History is now and in England”, wrote T.S. Eliot in ‘Little Gidding’, last of his Four Quartets. And who could not “History have felt it, watching the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in the hallowed 12th-century space of Westminster Abbey? The pomp, the pageantry, the livery and plumes, the heroic, scarlet-clad Grenadier pallbearers, the heralds and pursuivants, the trumpets, the lone bagpiper’s lament…
For ninety-six minutes, on the minute, in the Elizabeth Tower, the tenor bell had tolled. Ninety-eight Royal Navy Ratings of the Sovereign’s Guard had pulled the gun carriage bearing the lead-lined coffin; 40 came behind. They were flanked by service equerries, members of the King’s Body Guards of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, the Yeomen of the
