Saturday’s funeral for Prince Philip will have a lot of pomp and spectacle, but all eyes are on his grandchildren.
The dramatic gap between Prince Harry and the rest of the royal family, in particular his brother Prince William, will be shown during the solemn procession to St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle and during the 50-minute liturgy commemorating the long life of his grandfather.
(U.S. viewers can watch the observations live on CNN starting at 9 a.m. EDT and on CBS, NBC and ABC at 9:30 p.m.).
But the woman who caused the split – Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle – will be out of sight.
The Duchess of Sussex, in the final months of pregnancy with the couple’s second child, remained at her home in California under the doctor’s orders.
This means that her husband will return alone to the site of his lavish 2018 wedding to bury his grandfather whose compassionate strength kept him through the disorienting funeral of his mother, Princess Diana, when Harry was only 12 years old. .
“I’ll walk if you walk,” Philip told his grandchildren when William, 15, and Harry avoided joining the procession that followed the chariot of arms carried by his mother’s coffin as he traveled to the abbey. of Westminster in 1997.
Two decades later, the princes will echo that gloomy march as they walk behind the electric Land Rover, built to Prince Philip’s specifications, which takes him to his resting place under the marble floor of the chapel.
The funeral trip is Harry’s first visit to his homeland since he and Markle left royal life a year ago, and his first encounter with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, 94; his father, Prince Charles; brother William; sister-in-law Kate Middleton, and the rest of the clan since the explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey of Sussex last month.
The royal breach, along with coronavirus considerations, forced the queen to make a number of last-minute changes to a funeral program (discreet for a king) that her 73-year-old husband had personally designed with military precision. before April 9th. died at age 99.
With only 30 bad guys allowed under the British government’s strict COVID-19 rules, the queen reduced the guest list of 800 people to that of closest relatives: her children and grandchildren, her spouses, a favorite niece and nephew , and some royals. cousins. Philip’s “intimate” Penelope Eastwood, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, will also attend.
By the Queen’s decree, Harry and William will not walk side by side in the eight-minute funeral procession from Windsor Castle to the chapel’s imposing Steps West. Instead, they will be separated by their cousin Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne.
Inside the chapel, the bad guys will remain socially distanced throughout the service, a rule that will keep the opposing princes very separate, but will also force the queen to sit alone while saying goodbye to the man she called “my strength and stay ”.
And while 700 soldiers will gather on the grounds of the castle to greet the prince, a veteran of the Royal Navy who served heroically in World War II, with shootings, gangs, clarinets and naval bagpipers, his children and grandchildren prohibits wearing their own military uniforms. for ceremonies.
That ban fell Thursday from Buckingham Palace to save Harry from the embarrassment of appearing in business attire after his departure from royal duties last year forced him to resign from his military appointments.
It also maintains Prince Andrew, whose ties to billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein led to his retirement from the Royal Navy in 2019, from wearing the admiral’s uniform to observance.
The funeral begins at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, while a minute of silence is observed throughout Britain as a military honor guard carries Philip’s woolen coffin (a gesture to his passion for environmental causes) to the entrance stairs of the chapel.
The prince will be buried in the royal vault of the chapel, where his coffin will remain until the death of Queen Elizabeth, when they will be buried together in the memorial chapel of George VI, the annex where the queen’s father is, George VI, his mother Queen Elizabeth, and his sister Princess Margaret are buried.