The Duke of Edinburgh has died

[honestbroker1]

https://news.sky.com/story/the-duke-of- ... d-12270325

[jjbd]

RIP Duke.

Married 73 years - incredible.

[jjbd]

Just for information posted here:

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t1709 ... rgh#434636
by Tony Bennett Today at 17:43
Er...she said and did nothing as Edward Heath conspired to rob us of our sovereignty in 1973 by signing up to the Common Market.

When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, the country was effectively run by the Papacy, with Queen Mary's Bishops burning Protestants by the hundreds for 'heresy'. When the joint Papal-Spanish Armada threatened our country in 1588, Queen Elizabeth I and her Ministers saw off the threat.

Queen Elizabeth II lost our country's independence on 1 April 1973 and only the Herculean efforts of Nigel Farage and the much-derided U K Independence Party won it back for us 47 years later.

And still she hasn't uttered these words:

Arise, Sir Nigel Farage!

I am surprised he hasn't queried/challenged the date of death!

[Whiterose]

Sad but expected, shame he didn't reach 100. RIP The Duke of Edinburgh.

[Alibongo]

Just for information posted here:

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t1709 ... rgh#434636
by Tony Bennett Today at 17:43
Er...she said and did nothing as Edward Heath conspired to rob us of our sovereignty in 1973 by signing up to the Common Market.

When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, the country was effectively run by the Papacy, with Queen Mary's Bishops burning Protestants by the hundreds for 'heresy'. When the joint Papal-Spanish Armada threatened our country in 1588, Queen Elizabeth I and her Ministers saw off the threat.

Queen Elizabeth II lost our country's independence on 1 April 1973 and only the Herculean efforts of Nigel Farage and the much-derided U K Independence Party won it back for us 47 years later.

And still she hasn't uttered these words:

Arise, Sir Nigel Farage!

I am surprised he hasn't queried/challenged the date of death!

He's not finished doing the time line yet

[catkins]

Sad but expected, shame he didn't reach 100. RIP The Duke of Edinburgh.

I thought that too WR....Still it sounds like he went peacefully ...RIP.

[Carana]

Sad but expected, shame he didn't reach 100. RIP The Duke of Edinburgh.

From what I can gather, I doubt he would have appreciated the fuss.

... Or the standard official congratulations from his wife.

[Carana]

RIP Duke.

Married 73 years - incredible.

Maybe it helps if you have lots of big houses to live in to have a bit of space when needed...

[Carana]

Just for information posted here:

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t1709 ... rgh#434636
by Tony Bennett Today at 17:43
Er...she said and did nothing as Edward Heath conspired to rob us of our sovereignty in 1973 by signing up to the Common Market.

When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, the country was effectively run by the Papacy, with Queen Mary's Bishops burning Protestants by the hundreds for 'heresy'. When the joint Papal-Spanish Armada threatened our country in 1588, Queen Elizabeth I and her Ministers saw off the threat.

Queen Elizabeth II lost our country's independence on 1 April 1973 and only the Herculean efforts of Nigel Farage and the much-derided U K Independence Party won it back for us 47 years later.

And still she hasn't uttered these words:

Arise, Sir Nigel Farage!

I am surprised he hasn't queried/challenged the date of death!

Erm, I suspect that many fishermen would dearly love to hoist Farage by their nets...

[honestbroker1]

No idea why anyone feels the need to spam this thread.

[Carana]

He seems to have been quite a character.

Some of his quips could, IMO, be deemed objectively offensive, yet he apparently had a gift of making people feel at ease.

One (of the less off-colour variety) that I found funny :

When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife.

[Carana]

Thought: It takes a real man to be able to play second fiddle to a woman.

I don't understand why I'm even thinking this in 2021 - as if there is some unwritten law that the opposite should still be the norm.

[Carana]

My sympathies go to the foreign press coverage trying to understand this:

The Queen has conducted her first in-person royal duty since her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, died on Friday.

The monarch hosted a ceremony in which the Earl Peel formally stood down as Lord Chamberlain, whose office organises royal ceremonies.

During a private event held at Windsor Castle, the Queen accepted her former royal aide's wand and office insignia.

The Royal Family is observing two weeks of mourning. The duke's funeral will take place at Windsor on Saturday.

A royal official said members of the family would continue "to undertake engagements appropriate to the circumstances".

The Earl Peel announced he would retire as Lord Chamberlain last year, with his replacement Andrew Parker, a former MI5 chief, beginning in the role just over a week before Prince Philip died.

Tuesday's official engagement was recorded in the Court Circular - a daily list of the events attended by the Queen and her family.

It said: "The Earl Peel had an audience of The Queen today, delivered up his Wand and Insignia of Office as Lord Chamberlain and the Badge of Chancellor of the Royal Victorian Order and took leave upon relinquishing his appointment as Lord Chamberlain, when Her Majesty invested him with the Royal Victorian Chain."
The Earl Peel had overseen arrangements for the duke's funeral - known as Operation Forth Bridge.

The Lord Chamberlain's Office, led by the Queen's Comptroller Lieutenant Colonel Michael Vernon, is tasked with the practical side of the day.

But in overall charge is Baron Parker who took up his new role on 1 April, following the Earl Peel's retirement after more than 14 years in the post.

The ceremony at Windsor Castle came after the Queen held a phone call with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday, according to the Court Circular.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56740980

[jjbd]

It was very moving today.

[honestbroker1]

Today's Telegraph.

