LONDON — Queen Elizabeth’s body now lies in state at Westminster Hall.
Much of Central London ground to a halt Wednesday as her coffin was marched from Buckingham Palace to Westminster.
At a pub near the palace where King Charles III had been officially pronounced the new monarch Saturday, spectators who couldn't make it into the viewing areas along the procession route gathered to watch the livestream on the BBC.
It was a somber hour. The packed pub was unusually silent as people watched, refraining from making any noise out of respect.
After Elizabeth II's coffin was placed in Westminster and the royal family began to walk out, a man at the bar broke the silence. He raised his glass and shouted, "Ladies and gentlemen, Queen Elizabeth the Second!"
The crowd inside the pub cheered, then erupted into applause.
Londoners are now able to visit the coffin in a public viewing that will last until early Monday morning, the day of the queen’s funeral. At the beginning of BBC's procession telecast, the news ticker at the bottom said "hundreds" of people had already lined up for their chance to see the queen's coffin. An hour later, the text of the same ticker had been changed to say "thousands."
A popular pilgrimage
Shortly after pub patrons toasted to the life of the queen, Rabia Butt ran to the doorway, screaming in delight.
She had been trying to find her sister all day, but the neighborhoods bordering Buckingham Palace were so crowded that cell signals were scrambled. They had wanted to watch the procession together, but she had no idea where her sister had ended up.
All throughout the pub, spectators could be overheard swapping their horror stories of fighting the crowds for a chance to see anything.
Ms. Butt was no exception — she ended up at the bar after being rebuffed by security guards who closed off the nearby park. Meanwhile her sister, Sadia Butt, had arrived around 10:30 a.m. and got in. It was impressive timing, given she had to take a train in from Birmingham that morning to be there.
Out of sheer coincidence, after the procession ended, Sadia wandered into the same pub Rabia was in. The two embraced, laughing. “I thought William looked handsome,” Sadia said, giggling, as she showed her sister the video she took.
The Butt sisters felt it was important to be there that day because their father had served in the Royal Air Force. As a military man, he pledged allegiance to the queen.
They were also fans of Elizabeth in their own right. “She was a remarkable woman,” said Rabia, who now has little nieces and finds it odd that they’ll grow up in a world with a king, not a queen. She always loved that the greatest icon in England was a woman.
Sadia said she loved that about the procession, too. "It made me emotional how many women were there,” she said.
Sadia wasn’t the only one who traveled to be there that day. “All the accents here, they’re all not from London,” said Rabia, gesturing at the crowd in the pub. “It's people from the north who've come in.”
Fighting for spots
Central London was bursting at the seams all day with visitors and locals alike.
The epic battle for viewing spots began early Wednesday morning, when hundreds of thousands of people lined up to honor the late queen. By noon, guards were stopping all entry to parks lining the route of the procession.
As parks began to reroute would-be spectators, people began crowding even in areas where the chance of seeing anything up close was impossible.
Hundreds of meters away from the Pall Mall — the path through St. James’ Park where a large portion of the procession was to take place — Laurence Mendoza sat perched on a fence, looking over the hundreds of heads before him. He said he’d be able to see the queen's coffin briefly as it went by.
He first found the spot when he went to watch the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, which took place earlier this year and marked her 70th year on the throne.
“Where’d you get tickets for that seat?” joked a jealous passerby.
At the Jubilee, Mr. Mendoza could see the airplanes flying over and the crowd’s cheers, all from his beloved fencepost, although the funeral procession would be a quieter affair, in light of the more somber occasion.
Mr. Mendoza was with his friend, a former Pennsylvanian from Elk County living in Jacksonville, Fla. Stacey Rubino been traveling throughout the U.K. when she heard the news about the queen’s death.
“I was sitting in a church on the Isle of Wight when I found out the queen had died,” she said, “and I texted my girlfriend and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’”
Her friend, also an American, had been a fan of the royals since college.
“You know how in the dorm room in college there’s usually a band poster or something?” Ms. Rubino said. “She had a poster that was the family tree of the royal family.”
The same friend had a cardboard cutout of Queen Elizabeth at her wedding, proving you don’t have to be British to be royals-obsessed.
Ms. Rubino and Mr. Mendoza spoke fondly of the queen. “I’m devastated,” Mr. Mendoza said her passing. “She was a pillar in so many ways to so many people.”
And so many people is right.
Even at this relatively distant viewing point, the crowds continued to swarm. As the crowds thickened, people's viewing strategies grew more creative.
"We might be losing our view," said Ms. Rubino, as spectators in front of them set up footstools and a step ladder.
For Ms. Rubino, the queen’s passing has made for a more hectic trip than she had originally planned. Hotels in London were harder to book and more expensive after the news broke, but Ms. Rubino said she wouldn’t dream of complaining.
"It's an honor to be here," she said — both for the queen, and for her friend.
Noelle Mateer: nmateer@post-gazette.com
First Published: September 14, 2022, 1:44 p.m.
Updated: September 14, 2022, 2:52 p.m.
