MADRID, Sep. 12 (.) –
The four children of Queen Elizabeth II, with her eldest son, Charles III, have carried out the traditional vigil of the body of the late monarch in the Cathedral of San Gil in Edinburgh, a symbolic guard of the body.
The new king, princess Ana and the princes Andrés and Eduardo have been placed around the coffin, with their backs to him, standing guard around the body in a symbolic image. Shortly after, Isabel’s four children have left the place.
This is the first time that a woman has participated in a traditional vigil, since until now this rite was reserved for the men of the royal family.
When the Queen Mother Elizabeth died in 2002, it was her four grandchildren who kept the traditional vigil: Charles, Andrew, Edward and David Armstrong-Jones, Princess Margaret’s only son.
This tradition is formally called the Vigil of the Princes. It was inaugurated in 1936, when King Edward VIII and his three brothers, Albert, Henry and George, surrounded the coffin of his father, King George V. Since then it has only been repeated in 2002 with the Queen Mother.
