King Charles III addressed Parliament for the first time as monarch today, after receiving condolences from the speakers of both Houses at a meeting in Westminster Hall.
Lord McFall of Alcuith, the Lords Speaker and former Labour MP, said that the Queen had been “a leader to and a servant of the people”. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons, acknowledged the personal loss felt by the Royal Family. “Deep as our grief is, we know yours is deeper.”
Both speakers also made a “humble address” to the King, the formal communication between Parliament and the monarch.
In his reply, the King praised his late mother’s example, calling her “a pattern to all princes living” – a reference to a description of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. He noted her links to Parliament, “the living and breathing instrument of our democracy”, commenting on the several monuments in the Palace of Westminster which mark her jubilees. These include a fountain, a sundial, and a stained-glass window in Westminster Hall for her Diamond Jubilee.
The King said that the Great Bell of Big Ben – which hangs in the Elizabeth Tower – would toll to mark the Queen’s progress from Buckingham Palace to Westminster.
The Queen will lie in state in Westminster Hall from Wednesday, her coffin draped in the Royal Standard and raised on a catafalque, a temporary wooden cenotaph to allow the public to see it as they file past. The authorities expect hundreds of thousands to pay their respects in the coming week.
The King’s address continued: “We gather today in remembrance of the remarkable span of the Queen’s dedicated service to her nations and peoples. While very young, her late Majesty pledged herself to serve her country and her people and to maintain the precious principles of constitutional government which lie at the heart of our nation.
“This vow she kept with unsurpassed devotion. She set an example of selfless duty which, with God’s help and your counsels, I am resolved faithfully to follow.”
The King left London after the meeting to travel back to Scotland, to lead the procession in Edinburgh bearing the Queen’s coffin along the Royal Mile from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles’ Cathedral.
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