Prince Philip laid to rest at Windsor

It was the funeral Prince Philip had said he wanted. This is what a quiet family affair looks like in the House of Windsor. Whatever hardships the pandemic had brought, it had allowed this event to be scaled down to a size the Duke of Edinburgh said he preferred.

It had also allowed the Queen and Philip to spend what turned out to be the last year of his life together. Their seven-decade marriage, celebrated in this photo released this past week. But now the military bands assembled, to honor his own naval history and the many ceremonial commands he held.

His coffin emerged, draped in his standard, adorned with his officer’s cap and sword.
It was placed on an electrified Land Rover he had helped design. His environmentalist credentials were a feature of the day.

And so were some of the unavoidable, soap opera plot lines that Prince Philip so regretted had become part of this family’s story.

Prince Charles led the procession that followed the coffin. Behind him, his sons, William and Harry, walked – not together, but separated, their mutual coolness since Harry left royal duties and moved to California with his wife, Meghan Markle, on parade.
It was a sad echo of the time they had walked together behind a coffin – their mother’s – after Princess Diana’s death. Philip had told the reluctant princes then that he would support them by walking along with them.

The Queen, who turns 95 herself in a few days, followed by car with a lady-in-waiting. Through life, he had dutifully followed two steps behind her. Now, on his final journey, she followed him. It was somehow a deeply personal service of one family’s private mourning, and a public memorial seen ’round the world at the same time.

Queen Elizabeth drove off. The rest of the family chose to walk back to the royal residences. And the brothers William and Harry walked side-by-side. Perhaps their grandfather had brought them together once again.