EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — A military transport plane carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II left her beloved Scotland on Tuesday for the final time to return to London, where she will lie in state.
Her son, King Charles III, returned to London from Northern Ireland, where his visit drew a rare moment of unity from politicians in a region with a contested British and Irish identity that is deeply divided over the monarchy.
He is to meet the casket at Buckingham Palace, where it will spend the night at the queen’s London home. It will be taken on a horse-drawn gun carriage Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state for four days before Monday’s funeral at Westminster Abbey.
As a bagpiper played, the flag-draped oak coffin was carried from St. Giles’ Cathedral. Crowds lining the Royal Mile through the historic heart of Edinburgh broke into applause as the coffin, accompanied by the queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, was driven to Edinburgh Airport.
Over the past 24 hours, thousands of people filed silently past the coffin after it was brought to Edinburgh from Balmoral Estate, where she died Sept. 8 at age 96, ending her 70-year reign.
Earlier, hundreds of people lined the street leading to Hillsborough Castle near Belfast, the royal family’s official residence in Northern Ireland, in the latest outpouring of affection following the queen’s death. The area in front of the gates to the castle was carpeted with hundreds of floral tributes.
Charles and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, got out of their car to wave to the crowd and sometimes used both hands to reach out to villagers, including schoolchildren in bright blue uniforms. Charles even petted a corgi — famously his late mother’s favorite breed of dog — held up by one person, and some chanted “God save the king!”
“Today means so much to me and my family, just to be present in my home village with my children to witness the arrival of the new king is a truly historic moment for us all,” said Hillsborough resident Robin Campbell as he waited for Charles, who is on a tour of the four parts of the United Kingdom.
While there was a warm welcome in Hillsborough, the British monarchy draws mixed emotions in Northern Ireland, where there are two main communities: mostly Protestant unionists who consider themselves British and largely Roman Catholic nationalists who see themselves as Irish.
That split fueled three decades of violence known as “the Troubles” involving paramilitary groups on both sides and U.K. security forces, in which 3,600 people died. The royal family was touched personally by the violence: Lord Louis Mountbatten, a cousin of the queen and a much-loved mentor to Charles, was killed by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1979.
A deep sectarian divide remains, a quarter century after Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement.
For some Irish nationalists, the British monarch represents an oppressive foreign power. But others acknowledge the queen’s role in forging peace. On a visit to Northern Ireland in 2012, she shook hands with Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander — a once-unthinkable moment of reconciliation.
Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein politician who is speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the queen had “demonstrated how individual acts of positive leadership can help break down barriers and encourage reconciliation.”
