News

Actions

Queen's favorite hymn sung at memorial service

Britain Royals
APTOPIX Britain Royals
Britain Royals
Britain Royals
Britain Royals
Posted
and last updated

Members of the public are paying their respects to Queen Elizabeth II at St Giles’ cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The coffin, with the Crown of Scotland resting on a cushion on top of it, is to stay in the 12th-century cathedral through Tuesday.

Thousands of people lined the route of the procession through the Scottish capital’s Old Town to the cathedral, as the former monarch’s children — including new sovereign King Charles III — walked behind the hearse.

An earlier memorial service featured Karen Matheson singing Psalm 118 in Gaelic, with harp accompaniment, and a reading from Ecclesiastes by the head of the Scottish government, Nicola Sturgeon.

The congregation sang The Lord’s My Shepherd, said to be one of the queen’s favorite hymns.

A military bagpiper played mournful music as the coffin, draped in the royal standard, was carried from the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and placed in a hearse Monday.

King Charles III, dressed in army uniform, and his siblings Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward are walking behind the hearse as the procession moves slowly toward St. Giles’ Cathedral.

The hearse was flanked by a bearer party of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and a detachment of The King’s Body Guard in Scotland, the Royal Company of Archers.

Lines of people waited to file past the coffin at St Giles’ Cathedral began forming around dawn.

Charles flew to Scotland after earlier receiving condolences from both Britain’s houses of parliament.