Queen Elizabeth II bid farewell to her late husband, Prince Philip, at a royal funeral restricted by coronavirus rules.
The Duke of Edinburgh, who died aged 99 on April 9, was interred in the Royal Vault at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle after a 50-minute service attended by just 30 guests.
The queen, 94, seen for the first time since his death, cut a lone figure, sat in mourning black, with a white-trimmed, black face mask. Close family, also masked, sat socially distanced in the historic 15th-century Gothic chapel.
Philip, described by royals as “the grandfather of the nation”, was Britain’s longest-serving royal consort and was married to the queen for 73 years.
The last high-profile funeral of a senior royal was for the queen’s mother, who died in 2002, aged 101.
But unlike then, when more than one million people thronged outside Westminster Abbey in central London to watch the sombre pageant, the public was noticeably absent from Saturday’s ceremony.
The coronavirus pandemic forced hasty revisions to the well-rehearsed plans for the duke’s death, code-named “Operation Forth Bridge”, stripping back public elements to prevent large crowds from gathering.
Government guidelines limited the number of mourners, and a quartet performed hymns the duke chose himself in a barren nave stripped of seating.
