How Does the Queen’s Death Impact Royal Titles, What Happens to the Flowers, and Are There Toilets in the Queue?
Answering your questions in the wake of Her Majesty’s death.
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This evening at Westminster Hall, the Queen’s eight grandchildren surrounded her coffin in one of the most moving moments thus far of mourning the late monarch. The orderly, somber procession and the time William, Harry, and their cousins spent standing in stillness undid me in a way that I wasn’t expecting.
If I’m being honest, none of this has been what I expected. I had anticipated the series of events, including the very public presence of the royal family in the days immediately following the Queen’s death. But I had not prepared myself for what it would feel like to watch it all unfold. I never thought I could be so entranced by a livestream of the Queen’s lying-in-state, watching people who have spent long days and nights queueing up to pay their respects. I keep it open with the sound on when I am at my computer, comforted by the quiet shuffling of the crowd.
The Queen’s eight grandchildren begin their vigil Saturday evening. (Photo via i-Images / Polaris)
As we build to Monday’s funeral, I’m struck by the prolonged intensity of the proceedings—and I’m curious how YOU are feeling. Is there an aspect you find particularly notable or emotional? Have you participated in some way? Please hit “Join the discussion” at the bottom of this email and share in the comments of this newsletter.
Answering Your Questions in the Wake of the Queen’s Death
I have received a flurry of questions in the last week about different aspects of this mourning period and what it means going forward. What happens to all the flowers? What about the titles of the Queen’s great grandchildren or Camilla’s son and daughter? ARE THERE TOILETS IN THE QUEUE?
Below you will find answers to about a dozen of your queries. I was most delighted to learn more about the man who inherited the planning role and the piper who will close out the service on Monday.
PS: You can send your condolences directly to the royal family here.
A procession on Wednesday took the Queen’s coffin through the streets of London to Westminster Hall. (Photo by Toby Melville - Pool/Getty Images)
How much is this costing and who is paying for it?
The total cost of the Queen’s extended mourning period will be announced in “due course,” according to the New York Times. “But the price tag, which will involve elaborate processions, vigils and rituals, is expected to be significant and will be covered by the state.”
The newspaper adjusted for inflation the costs of other large British funerals and estimated the Queen’s would likely cost more than the last state funeral (for Winston Churchill in 1965) and the last ceremonial funeral (for the Queen Mother in 2002). The security tab alone for the Queen Mother’s lying-in-state cost £4.3 million ($5 million adjusted for inflation), according to a report from the House of Commons.
My guess is this will be a point of scrutiny going forward, as the UK is facing a worsening cost-of-living crisis, with everything from rent to energy prices soaring.
The 18th Duke of Norfolk, far left, at the State Opening of Parliament in 2015. (Photo by Carl Court/AFP via Getty Images)
Who plans the Queen’s funeral?
The short answer is: The Duke of Norfolk.
I was surprised to learn that the responsibility of planning major royal events, including the State Opening of Parliament as well as funerals and coronations, is a hereditary position. Let that sink in! King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronations were planned by the 16th Duke of Norfolk. Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the 18th Duke of Norfolk, took over planning the Queen’s funeral when his father died in 2002. The duke told The Times in a delightful interview that his father said: “I organized the crossing of the Rhine [in the Second World War] in 24 hours — the Queen’s funeral will be a piece of cake.”
Annual planning meetings in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace began with about 20 people; as of last April, there were 280. In the piece, the duke talks about the ways the plans have evolved to allow for as much participation by the public as possible. The funeral was moved to Westminster Abbey, which can hold more than 2,000 people. He also added as time to the lying-in-state, which should make it possible for an additional 85,000 people to pay their respects to the Queen.
What does it feel like to be in charge? “It’s all pretty scary,” the duke told the Times, “but you have to rise to the occasion. I have an incredible team, but the buck stops with me.”
Princess Elizabeth being greeted by the 16th Duke of Norfolk, at her father’s coronation in 1937. (Photo via Print Collector/Getty Images)
Do we know what the Queen will be buried in?
No, we do not. I would expect that to remain private.
Have they released more details about the funeral?
Yes, although not much in terms of programming for the service itself. We do, however, have a timeline for Monday:
6:30am UK / 1:30am ET / 10:30pm PT: The lying-in-state concludes.
