Queen's funeral: Why was a white staff broken over her coffin?

The day of the Queen's funeral has been filled with solemn pomp and ceremony.

Hundreds and thousands of mourners came to London and Windsor to pay their final respects as millions of people were glued to their screens at home.

Around 2,000 people gathered in Westminster Abbey for her funeral, before a committal service later at Windsor Castle, which was attended by about 800 mourners.

The day has seen a number of different royal traditions and protocol utilised as part of the state funeral.

The breaking of the white staff

One of the most unusual moments came at the end of the last hymn of the committal service, and saw the ceremonial breaking of the white staff.

The Imperial State Crown, Orb and Sceptre, were removed from the Queen’s coffin and placed onto the altar of St George’s Chapel by the Dean of Windsor.

Former MI5 spy chief Baron Parker – the Lord Chamberlain and the most senior official in the late Queen’s royal household – then "broke" his Wand of Office and placed it on the coffin.

The purpose of breaking the wand is to create a symmetry with the three Instruments of State that had been removed from the coffin.

Sailors accompany the coffin

The Queen's coffin was carried from Westminster Hall to her state funeral at Westminster Abbey on a 123-year-old gun carriage.

The gun carriage was towed by 98 Royal Navy sailors in a tradition dating back to the funeral of Queen Victoria, while 40 sailors marched behind to act as a brake.

On the day of Victoria’s funeral in 1901, her coffin was to be carried on the gun carriage through the streets of Windsor but, in the bitter cold of that February day, the horses which were going to pull it panicked and reared, threatening to topple the coffin from the carriage.

Captain Prince Louis of Battenberg, the future First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, intervened and suggested to the new king, Edward VII, that the senior service should step in.

Once this was agreed, the horses were unharnessed and improvised ropes were attached to the gun carriage, which weighs 3,000kg (2.5 tonnes), and the team of sailors was brought in to ensure the coffin was carried safely for the rest of the route.

Only nine years later, at the funeral of Edward VII, the new routine became enshrined as a tradition which has been followed at all state funerals since, including those of kings George V and VI, Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten – the son of Captain Prince Louis of Battenberg.

The Grenadier Guards’ Queen’s Company Camp Colour

At the end of the last hymn, King Charles stepped forward and placed the Grenadier Guards’ Queen’s Company Camp Colour – a smaller version of the Royal Standard of the Regiment – on the coffin.

The Grenadier Guards are the most senior of the Foot Guards regiments and the Queen was their Colonel in Chief.

Only one Royal Standard of the Regiment is presented during a monarch’s reign, and it served as the Queen’s Company Colour throughout her lifetime.

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The Dean of Windsor then said a psalm and the Commendation while the Queen’s coffin was lowered into the royal vault.

The Sovereign’s Piper then played a lament and the Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced the blessing.

Where will the Queen be buried?

Later in the evening, there will be a private interment service with senior members of the royal family.

The Queen’s final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annex to the main chapel where her mother and father were buried, along with the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret.

Philip’s coffin will move from the royal vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queen’s.