For 70 years, the institution was moulded in her image. Today’s outpouring reflects that legacy – and the problem King Charles will face
Thousands of words may have been spoken and sung at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, but the most intensely eloquent moment of all was a silence. It came after the mournful last post had sounded, and before the rousing, cheery notes of the reveille, itself followed by God Save the King. That’s quite a key change. In that silence hung the scale of what is being orchestrated, and the eternal fragility of it, too. For all the tears shed, all the moving personal respects paid, all the pilgrimages to London, all the uncomplaining hours queued, all the streets lined, all the flowers reverentially laid, these things are not allowed – cannot be allowed – to overwhelm the essential premise of royalty: the idea that no one is bigger than the club.
Every royal rite of passage is choreographed to create a sense of renewal. From births to weddings, the populace is encouraged not simply to celebrate, but to take the sense that the institution of the crown is being revitalised and strengthened. Even funerals are not allowed to be any different. We can never quite work out whether we want royals to be just like us or nothing like us, but in this they are wholly other. Among ordinary people, a funeral is a funeral, and doesn’t end with the apotheosis of the living.