10:44am UK / 5:44am ET / 2:44am PT: The coffin will be placed on a gun carriage for the eight-minute procession from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. “The procession will be led by about 200 musicians including the pipes and drums from the Scottish and Irish Regiments,” according to the New York Times. “The carriage will be followed by King Charles III and members of the royal family.”
11am UK / 6am ET / 3am PT: The funeral begins, lasting for about 55 minutes before the Last Post is played by the Queen’s Piper and the country observes two minutes of silence. (More on that tradition below.)
There will be a second procession of the coffin to Wellington Arch, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, NHS workers, and the British Armed Forces. From there, the coffin will be transferred into the hearse and driven to Windsor.
3:06pm UK / 10:06am ET / 7:06am PT: The coffin will arrive in Windsor.
4pm UK / 11am ET / 8am PT: A televised committal service will take place at St. George’s Chapel. At the close of the service, the Queen’s coffin will be lowered into the royal vault.
7:30pm UK / 2:30pm ET / 11:30am PT: A private interment service will take place in the King George VI Memorial Chapel.
Remind me, how we can watch on Monday?
BBC, Sky News, and ITV in the UK will carry the funeral live. In the US, CNN will have live programming from 5am to 1pm ET.
For those watching on the web, some YouTube links for you: Sky News (a great live feed), the BBC (live bits as well as excellent highlight clips), and the Royal Family official channel (official programming).
Wait, tell us more about the Queen’s piper.
Ok, confession — nobody asked this but I went down a rabbit hole. I am for sure going to cry at this point in the service! Piper to the Sovereign is an official role that dates back to Queen Victoria. From the Telegraph:
“The post dates back to the time of Queen Victoria, who first heard bagpipe music in 1842 when she and Prince Albert visited the Highlands for the first time. They were staying at Taymouth Castle with the Marquess of Breadalbane, who had his own personal piper, and she was quite taken with the idea. She wrote to her mother: ‘We have heard nothing but bagpipes since we have been in the beautiful Highlands and I have become so fond of it that I mean to have a piper, who can if you like it, pipe every night at Frogmore.’ After Queen Victoria's death, successive monarchs retained the piper’s services.”
The piper plays at the discretion of the monarch. People magazine says the Queen enjoyed bagpipes playing for 15 minutes each morning. The 15th piper, Scott Methven, has done a bit of press—you can watch his charming BBC interview here. “You are thrust right into the inner circle of the monarchy,” he said.
Which makes it all the more fitting that the Queen’s last piper, Paul Burns, should close out the service on Monday at Westminster Abbey and join the family in Windsor, too. (The piper was a particularly moving moment at Prince Philip's service last year.)
The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes outside of Sandringham on Thursday. (Photo via i-Images/Polaris)
Why are all the royal men wearing navy suits instead of black?
This is one of the questions I’ve been asked most often. Black has historically been the color associated with mourning for the royal family. We’ve only seen Camilla, Kate, Meghan, and Sophie in all black — but the men are routinely wearing navy suits with black ties. I asked several very stylish friends for their thoughts:
Garret Munce, a writer and grooming editor
“Think of politicians who you never see in black unless like literally at a funeral and sometimes not even then! It’s an old school thing. Black is reserved for very, very specific occasions. I have many black suits and I used to wear a black suit almost every day when I was at GQ, but that was a conscious choice because I am a ‘fashion person.’ The average person and/or menswear traditionalist would never. And the LOOKS I would get sometimes!”
Lauren Indvik, fashion editor of the Financial Times
“Black definitely has different connotations in the UK. Only worn for very formal occasions — funerals, weddings (only if a formal morning suit, which these days only very posh or exceedingly traditional people do), and black and white tie. Estate agents and drivers will also wear them. Women don’t wear black at weddings which is very old fashioned!”
James Nord, founder and CEO of Fohr
“As you dive deeper into classic tailoring and menswear you come to realize the black suit is a bit of an anomaly and potentially more of an American thing. Traditionally black is reserved for formal wear and thus a midnight navy suit is likely the closest you can get. Black suits can make you look too much like a waiter can often look dull and grey and ultimately cheap, whereas a navy suit with a white shirt and black tie will look appropriately somber and respectful.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the Prince and Princess of Wales view the flowers on display at Windsor last weekend. (Photo by Chris Jackson - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
What happens to the displays of flowers and notes? Are they just left there or will they gradually get cleaned up?
