Queen Elizabeth II dies: Here are the plans for the next week

Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday, setting into motion a memorial and funeral the likes of which have not been seen in nearly 70 years.

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Here is what we know about the upcoming funeral for the United Kingdom’s longest-ruling monarch.

Note: These plans may change some in the days ahead.

Friday

On Friday, the queen’s coffin will be moved to the Balmoral Castle ballroom and covered in the royal standard of Scotland and a floral wreath.

King Charles III will have a meeting with new Prime Minister Liz Truss, release a written statement about his mother’s death, and record a TV address that will be broadcast to the nation at 6 p.m. London time and 5 p.m. ET.

There will be a service of prayer and reflection on the queen’s life in the evening.

Westminster Abbey’s tenor bell and Great Tom, the state bell at St. Paul’s Cathedral, pealed from noon to 1 p.m. Friday, and a royal gun salute was fired at Hyde Park in London and the Tower of London at 1 p.m. A salute was fired every 10 seconds for each year of Elizabeth’s life.

The Sebastopol bell also sounded at Windsor Castle once a minute for every year of her life.

Saturday

The head keeper and six other keepers at the Balmoral estate will take Elizabeth’s coffin to a hearse as the queen’s official bagpipe player, the Piper to the Sovereign, plays.

The queen’s body will then be taken to Holyroodhouse, her home in Edinburgh. A military guard of honor will meet it.

In London, members of the Privy Council, which is a committee of senior advisors to the monarch, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury, will hear Charles take an oath and give a speech. The ceremony, which is a constitutional requirement known as the Accession Council, will be televised for the first time in history.

At the end of the ceremony, a 41-gun salute at Hyde Park will be fired by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Another salute, a 62-gun salute, will take place at the Tower of London by the Honourable Artillery Company.

A Garter King of Arms, a heraldic position that has been in the royal household since 1484, will proclaim Charles, King Charles III, from a balcony of St. James’s Palace.

The royal band will then play the first verse of the national anthem of what will now be called “God Save the King.”

Sunday

King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla will go to Holyroodhouse, where they will be met by other members of the royal family. They will join a procession from Holyroodhouse to Edinburgh’s St. Giles’ Cathedral, where a service for the queen will be held. The guns of Edinburgh Castle will fire every minute throughout the procession.

The queen’s coffin will stay there for 24 hours, and the public will be allowed to file past the coffin and pay their respects.

Monday

The queen’s coffin will leave St. Giles’ Cathedral by car, then be moved by train to London.

The train takes the coffin from Edinburgh to London.

Tuesday

The queen’s remains will arrive at London’s St. Pancras Station, where her family, the prime minister and others will be there to receive the coffin. It will then be transferred to Buckingham Palace by car.

Wednesday

Elizabeth’s body will be taken from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster in a gun carriage procession.

The Imperial State Crown will be placed on a velvet cushion that will rest on top of the coffin covered with the royal standard. Her family will follow behind the gun carriage procession, on foot, to Westminster.

Big Ben, the bell in the Elizabeth Tower in the Houses of Parliament, will toll at one-minute intervals for the duration of the procession.

A short service will take place after the coffin is taken to Westminster Hall. Elizabeth will lie in state under armed guard at Westminster Hall for the next five days.

The Queen’s coffin will rest on a catafalque, a raised platform.

Thousands are expected to view the coffin there. The hall will be open for mourners for the entire five days.

Thursday

World leaders are expected to arrive to pay their respects at Westminster Hall on Thursday.

Friday

Charles will meet with the prime minister at noon for his first official weekly audience.

Saturday

The day of the funeral will see all surviving former British prime ministers and thousands more fill Westminster Abbey as the queen’s coffin is readied for the short trip from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey.

At 11 a.m. (6 a.m. ET) exactly, the pallbearers will stop at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior and Big Ben will strike once to indicate the start of a national two-minutes of silence.

The funeral service will last one hour, then the coffin will lead a procession that carries the coffin past Buckingham Palace to Wellington Arch and on to Windsor, which will be her final resting place.

Sources: The Guardian; The BBC; The Washington Post; NBC; Buckingham Palace

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