New State Portraits in Buckingham Palace

A look at the two new portraits of the King and Queen, as well as others from past reigns.

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Last Flight Home

Via Royal Air Force C-17 Globemaster from Edinburgh and via hearse to Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty the Queen returned to her capital today for the last time.  The very model of a modern monarch was carried to her London home, the very model of a royal palace, through streets thickly lined with onlookers lighting the roadway with their teleophone lamps, a distinctly modern touch.  

(Who knew cell phones had flashlights?  I can't keep up with all this newfangled stuff.)

Entering the Palace courtyard, the hearse passed directly beneath the famous balcony where Her Majesty appeared so many times to acknowledge the cheers of her people.  What a marvel it is that the 19-year-old princess who stood there on V-E Day in 1945, beside her parents, sister, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was still with us and still going strong until just the other day.

Now she belongs to the ages.

 

The Queen's coffin will rest in the Bow Room of the Palace overnight, providing a private viewing her family, as well as for the 400+ staff.  Tomorrow, Wednesday, the coffin will be taken in a ceremonial procession from the Palace to Westminster Hall, where the Queen will lie in state until the morning of her funeral on Monday the 19th.  Members of the public numbering in the hundreds of thousands are expected to file past the bier to pay their respects.

H. R. H. the Princess Royal, who accompanied her mother's coffin every step of the way from Balmoral, has released this statement:

Click to enlarge.

On a lighter note, one of the Queen's personal protection officers (Americanese:  Secret Service agents) recounts a very humorous story of walking with the Queen across the Balmoral estate:

Country Life magazine recounts more happy memories of the smiling Queen here.

The BBC schedule of the events to come, including maps and pictures, can be found here.

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What I'm Watching: Buckingham Palace, the Interiors

This fascinating documentary is Part I of a three-part series about the magnificent interiors of Buckingham Palace narrated by the British designer Ashley Hicks, a grandson of Lord Mountbatten and second cousin to the Prince of Wales. It is based on Hicks's eponymous book, published 2018, showing hundreds of historic illustrations of the state apartments and their furnishings, augmented by more recent photographs he took himself.  Hicks gives quite a comprehensive survey of the palace furnishings, artwork, and interior architecture:  a delightful eyeful, if you like that sort of thing.

Secrets of the Royal Kitchen

Her Majesty gives a state banquet for the Obamas in 2011.
Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?

Your Head Trucker wonders how many of his readers agree with him that the putrid mess in Washington is simply too frightful to keep up with.  How refreshing, then, to turn one's attention elsewhere and reflect upon the virtues of a constitutional monarchy that stays above the thrust and parry of sordid politics.

(We might have been a bit hasty with all that 1776 business, you know.  I mean, would it really have been so awful if we'd stayed in the club and ended up as, say, Greater Canada, after all?  Just look how it's all turned out!  They have Justin up north, and we have -- oh, never mind.)

The Queen's Official Birthday will be observed in Britain on the 17th - and in anticipation here are two very pleasant videos, one short and one long, that may take your mind off Russo-American skulduggery and numbskullery for a while.

First, a lovely glimpse of the back forty at BP:




And second, a fascinating, often mouthwatering insight into royal cookery by Graham Newbould, a former chef on HMY Britannia: