Death, in the end, has a ceremonial of its own that applies to royalty as well as ordinary citizens. The day after the death of the father, Philip and Elizabeth’s children take over in Windsor. Carlo e Anna, the older ones, had already visited the sovereign mother yesterday. Today it was the turn of Andrea e Edoardo, the youngest, accompanied by his wife Sophie, countess of Wessex, who in tears wanted to pay homage to her mother-in-law: “The queen – he said – is extraordinary”.
If for 73 years Filippo was her ” support ” and her ” strength ”, the last few days required a reversal of roles: Elisabetta remained next to her husband until the end. The duke’s condition would worsen Thursday evening and the prince made the decision not to resort to new treatments in the hospital, from which he had just been discharged on March 16.
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Meghan will not come
The coffin was transferred to the private chapel of Windsor Castle, where it will remain for the entire period of national mourning until the funeral, next Saturday, to which, in compliance with the anti Covid rules, only 30 guests would be expected. Among these Prince Harry, arriving from the USA without his wife Meghan, who is expecting a child and preferred not to embark on the journey. It will be the first family reunion after that the interview with Oprah Winfrey and the accusations of racism against the Windsors.
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Cannon salute
As with Queen Victoria and Winston Churchill, the Minister of Defense has arranged a series of blanks throughout the United Kingdom, overseas territories and on Navy ships, involving London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Gibraltar and etc. Despite the epidemic and the appeal made by the Windsors to their subjects not to create gatherings and to remember Prince Philip from home, in front of Windsor Castle as well as at Buckingham Palace, people created a distant procession, demonstrating the affection that the country feeds for its royalty, while across the UK flags fly at half mast.
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Carlo moved: “For mom it was a rock”
The BBC broadcasts the testimonies of the children, from which emerges a figure of a father who is sometimes difficult, directed to the harshness or the most unscrupulous joke, but an always “present” pillar for the family. And above all, the only true “rock” in Elizabeth’s life. The first witness before the nation is entrusted to the words of the eternal heir to the throne Carlo, now 72 years old, the only one to have visited Filippo during his last hospitalization. An act interpreted by many as a sign, also visible, of the overcoming of the alleged past misunderstandings and of the very certain differences in sensitivity between father and firstborn. Of the Duke of Edinburgh, Charles is now extolling “the incredible energy lavished to support his mother, and for so long.” But also his free spirit, the probable desire to be “remembered as an individual on his own.” An individual of memorable “frankness”, he notes, recalling how Philip “could not suffer” people inclined to “choose their words carefully”; and attributing this character note to the legacy of his mother, the nonconformist Greek princess Alice of Battenberg, now buried in an Orthodox cemetery in Jerusalem and recognized in Israel as Righteous among the Nations for having given refuge to several Jews during the Nazi occupation of Athens.
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The death of Prince Philip: insights
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Revered as a god of war
In Vanuatu; A remote archipelago nation and a former Anglo-French colony, Philip will be revered as a god of war. A tribe from the island of Tanna will pay homage to the Duke of Edinburgh, who is believed to be the reincarnation of an ancient commander who left the island to fight a war and would return with a wealthy white wife in tow.
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April 10, 2021 (change April 10, 2021 | 16:06)
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