Massive displays of flowers are such an important part of the royal mourning that Royal Parks issued guidance for these tributes in London. There are technically just two designated areas: Green Park and Hyde Park. Flowers left elsewhere, like outside of Buckingham Palace or on the Mall, “will be sensitively moved at the end of each day to the Green Park tribute site.”
There is a noted push to make these displays sustainable. Mourners are asked to remove any wrapping for their flowers before going to lay them. Other gifts—like a stuffed animal—are discouraged. The tributes will remain for 7 to 14 days after Monday’s funeral. Once the flowers begin “deteriorating,” the website says, they will be removed and processed for composting. Cards will be removed and “stored,” presumably for the historical record.
In Windsor, where the Queen will be laid to rest following the London funeral, there is a team of more than 100 dedicated to management of the tribute. Flowers are checked for security and moved inside the castle grounds ahead of Monday’s service. “Initially they will be laid outside St George’s Chapel and then they are being laid along Cambridge Drive which links the castle to the Long Walk,” ITV News reports.
Prince William made a surprise appearance on Saturday to thank people queuing up to pay their respects to the Queen. (Photo via i-Images/Polaris)
Do we know about the logistics of the queue? Are there toilets or water?
THE QUEUE! I’m fascinated by the ever-moving long line that people are waiting in to pay their respects to the Queen at Westminster Hall. There is both a livestream of the 24/7 stream of mourners and a queue tracker with real-time details. What started as a six-hour wait since stretched to more than 24 hours. At times the queue has closed, prompting a queue for the queue.
As I have said on Instagram, the queue is serving such an important role in the Queen’s farewell — and her legacy. It provides tangible, visual evidence of the affection she enjoyed, as well as a way for hundreds of thousands of people to participate in her goodbye. What’s more, it has become a constant, dynamic display to fill the space — on air, in newspapers, and in our hearts and minds — before the funeral. It closes at 6:30am Monday morning.
But back to the question at hand! Yes, there are toilets along the way. The Guardian reports that participants are given numbered wristbands “showing their place in the queue and meaning they can leave it to use toilets or fetch food and drink.” Anecdotally, I’ve seen on social media that there are blankets being distributed, too, as well as the occasional free cup of coffee or tea.
For more on what it is like to wait, and what it feels like when the wait comes to a close, I wanted to share this fantastic piece my friend Richard Morgan wrote for Town & Country:
“Here I had come looking to decipher the event’s meaning and, instead, fate spoon-fed me wisdom: You never have as much time as you think with anyplace, anything or anyone—not even with a guard at a lying-in-state procession. Even a moment days in the making, days in the pondering, and days in the feeling, can upend expectations and require fresh, raw, unrehearsed response. Every heart should make peace not with its moods, but rather with the permanent and absolute amateurism that comes with feeling your way through the nascence of what’s next.”
Will the Cambridge kids now be known as the Wales kids at school?
Yes. Because King Charles officially named William and Catherine the Prince and Princess of Wales, their three children will now be known as Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and Prince Louis of Wales, instead of “of Cambridge,” according to People magazine.
(As an aside: I was pleased the Wales announcement came so quickly in part to minimize the disruption around the kids’ school lives. We know the day the Queen passed away was their first full day at a new school; how difficult this all would be! No need to add last-name limbo to the challenges.)
The Wales children will receive personal titles at the time of their marriage, which will then be extended to their spouse. William and Harry were known as “of Wales” as children and became, respectively, the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex when they got married. (You can see the Cambridge announcement from back in 2011 here.)
Are the Sussex children now known as Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet?
This is the subject of much debate right now. Technically, as grandchildren of the sovereign, they are already prince and princess. CNN has reported it as such. But on the royal family’s line of succession, which has been updated since Charles became king, still names them as “6. Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor” and “7. Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor.”
And then the issue of whether they would be HRHs. The Sun report, that they have been denied that styling because Harry and Meghan are no longer working royals, has been picked up widely.
I hope we have some clarity on this eventually, but I don’t expect an answer in the coming days.
Do we know if the late monarch met Lilibet?
Hello magazine says: “As far as we’re aware, the Queen met her great-grandson, Archie, twice and her great-granddaughter Lilibet, once…They may well have spent more time together than the public is aware of, however.”
Princess Anne (with her daughter, Zara) greeting mourners outside of Balmoral Castle last weekend. (Photo via Owen Humphreys / WPA Rota / Nunn Syndication / Polaris)
Why don’t Princess Anne’s children have titles?
