They came in their tens of thousands, residents of and visitors to Edinburgh, who lined the Royal Mile and crammed into the streets around it to pay their respects to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who had died at Balmoral Castle just days before.
Each year, from mid-July to October, Her Majesty made Balmoral, her great, great grandmother’s “dear paradise in the Highlands”, her home – staying at first at Craigowan Lodge on the estate, before moving into the main castle when it closed to the public in early August.
And so, it may just have been a coincidence that it was at Balmoral that the Queen spent her final few weeks, but she no doubt took great comfort from the familiar surroundings of her 50,000-acre Aberdeenshire holiday estate in her final days and hours, as she was said to feel so at home here that she effectively left her crown at the gates.
On 6 September, in a break from protocol, the
