BY AFP

Elizabeth II’s body arrived in London on Tuesday for a six-day popular tribute and state funeral, following the farewell Scotland offered to their late king on Thursday at the age of 96 after seven decades on the throne.

A C-17 Globemaster aircraft, which was recently used on a relief mission to Ukraine, landed at the Northolt military base at 18:54 (17:54 GMT), carrying a coffin covered with royal standards and a wreath.

Can read: Charles III presided over Elizabeth II’s funeral procession in Edinburgh

Hours earlier, eight coffin bearers had carried the coffin into the crowd gathered outside St. St. Cathedral. Giles Edinburgh, where the casket has remained in the burning chapel since Monday afternoon.

The queen’s only daughter, 72-year-old Princess Anne, accompanies Elizabeth II, whose remains will rest overnight at Buckingham Palace surrounded by members of the royal family, led by the new king, Carlos III.

While the country, still in shock, bid farewell to his mother, the 73-year-old king sat on the throne and head of state which his mother occupied for seven decades, becoming a symbol of unity and stability.

It includes tours of the four countries that make up the country: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland stage, which Carlos III performed on Tuesday, is considered the most complicated.

Flower: ‘God save the king!’: Charles III is proclaimed new king of the British Empire

Since Britain defended that part of the Irish island in 1921, following independence from what is now the Republic of Ireland, the territory has been divided between Catholics and Protestants.

Deeply loyal to the late queen, Northern Irish unionists, Protestants, feared that their struggle, belonging to Britain, would be weakened in a political context altered by her exit from the European Union, and by the advance of Republican and Catholic nationalists. , advocates reunification with neighboring Ireland.

“I take up my new assignment determined to seek the well-being of all residents of Northern Ireland,” Charles III promised at Hillsborough Castle, south of Belfast, to local political representatives.

Elizabeth II’s visit to Ireland in 2011 was the first by a British monarch since independence and helped seal peace in the region.

– Thousands of people –

Tens of thousands of people marched past the funeral chapel erected in the Scottish capital on Monday, in the first public display of the remains of Britain’s longest-serving ruler.

Gavin Hamilton, from Edinburgh, queued for more than five hours to enter the cathedral at 2:50 p.m., with thousands of people still in tow. “In the queue there were people with me who came from Aberdeen, about 100 miles (160 kilometers), to do this,” he explained.

Elizabeth II died at her summer residence at Balmoral, in the Scottish Highlands region, so her last trip to London began in Scotland.

After spending the night in Buckingham Palace’s Bow Room surrounded by his own rooms, on Wednesday afternoon he will be taken in procession to Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the building that houses the British Parliament.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to parade through his funeral chapel in the capital. The government warns that people may have to spend the night queuing to see it. “Keep this in mind before deciding to attend or bring children,” warns Downing Street.

About 48 hours earlier, there were already several people waiting outside the DPR building.

“I told my daughter that I would definitely pay my respects to her in person. I love being in line, no matter how long it takes,” explains Vanessa Nanthakumaran, one of the first three people to queue.

Londoners will have five days to pay their respects to the late king, until the early hours of Monday 19th, the day his state funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey and he will be buried in Windsor.

On Sunday, the country is scheduled to observe a minute’s silence at 8:00 p.m. (19:00 GMT) to pay homage to the only monarch most Britons have ever known.