As the daughter of the sovereign, Anne’s children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, were not guaranteed a royal title. However, the Queen offered both of them courtesy titles and Anne declined. “I think it was probably easier for them, and I think most people would argue that there are downsides to having titles,” the princess said in an interview with Vanity Fair back in 2020.
Where are Camilla’s kids in all of this? Will they get titles now that she is Queen Consort?
Camilla has two children. Tom, age 47, is a celebrated food writer and author of several cookbooks. King Charles is both his stepfather and his godfather. Tom has two kids, Lola and Freddy, with his first wife, whom he divorced in 2010. He was dating journalist Alice Procope for nearly two years before she died of cancer last year.
The Queen Consort’s daughter, Laura, age 44, is a former art curator who keeps a lower profile than her brother. She has three kids with her husband, who is an accountant. Her daughter, Eliza, was a bridesmaid at Kate and Will’s wedding (Charles held her up on the balcony afterwards); and twins, Louis and Gus. “She reportedly gets along very well with her step brothers,” according to Town & Country.
Camilla’s children are not in the line of succession and do not have any royal titles. In a 2015 interview, Tom described himself and his sister as “straight-out commoners.”
“Tom and Laura will remain exactly as they are, their names won’t change,” Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty magazine, told the New York Post. “If they haven’t needed security up until now, they won’t get it when the reign changes — unless it’s needed. But as a matter of course, they will not get security.”
King Charles and Queen Camilla making their first public appearance outside of Buckingham Palace on Sept. 9. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
What does Camilla become if Charles passes on first?
Camilla will be known as the Dowager Queen, the term for the widow of a deceased king, or simply Queen Camilla.
We can look to recent-ish history for this with Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandmother and wife of King George V. She lived for nearly two decades after her husband’s death and her son’s death — and was called Queen Mary that entire time.
As an aside: The title issue became a tad tricky with Queen Elizabeth II’s mother, the wife of King George VI who was also called Queen Elizabeth. To avoid any confusion, the widow was most commonly known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother or, shortened, the Queen Mother.
While we’re on the topic of queen titles, there are *five* different types:
Queen Regnant, a woman who inherited the throne by birth.
Queen Consort, someone who marries the king.
Queen Dowager, the widow of the king.
Queen Mother, the widow of the king and mother of the reigning monarch.
Queen Regent, a rarely used title for the queen consort ruling on behalf of the king during an extended absence. (When Henry VIII went to fight in France, he made Catherine of Aragon his Queen Regent.)
The Elizabethan era is over, and now we are in the “Carolean” era. What will William’s era be called?
This was news to me! I had not heard about “Carolean,” which is based on the Latin version of Charles, Carolus. This will be the second Carolean era, following the first of King Charles II. Before that, the reign of King Charles I was known as the “Caroline” era.
“Historians like giving those names,” Justin Vovk, a PhD candidate in early modern history at McMaster University, told CTV News. “They like tying up those loose ends and it lets people have a microscope to look at her reign and pull out some key traits we can use to define this era.”
I’ll be curious to see how much these terms are used going forward; they tend to be most associated with the longer reigns (ie the Victorian Era and the Elizabethan era). The shorter ones, like the Georgian and Edwardian reigns, aren’t used to describe the time period with such regularity.
But to answer the question: The Latin version of William is Gulielmus, which means his era could be referred to as the “Gulielean” era. It’s...a mouthful.
Now my question for you: What moment of the last week have you found the most moving? Please hit “Join the Discussion” at the bottom of this email and share in the comments of this newsletter.
Prince Harry during a vigil of the sovereign's grandchildren on Saturday evening. (Photo by Aaron Chown / POOL / AFP)
I will be covering the funeral on Monday in real time on Instagram; You can find me at @EHolmes. More to come. ❤️
(Header photo via Bruce Adams - Pool/Getty Images)
The So Many Thoughts Newsletter comes out twice a week. You can subscribe and catch up on the archives here, including:
➡️ The Power of the Queen’s Signature Style
➡️ Everything You Need to Know About the Queen’s Funeral
➡️ Thoughts on the New Cambridge Portrait from an Art Historian
💭 Have Thoughts to share? I’d love to hear them! Hit “Join the Discussion” and leave a comment on my Bulletin page. You can also send me an email at Hello@SoManyThoughts.com.