A year since the loss of Queen Elizabeth

What is there to say, on the first anniversary of the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth?  I miss her, as I knew I would, and know I always will.  Her wisdom, her smile, her words of encouragement: we are having to carry on without them.

The grief was very deep — the void in the stomach, the taste of iron on the tongue — but so too was the consolation of all that followed: the lying-in-state, the funeral procession, the final Committal at Windsor; their dignity and beauty.  They were days out of time, in which we were reminded of a different way of doing things — the Queen’s way — the only false note being the decision to bring her coffin to London by air, rather than by rail.  But in any case I shall never forget the wordless television pictures of the mourners filing past her coffin in Westminster Hall — mourners whose numbers I had the privilege to join.  That collective four-day farewell was also a pact of remembrance: we who recognised in that witness, in that pilgrimage, a vindication of the Queen’s faith and virtue, stepped out of Westminster Hall with a greater determination to live our ordinary lives more as Elizabeth lived her extraordinary one.

But we remain loyal to and continue to pray for our Sovereign King Charles, who in his benevolent melancholic way is exercising wisdom of his own.  His Majesty has written today,

In marking the first anniversary of Her late Majesty’s death and my Accession, we recall with great affection her long life, devoted service and all she meant to so many of us.

I am deeply grateful, too, for the love and support that has been shown to my wife and myself during this year as we do our utmost to be of service to you all.

Charles R.

The reception of H. M. the late Queen’s coffin at Westminster Hall.  James O’Donnell’s arrangement of the 139th Psalm is sung by the choirs of Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal.  ‘O Lord, thou hast searched me out, and known me: thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine up-rising…’