The Queen’s coffin arrives in Edinburgh as part of ‘last, great journey’

after nine decades of blissful summers here the queen left her beloved balmoral for the very last time with her are flowers from her cherished estate the coffin draped in the royal standard for scotland over the river d the cortege on its way [Music] it weaves through the landscape she loved for a lifetime mourners on verges paying respects then a hush as the corner is turned into baloter silence falls this highland village that thought her to be family bid a final farewell in the town of bankery applause outside it tractors form a guard of honour [Music] over the king george vi bridge in aberdeen named after her father our last king in look at cross in oldest edinburgh news proclaimed of our newest our only lawful and rightful liege lord charles iii the first proclamation of the new monarch outside london scotland at the heart of proceedings however unfamiliar god saves the king the anthem sung by political leaders [Music] and among the crowds [Music] where we meet ian too sorrowful to join in [Music] does it feel slightly conflicted to be cheering the new king as we await the queen here kingdom yeah yeah it does i i did not cheer i did not sing i'm pretty mournful really yeah it doesn't really feel like a time for jubilation [Applause] others are looking forward i brought a tear to my eye i have to confess i met the queen once when i was very small it means a lot to me to be here for that reason but hearing everybody sing the national anthem was wonderful and i think really important for the young children to hear that and being to know that they were here they might not really know an importance now but they know that they were here and that something really important happened what other occasion would inspire this a cordon of goodwill lined this long route passing homes and gardens and into dundee i never thought i would see it because if she hadn't passed away in belmoral we wouldn't have seen any of this so i feel very honored to be here today well i think she is the true essence of what it means to be british and she has worked effortlessly over the last 70 years for us that it was only right that we pay our respects to her and i'm glad we did it is the final journey of a woman woven into the fabric of this country across the queens ferry crossing she opened just five years ago its sister structure she opened more than 50 years earlier we remember some moments of enormous solidarity when her majesty came here she came here immediately after the dunblane tragedy in 1996 and was a visible embodiment of the grief that we were all coping with here in scotland and of course across the united kingdom on that tragedy so the queen has been with us on some really sad sad days she's also been with us on some really joyful days i remember the day she came to open the scottish parliament in 1999 it was a day brimming with joy and the queen was right at the center of that then the queen's destination for now the cottage greeted in the scottish capital by streets heavy with sentiment for mile after mile until the royal mile this cortege has passed many thousands of mourners bidding the queen the most gracious goodbye from her cherished highland retreat to the monarch's official residence in edinburgh the coffin brought in to the palace of holyrood house the journey has been long it will lie here tonight indeed kieran jenkins thanks very much well i'm joined now by baroness davidson the former leader of the scottish conservatives thank you very much for coming to join us here in the rain outside hollywood uh house palace when you saw as we all did that coffin for the first time that was quite a moment wasn't it it was a moment and i saw it coming in the car i'd been watching it on the tv screens all of its passage all the way down from balmoral to edinburgh and then to see the soldiers take it out of the back and get information and take it into the palace of hollywood house it was a real punch in the gut actually made it made it real um and there has been an unreality about the last few days but but that made it real for me today and i was i mean i was really taken aback by the the crowds here in edinburgh and also along the the line of the cortege i mean thousands upon thousands of people um i wasn't surprised by that actually i knew that there would be hundreds thousands of people that would want to show to make a physical point of being able to do something for her majesty and collective grief together it was but it's also a sense of doing right by someone someone that's always done their duty by us and it's it's a small thing to leave your house and stand for an hour in the rain now but sun before but but it's just that sense of of making sure it was done right and and i'm really proud uh today to make to show that this part of the the scottish end of it has been done right talking of the scottish environment she was very fond of scotland belmore was supposedly her favorite place her favorite palace the fact that she died past here the fact that this is the first place a public woman lying at addressed how important is that for unionists like you but you know there's a time and a place to discuss politics and actually i don't think now is the time and i don't think in the leave of where coffin sitting tonight is the place either i think that there it will be time for us to talk about that but whether you're on the the unionist or the independent side of the argument here there will be people of both sides that lined the streets today that came out just to show somebody who did their duty that they also wanted to do their bit and and i think that what was so appealing about the queen's love of scotland is that it wasn't synthetic it was utterly honest she loved loved going to balmoral and being able to shut those gates and to be free it was a freedom for her to be there no one wants to talk politics today you're right but these symbols are very powerful aren't they this is this is more show than tell well look i think people will look at this and for all that it's uh you know one of the biggest news stories in the world right now for all there's a global impact for all that there's a national narrative actually a lot of people are taking this very personally i know when i heard the news