St Anne’s Cathedral.
He will return to London to receive his mother’s coffin at Buckingham Palace, where it will rest overnight in the Bow Room, a circular room with full length windows and marble columns in between each bay.
The Queen’s body will travel from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall shortly after 2pm. Her coffin – draped in the Royal Standard – will be carried on a gun carriage of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.
King Charles and the Prince of Wales, plus other senior royals, are expected to walk behind the cortege as it takes a 40-minute route along Queen’s Gardens, The Mall, Horse Guards and Horse Guards Arch, Whitehall, Parliament Street, Parliament Square and New Palace Yard.
Once at Westminster Hall, the Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct a short service before the coffin is raised onto the catafalque and topped with the Imperial State Crown, orb and sceptre. Each corner of the platform will be guarded by soldiers from units that serve the Royal Household.
Westminster Hall will be open for members of the public to pay their respects 24 hours a day.
In 2002, more than 200,000 people filed past the coffin of the Queen Mother and more than 300,000 paid their respects to Sir Winston Churchill in 1965. Significantly more are expected to file slowly past the Queen in the days ahead, with officials expected to ask for patience in queues that could last many hours.
The coffin will lie-in-state for four days, during this time the Queen’s children, grandsons and granddaughters will all spend a 20-minute vigil guarding the coffin, though it is not expected these times will be communicated.
The coffin will lie-in-state for its second full day while the King and Camilla, along with the prime minister will conclude their home nation visits when they travel to Wales. It is expected they will be joined by William and Catherine, the new Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Queen’s coffin will continue to lie-in-state at Westminster Hall.
The coffin will leave Westminster Hall on a gun carriage, hauled by ropes not horses, for the short journey to nearby Westminster Abbey, with military expected to line the streets.
A state funeral, which will start at 11am, will be held with members of the Queen’s family joined by senior UK politicians and heads of state from around the world, with US president Joe Biden already signalling his intention to attend.
Following the funeral the coffin will will travel in procession from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch, from where it will travel to Windsor.
The coffin will journey along Windsor’s Long Walk in the state hearse to St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, where a committal service will take place.
She will be buried in the in the King George VI memorial chapel, alongside with her father, mother and sister, Princess Margaret. The Queen’s late husband, Prince Philip, will be moved to be in the chapel with her, he was interred in the Royal Vault following his death, aged 99, last year.
