Royal family mourns Queen Mother privately; nationwide gun salutes mark her death

Posted 8:36AM on Monday 1st April 2002 ( 23 years ago )

LONDON - The coffin of the Queen Mother Elizabeth rested Monday in a small stone chapel at Windsor Castle where the royal family privately mourned the beloved matriarch before she is taken to lie in state in London. Artillery pieces thundered 41-gun salutes in a dozen locations around the country and in the colony of Gibraltar in honor of King George VI's widow, who died at her Windsor home Saturday afternoon, aged 101. In London's Hyde Park, crowds of onlookers watched as a horse artillery group fired a first shot from the 13-pound guns at noon, to be followed -- here and in the 11 other locations -- by one shot each minute. Flags flew at half-staff and thousands of admirers of the enduringly popular former queen signed condolence books that were opened Sunday at royal palaces and homes around the country. Bouquets of bright spring flowers, with fond messages attached, were placed at St. James's Palace and the adjacent Clarence House, which had been the Queen Mother's London home since her husband's death in 1952 and the accession of her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. Admirers lined up at St. James's Palace to sign one of the 16 books of condolence. More than a thousand visitors had signed the books by lunchtime Sunday and the figure had more than doubled by mid-afternoon. The State Bell at St. Paul's Cathedral rang for an hour Sunday afternoon to mark the Queen Mother's passing. The bell is tolled only for the death of a member of the royal family, a serving dean of the cathedral or a senior national figure. The queen, who has lost her mother and her only sister, Princess Margaret, within seven weeks, led her family in prayer Sunday evening at the foot of her mother's coffin. All four of her children, Princess Margaret's son and daughter, Prince Charles's sons and other close relatives filed solemnly into the chapel the private chapel for a short evensong service of prayer and remembrance. The queen and two of her children, Princess Anne and Prince Edward, took brief morning rides in the castle grounds on Monday, while several hundred well-wishers gathered outside the gates. Hundreds more lined up to enter St. George's Chapel at the castle to sign a book of condolence. The Queen Mother's coffin was carried to the chapel on Sunday from her house in Windsor Great Park, where she first lived as Duchess of York before her husband was unexpectedly thrust onto the throne in 1936 by the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII. The coffin will remain at the chapel until Tuesday, when it is moved to the Queen's Chapel at St. James's Palace. On Friday it will be moved to Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament to lie in state. There the public will be able to pay their respects before the Westminster Abbey funeral service at 11:30 a.m. April 9. After the service, the coffin will be driven to Windsor for interment in a side chapel at the magnificent St. George's Chapel, within the precincts of Windsor Castle. The Queen Mother will be laid to rest alongside her husband in the George VI Memorial Chapel at St. George's. At the same time, the ashes of Princess Margaret will be taken from the royal vault in St. George's and interred with her parents at the George VI chapel. The royal family, preparing for a second funeral in as many months, will remain in mourning until April 19, after a memorial service for Princess Margaret. The queen's only sister died Feb. 9 at age 71 after years of illness and was cremated after a private funeral at Windsor. The Queen Mother, who had been at the center of public life for more than half a century, was as popular at the end of her life as she had been as the queen consort of George VI during World War II. It was during the war that she and the king won the enduring support of the wartime generation, sharing as best they could the ordeal of the London blitz and the devastating bombings suffered by the rest of the country. She did not retire after the king's death, but took on a busy schedule of engagements that she carried out at full tilt into her 90s. Her flowery image, her obvious pleasure in meeting people and her engaging sense of humor ensured the Queen Mother's lifelong popularity. In the 1990s, when her grandchildren's highly publicized marital troubles eroded respect for the royal family, her dignity and popularity was especially valued.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/4/202626