It was not just a British Royal Funeral; it was the laying to rest of the noblest of the order of the gutter. The United Kingdom buried its longest-serving monarch as it introduced into the posterity of that power, King Charles III, as the Supreme Defender of The Faith. In ushering its King, the United Kingdom sang its Imperial Anthem, "God save the King". Trappings of aristocracy, power, and the sovereign got represented not only by vintage English class and grandeur but the full mast flag signifying that the monarch was in residence at Windsor Castle.
Inside the St George's Cathedral were flags representing the different orders defining the essence of British hierarchies of power and pecking order. Towering as the greatest of European Monarchies, the English Monarchy cemented its position as the custodian of one of the mediums of global interaction, the English language. The reflection of the various orders of dominance displays their structure as a background of permanence, defining what the trappings of royalty could look like, entrenching the centrality of a monarchy in the sustenance and curating of culture into posterity.
Perfected over twelve other reigns, its various ends symbolised by the breaking of the staff and surrendering the crown to the church, the centre of the monarch in many an anglophone society was entombed as a cultural practice on how a royal send-off could be dignified. As the cultural world is sizzling with contentions of what defines global royalty, what represents monarchical power, and what curates it for posterity, the laying to rest of Queen Elizabeth outdone itself in how it decisively captured the imagination of noble and aristocratic death and mourning. As factions of the English Cultured former subjects of the British Empire posture themselves to be in combat with what defines the medium of their ultimate official expression, their affiliation to its core is a towering yet denied platform of permanence they detesting.
As the prowess of the British Royalty unravels itself to a global audience, its poetic grandeur defines the style and meticulousness associated with the Queen, and the playbook of doing royal funeral was rewritten until the next similar funeral takes it to the next level. The separation of monarchy and democracy was emphatically announced through the draping of the Queen's coffins with the Royal Flag, notwithstanding it being a State Funeral. The British State has cemented the Monarchy as its active agency, standing apart from the government, the judiciary, and the capital as its other agencies. The Royal Mace of Authority stood apart from the British Executive Authority Mace, represented by other Westminster system symbols.
Notwithstanding the outlier arrogance of American power, the lining up of global power came to bow to and bid farewell to the fairest monarch of one of the least, if at all, fair imperial representations the world has seen. Almost like bringing together the demise of a western and liberal order with a rising new world order whose centre is chaotically undefinable given the hardness of the soft power it represents. Silent diplomacy reminiscent of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the midst of defining a post-World War global community was yet again resuscitated at her laying to rest function in the middle of one of the most consequential wars in world order redefinition terms, the Ukraine War or operation as President Putin prefers it. A transition from petticoat facilitation of global power inconveniences to a potentially hyper-masculine facilitation of the same has begun. The feminine touch which gave the British State softer edges of its roughest edges has retreated into the royal tombs and may be so for centuries, given the waiting in line realities.
Windsor Castle has become the proof point that Constitutional Monarchy activists around the World looked to when arguing the correctness of pomp and grandeur that discount the cultural capital it carries for society, if not humanity. In cultural capital terms, the funeral was a tapestry of what it costs to save traditional leadership worldwide. It would be the conduct of successors to the throne in a predominantly youthful and culture-challenged world that will keep the institution. The incessant change of human history that comes with the shortened distances, time, and communication barriers, will forever challenge the British Monarch as a constant that the Queen has crafted in the global cultural psyche for seven decades. Through the Queen and her funeral, the monarchy appeared to be open to everyone and created a space for friendly fenced vibrant space for humanity's encounter with royalty, not as a fairy tale.
The send-off was a tapestry of cultural and traditional encounters encapsulated in a system called the Firm. The funeral will go in history as a background of cultural power permanence. The hearse will be its iconic representation of humanity's wish to at least be royalty at death.
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