The Queen’s funeral was a fitting send off for Elizabeth the Great

In the Christian tradition, which allows for a protracted gap between death and burial, there is often time for initial feelings of shock and grief to give way to other emotions – fond recall, gratitude for the contribution of the departed. But a funeral always returns us to sorrow. And deep sorrow was the abiding emotion today at the state funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The applause that rang out along parts of the route when her body was conveyed back to Buckingham Palace – or the friendships that sprang up in the queue to see her lying in state in Westminster Hall – were rightly seen as flowing from the Queen’s genius at holding and bringing people together. She told us in the depths of the covid pandemic that we would meet again and in the interval between her death and her funeral many of us did. That spirit of love and support was again transmitted as some onlookers cheered the arrival of King Charles III and other senior royals at Westminster.

But appreciation of the profundity of the loss that the United Kingdom has suffered was always going to dominate today and did so from the moment that the Queen’s coffin hove into view, pulled on the state gun carriage by a contingent of Royal Navy ratings to the tolling of the bell of Big Ben and the lament of pipe bands.

Anyone who has ever had a relative in the armed forces knows what proper preparation prevents. And this state funeral at which the military played such a leading role was surely the most rehearsed and thought-about event hosted in Britain in any of our lifetimes. No detail was left to chance, but still the whole added up to far more than the sum of its intricately engineered parts.

The music was beyond moving, at times almost shocking in its beauty and precision. The pipe bands stirring us then stopping instantly, returning us to silence as the coffin reached the doors of Westminster Abbey. Then the overwhelming moment of the magnificent choir striking up, the high culture glory of the Abbey reminding us that this was not merely a national event, but a global one as well – certainly the most compelling funeral for the world since the death of Nelson Mandela nearly a decade ago.

State funerals are a rare thing in Britain – the last being accorded to Winston Churchill in 1965 and before that to King George VI in 1952. Tony Blair, who sat with other former prime ministers in the congregation, once said he wanted Britain to become a 'young country' again. Gratifyingly there was no sign of that. This was an ancient ritual in an ancient place and utterly impervious to notions of modernisation.

It was of course also an unapologetically religious service, reflecting the Queen’s position as head of the Church of England and rendered particularly appropriate by the fact of her actual deep and unshakeable religious faith. While the format will have been familiar to nearly all of us – readings and lessons, psalms and hymns – the scale and the cast list spoke of the stature of the departed.

Such was the universal acknowledgment of the Queen’s greatness that even the biggest egos in the room behaved themselves perfectly. Boris Johnson arrived early and with his hair properly combed. The Duchess of Sussex was immaculate, her elegant black dress unadorned by jewellery.

A sadness close to heartbreak was evident upon the faces of King Charles III and his sister the Princess Royal, who walked beside him. The King brought calm swiftly back to the nation two days after his mother’s death when he gave a well-judged broadcast that showed it was in safe hands again already. It helped that he was such a familiar figure who had served an enormously long apprenticeship – not a new broom, but a presence akin to that of the benign 'Young' Mr Grace from the 1970s sitcom Are You Being Served, appearing on the shop floor to tell his people they were doing very well.

He embarks upon his reign with the overwhelming goodwill of his subjects to bear him along. How the Queen must have been comforted in her last days by the realisation that in the mellowed Charles and in William, the new Prince of Wales, the royal line was secure and able to aspire to the standards of public service she had delivered for so long.

The BBC, via which most of us will have watched today’s events, has again reminded us of the huge contribution it can make to our sense of nationhood and society whenever it wriggles free of its obsessions with identity politics and faddish metropolitan agendas.

Its coverage was perfectly judged, as it has been almost throughout this period of national mourning. A minimalist approach to commentary during the service itself allowed the majesty of the state funeral to speak for itself. As the Queen’s coffin was borne from the Abbey towards Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner, through a perfect-looking central London, the reassuring voice of Huw Edwards was once again evident to tell us about the huge funeral procession; knowledgeable but restrained, properly prepared.

William Shakespeare wrote that some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. The Queen was surely unique in embodying all three forms: Born the eldest daughter to the second son of a king; propelled into the royal hotseat by dint of the abdication of the childless Edward VIII and then the early death of her own father; finally, via her own achievements during 70 years on the throne.

As she is laid to rest, we know we must now go on without her. But greater ourselves by far for having lived so long in her age.