Breaking: Buckingham Palace announces Queen Elizabeth’s funeral date

The Queen’s funeral is to be held on Monday 19 September, Buckingham Palace has announced.

 

The event will come at the end of an official 10-day period of mourning, after the death of Queen Elizabeth aged 96 on Thursday. It will be held at 11am at Westminster Abbey.

Her son Charles was officially proclaimed King on Saturday, and ordered that the day of his mother’s funeral be a bank holiday.

King Charles III confirmed the public holiday during his first meeting with the privy council in St James’s Palace – the first in history to be televised.

The Queen’s funeral will be the first state funeral to be held since that of her first prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill, in 1965.

 

Though her father, George VI, chose St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle for his service, his daughter’s body will be taken to Westminster Abbey, where she was married and crowned, and then to Windsor to be interred in the royal vault.

Prior to the Queen’s funeral, she will lie in state in Westminster Hall for four days, to allow the public to pay their respects.

The Queen’s coffin is now in the Ballroom at Balmoral Castle and will be driven to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on Sunday.

On Monday, a procession including the King and members of the royal family will be formed as the coffin is taken to the city’s St Giles’ Cathedral. It will stay there until Tuesday, so people in Scotland can pay their respects.

On Tuesday evening, the coffin – accompanied by Princess Anne – will be flown from Edinburgh airport to RAF Northolt and then driven to Buckingham Palace.

On Wednesday afternoon it will be moved to Westminster Hall, where it will lie in state until the morning of the state funeral. Members of the public will have the opportunity to visit Westminster Hall to pay their respects to the Queen.