It was a heartbreakingly beautiful day, almost too glorious for a funeral, but the spring sunshine in which Windsor Castle was bathed felt true to the remarkable warmth (love, even) which the nation felt for the dearly departed. This was the first great Royal occasion of most of our lifetimes without Prince Philip. It is fair to say it took a while to adjust.

We may just about have held it together through the clockwork perfection of the armed services in the great courtyard, their shadows creating a spectral army on the lawn. We may even have managed not to cry when Elgar’s Nimrod, that great melody of memorial, came to a sobbing climax and the cymbals crashed in glittering cacophony.

But tears finally flowed – mine at least – when the camera zoomed in on the seat of the Duke’s carriage and discovered his gloves, neatly folded, his peaked cap and a tub of sugar lumps. The Fell ponies, Balmoral Nevis and Notlaw Storm, waited and waited. Their master was gone.

The Duke of Edinburgh's coffin, covered with His Royal Highness's Personal Standard on the Land Rover Defender
The Duke of Edinburgh's coffin, covered with His Royal Highness's Personal Standard on the Land Rover Defender
If that keen sense of loss was experienced by perfect strangers, imagine the void felt by the Queen with the Duke no longer by her side. She paused and turned, just for a second, as she entered St George’s Chapel, but there was no one there. 73 years they were married. That’s not a relationship, it’s a Bayeux Tapestry. Thousands of tiny threads which sewed the two of them together and wove a backdrop for all of us.

Due to the Covid restrictions, the Queen sat alone in her pew at the front of the chapel; a tiny, hunched figure sporting a mask and a diamond brooch the size of a saucer. At one point, her head bowed so low that her eyes disappeared altogether and her hat merged with her coat. It was shocking how shrunken she looked.

Prince Andrew was several feet to her left; Prince Charles (clearly distressed), Princess Anne (ramrod straight, every inch her father’s daughter) and Prince Edward were across the aisle. Her Majesty’s children, all out of reach. There was no hand to hold, no reassuring pat on the arm. Elizabeth’s comforter and protector was in the casket with the wreath she had chosen on top. “In loving memory,” the card on the white flowers said, but you couldn’t read her name.

Was it Elizabeth or Lilibet? The Duke was the last person who called her by her childhood pet name.


The brutality of social distancing only heightened the widow’s loneliness. How many millions of viewers yearned to reach out and metaphorically embrace their beloved Queen?

In years to come, stern questions will be asked about why St George’s Chapel (which seats 800) could have a congregation of over 100 on Easter Day yet funeral rules still dictate that a mere 30 people could be present for the funeral. Such arbitrary cruelty has been experienced by thousands of Her Majesty’s subjects who lost loved ones this past year. She will not have sought, nor wanted, any special dispensation for herself and her beloved Philip. On the contrary. As the Queen Mother said during the war: “I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It means we can look the East End in the face.”

In any case, it made for the kind of unfussy send-off that the Duke wanted. Like his equally great predecessor, Prince Albert, his “express desire” was for his send-off at Windsor to be “of the plainest and most private character”.

The specially-adapted Land Rover hearse was peak Philip, a perfectly practical, ingenious form of transport to the next life which thrummed like a London cab.


But this was not a modern service which focuses on celebrating the individual personality. The Duke’s name was hardly mentioned, except, almost unbearably, when the Dean prayed for “Our son Philip… who has left us a fair pattern of valiant and true knighthood”. He certainly did.

Instead, it was the kind of austere ritual preferred by a man who liked formality because he knew what good form meant. Princess Anne once said her father was “good at spotting flannel”. His funeral was sparse and beautiful and commendably short of flannel. The Duke specified liturgy, anthems and prayers which, to any traditional Christian, would be well-known and sufficient unto death – and the life to come.

For anyone who thought Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding service in the same chapel, almost three years ago, was a breath of fresh air, this ceremony may have seemed chilly to the point of bleak. But for the Queen, who is Defender of the Faith, it will have been of immense spiritual consolation.

Pity the other members of the congregation who were denied a cathartic bellowing of hymns such as that Naval favourite, Eternal Father, Strong to Save. The Covid-secure singing was confined to a small but heavenly choir.

As the coffin was lowered into the Royal vault, a lone piper played a haunting Lament, turning and leaving the chapel through an archway so the tune faded softly away. The Duke will wait there for the Queen. When the time comes, the reunited husband and wife will be moved to join the late King and Queen Mother in their tomb.

Wreaths have been laid out at sea to mark the day
Wreaths have been laid out at sea to mark the day
The service was drawn towards a close with Action Stations, the alarm that sounds to summon sailors on deck to engage with the enemy as young Philip did 80 years ago in the Battle of Crete. You could almost hear the Duke saying: “Right, that’s over. Doom and gloom, end of. Get on with it!”

Will members of the Royal family heed his parting shot? I think they might. Outside the chapel, it was Prince Charles, the family’s new patriarch, who waved the official cars away so that everyone could have a bracing and beneficial walk home. The Duchess of Cambridge engaged Prince Harry and his troubled, thousand-yard stare in conversation. She appeared to jolly her husband into joining them. It wasn’t peace exactly, but suddenly the warring brothers seemed less estranged. Grandpa would be glad.

Asked once by his biographer Gyles Brandreth if it had been a good or worthwhile life, the Duke of Edinburgh replied, “I don’t know about that. I’ve kept myself busy. I’ve tried to make myself useful. I hope I’ve helped keep the show on the road. That’s about it really.”

I think any reasonable person would agree he more than fulfilled that modest ambition. Thank you, Sir, and bon voyage. All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh.