I had one of those experiences on the day of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II that makes you question the laws of science, your own mental stability, and possibly both.
I hadn't been watching the Queen's prolonged farewell too closely but on September 14, I got up at quarter to six to watch the funeral itself. I have big questions about the monarchy per se, but I did like Queen Elizabeth, and the British Royals do know how to put on a show. Plus, the music at these events is always excellent (although there are not enough girls in the choirs).
So I watched the funeral at Westminster Abbey, intending to move on to other activities afterward, but when the casket was removed and placed on the gun carriage, and then later transferred to the “Royal Hearse” (designed by Jaguar in consultation with Elizabeth herself!), I found I couldn’t look away from the image of the procession moving through London and then through the English countryside. And so six hours later, as the Committal Service was drawing to a close, I was still glued to the screen.
I was fascinated by the details (the breaking by the Lord Chamberlain of the “Wand of Service,” the removal from the casket of the Crown, the Orb, the Sceptre, all that ceremonial stuff. Fascinating) and I was listening to every word the bishops, deans and rectors said – the service itself so familiar to me from my Anglican childhood. And of course in my head I was also very busy criticizing the liturgy and the history of the Church of England and the foundations and various corruptions of Christianity as a whole. As one does. I was also looking at all the people – royalty and clergy and military and politicians and the thousands of regular folk who had turned up to commiserate with one another – and I was considering the clerical vestments and the ostrich feathers and the bagpipes. And throughout the morning, that flag-draped casket was always front and centre.
And then it was over. And Adrienne Arsenault was talking on CBC about how wonderful it had all been, and we were watching King Charles and the other members of the Royal Family leaving the chapel and suddenly I said to myself, “Holy smokes!! What happened to the Queen? Where did the casket go?” That central feature of the entire spectacle had disappeared completely! One minute it had been there, and now there was just floor.
I was flabbergasted. They'd transported her! Beamed her up! She'd gone! Poof!! And I had missed it! I was really stumped. How does a 300-kg lead-lined, flag-draped casket with all those flowers on it simply disappear?
For a moment I thought perhaps I’d had a brain gap and should go over to Emergency.
I tried to rewind the broadcast a bit but that was a no-go, since the program was still streaming live. After several attempts to locate the clip of the magical disappearance of the casket, I finally found a bit on YouTube that solved the mystery. It came from a Kenyan TV station that had got its act together in the sphere of my concern before any other station on the planet, and had posted a segment called “Casket Lowered Into Vault.”
So I watched it, and I realized that what had happened was that the camera had been moving back and forth between the Dean of Windsor, who was bidding the Queen a final adieu as the casket descended into the floor, and the royal Piper had been playing a lament. My eyes had been on the speaker, the withdrawal of the bagpipe player, and the face of the new king. The few glimpses of the casket as it made its slow descent had been almost imperceptible to me, and on top of that, the broadcaster’s chyron had obscured the spot in the chapel where the descent was taking place.
All I can say is thank god for Kenyan television. For one brief moment there, I almost got my religion back.
(The lowering of the casket can now be viewed on several YouTube channels. My sense of self and my faith in the laws of cause-and-effect have returned to normal.)