on thursday that she'd passed my first thoughts were actually to people i'd lost in my own life and i think that's for a lot of people too so you know we can absolutely and you know i'm always happy to discuss uh politics i'm a political animal after all but sometimes it's time to put politics aside and today in the rain here in edinburgh is one of those times what do you think people here are expecting from the mnemonic here in scotland from charles iii well we've seen over the years we've seen him gradually take on more responsibility first he would come with the queen to do some of her official duties and then sometimes he would take them on solely by himself so i think that segway is going to be pretty seamless actually he's already had a good training if you like in all of that um but in terms of what we want to see of charles the man i think we've had a pretty good indication in the last three days and i think people are from his address yeah from his address from the way in which he's conducted himself from the way in which he's wanted to go and speak to people he hasn't shot himself up in buildings shut himself away with his own grief and let's remember he's a son that's grieving his mother and he's also doing his duty um but i mean in terms of having a training ground he's learned from the best and he knows exactly what the country wants from him because he can see how much the country has loved his mother and everything that she gave and despite his very long apprenticeship i think the impression one gets is that he will bring a slightly different style to the monarchy perhaps slightly warmer perhaps slightly more open what do you think well i think and i mean you have spoken to many people who have met him who will say the same thing as i is that he's actually a very funny man you know he's he's engaging he's made us listen he has yeah yeah he has and perhaps not in the way his father might have you know he's got a drier sense of humor right uh but but you know and he is interested in people and he wants to engage with him and he's he's interested in issues and you know many people have said that if he gets too involved in issues that could be a problem um but i think he also you saw in his address he said i understand what's expected of this he's going to step back from some of these issues isn't it and be a king for for all of the country baroness davidson thank you very much indeed kathy thanks matt well today i've seen king charles meet the secretary general of the commonwealth as well as high commissioners from countries which were all at one time part of the british empire let's go over to fatima manji who's outside buckingham palace fatima well just a few moments ago the crowds here were pretty delighted to catch a glimpse of king charles heading out from buckingham palace to clarence house and they were very very pleased to be able to catch a glimpse of him it was quite a raw because as much as people are coming here to pay their respects to the queen it's also about the future and trying to to see the future king charles in action but when we talk about the monarchy it can never just be about the future because the past is all around us we're here at canada gate you can see the victoria memorial just behind me all the furniture the symbols of empire are around us when the queen took the throne the british empire was just beginning to die out what remains is the commonwealth and 14 commonwealth realms don't forget king charles is head of state in 14 other countries apart from the uk and what we are now going to see is how he deals with that relationship [Applause] king charles arrived into buckingham palace to the roar of cheering crowds all day there has been immense excitement from people here and a clamour to get close to the palace the enthusiasm here doesn't mean that delicate diplomacy isn't needed ahead secretary general the commonwealth of majesty the king held his first reception as the head of the commonwealth at the palace this afternoon meeting with the commonwealth secretary general and high commissioners some of these represent commonwealth realms countries where the monarch remains the head of state where in recent years some ruptures have begun australia has long debated moving towards republicanism in 1975 support for it surged when the governor-general used the authority given to him by the queen to sack the labour prime minister and there have long been questions about how much buckingham palace knew and yet charles has been proclaimed king of australia too we promise him faith and obedience may king charles iii have long and happy years to reign over us thousands gathered in a ceremony in new south wales to watch the proclamation which included a 21-gun salute the country's prime minister a republican has said he won't hold a referendum on the monarchy in his first term now's not a time to talk about our system of government now is a time for us to pay tribute to the life of queen elizabeth the a life well lived from the embers of empire came the commonwealth on her 21st birthday from cape town then princess elizabeth made a lifelong pledge in this broadcast i declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong and it was a promise she saw through championing the commonwealth a central feature of her reign when she became queen it was made up of eight countries formerly colonised by britain they joined the commonwealth on the basis of being free and equal members under elizabeth it expanded now it's composed of 56 countries representing more than 2.5 billion people from botswana to bangladesh australia to antigua for queen elizabeth it was important to be visible as head of the commonwealth she made more than 200 trips to commonwealth countries as nations changed and controversies erupted she maintained a largely neutral role yet there were moments when protecting the commonwealth led to unusual interventions in the mid-1980s she was reportedly enraged with prime minister margaret thatcher for not supporting sanctions against apartheid south africa something most commonwealth states wanted last year barbados cut its ties with the queen becoming a republic the time has come to fully leave our colonial paths behind the country remains in the commonwealth but the move has prompted questions about other caribbean