Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest in Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel with a ceremonial breaking of the Lord Chamberlain’s “wand of office.”
The monarch’s coffin was transported to Windsor after a grand state funeral service at Westminster Abbey, which was the U.K.’s first since the state funeral for Winston Churchill in 1965. Up to a million mourners lined the streets of London to pay their respects to the country’s longest-serving monarch, who held the throne for seven decades.
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The Lord Chamberlain is the senior officer of the Royal Household. And his thin white staff, the “wand of office,” is a ceremonial tool, according to the Evening Standard.
The ceremony, known as the “breaking of the stick,” signifies the end of the Lord Chamberlain’s service to the monarch. The wand will then be placed on the Queen’s coffin before it is lowered, according to the order of service for the committal at St. George’s Chapel.
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The Lord Parker of Minsmere, former head of the security service MI5, has been Lord Chamberlain since April 2021.
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