countries these changing winds were clear when the duke and duchess of cambridge visited jamaica recently in antigua even back in 1977 amid the welcomes there were protests against the queen in april this year edward and sophie the duke and duchess of wessex attempted to shore up support for the monarchy in a visit but antigua's prime minister has now said there will be a referendum on becoming a republic within three years [Music] in 2018 the queen persuaded commonwealth leaders to support charles as its next head the role isn't hereditary so it wasn't guaranteed it is my sincere wish that the commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity for future generations and will decide that one day the prince of wales should carry on the important work started by my father in 1949 and that day has come but what new future will king charles now forge for a group that was originally carved from the colonial past now is baroness valerie amos international development secretary under tony blair and britain's former high commissioner to australia as a foreign office minister she was responsible for africa and the commonwealth baroness amos how do you see the relationship with the commonwealth evolving during charles iii reign i think it's hard to say the commonwealth i think is really important you need to remember it's made up of very different kinds of countries very small islands much bigger countries that from different geographic uh parts of the world the majority of uh those in the commonwealth are young people so there is a real agenda there i think if you think about climate change the environment you think about you know the future for young people what is it going to look like in our world and that's an agenda that charles the new king is keen on it's an agenda that king charles is very very keen on and you know he has played a role already through for example the prince's trust international in bringing young people across the commonwealth together so i think there there is a role but there is no doubt that there are countries which are both members of the commonwealth but are also realms which have king charles and previously had the queen of head of state some of them will be thinking about is this a moment of transition is this a moment of change should we be doing what barbados and others have done which is to retain our link to the commonwealth but at the same time become republics and some of those countries have made wasted no time really since the queen's death in making that status plain i mean the leading paper in jamaica said on friday that the queen's death would and i quote make jamaica's break with monarchy easier how should the new king respond to that i think that king charles has been very clear um he was clear in the past he was clear i think when he went to barbados i think people don't remember he went to barbados when they became a republic i think he is very clear that this is a matter for the people of those countries that there is the issue of becoming a republic there is a different issue which is about remaining close to britain the historic and other ties which we have continuing with those ties and in a sense the family of the commonwealth continuing so you don't think it should be a source of embarrassment to the royal family if more and more states remove um charles i absolutely do not the world is changing i think the fact that countries say we want our head of state not to be someone who is far away from us but that over time we have changed but we still recognize the historic links that we have the close ties that we have uh i think that will continue is is tricky though isn't it because obviously the commonwealth of fatima's peace made made plain goes way beyond the former british colonies it's now 54 members and i know 56 apologies and and the queen was proud of that that growth but it is a relic of the days of empire isn't it it started very much started like that um it's grown and it's expanded and i think one of the important things about the commonwealth is that it's a partnership that the countries have they are equal within the commonwealth regardless of their size regardless of their geographical size regardless of their population and that kind of friendship and fellowship which is so important in the context of the commonwealth i think in the modern world in a way is remains even more important as we see some of the political social and other challenges to have a place where you can have those honest conversations as leaders equal conversations about the challenges that you face yeah i think is very important you were at the proclamation of the new king yesterday it was a very archaic ceremony but it was televised for the first time how do you think is it possible to balance um you know sort of modern monarchy with with the traditions of the past it's an uneasy uh thing to do isn't it tradition and modernity is a difficult difficult balance to strike uh our new king did that in a way as prince of wales you know he was ahead of his time in thinking about those issues around climate change and the environment he cares passionately about education he cares passionately about inequality about young people he will not be able to continue that work in the same way but that caring that he has continues as he uh becomes uh king so i i do think it's a difficult balance to strike but we are in a period of uh transition i'm sure that there'll be ups and downs as we negotiate these new relationships but i'm a firm believer in transparency and openness and conversation in the way that we talk about these issues earnest valerie mills thank you very much for joining us

Channel: Channel 4 News

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Keywords: Channel 4 News, the queen, queen, elizabeth, queen elizabeth, elizabeth ii, queen elizabeth ii, elizabeth queen, queen funeral, queen news, the queen elizabeth, queen bank holiday, the queen funeral, bank holiday, funeral, death, dies, the king, king, charles iii, king charles iii, prince charles, prince charles king, charles speech, king speech, king of england, king charles 3rd, camilla, proclamation, god save the king, queen children, privy council, acension, proclaimed, monarch

Id: hLztuKX4Bcc

Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 11 2022