Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will be huge, one of the biggest international events in probably forty or fifty years. World leaders, presidents, prime ministers, foreign monarchs, Commonwealth representatives, not to mention British domestic VIPs will all gather in London starting this coming weekend for the funeral on the 19th. The security and travel situations will be catastrophic. So the British government’s solution is to have world leaders gather off-site, miles away from Westminster Abbey, then get bused in. They’re apparently also telling world leaders that they can’t bring their own cars? President Biden literally travels with a special armored vehicle and the Secret Service isn’t going to be happy about any of this.

Foreign heads of state and their spouses heading to London for the state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II have been asked to arrive in the U.K. on commercial flights and banned from using helicopters to get around. World leaders have also been told they cannot use their own state cars to attend the funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19 — and will instead be bussed in en masse from a site in west London.

“Can you imagine Joe Biden on the bus?” one foreign ambassador based in London complained via WhatsApp message early Sunday.

Official documents obtained by POLITICO also confirm that only the heads of state and their spouses or partners from each country have been invited to attend the funeral, which is shaping up to be one of the most significant international events hosted by the U.K. in recent times. Westminster Abbey will be so packed for the event that it will be impossible for more than a single, senior representative per country and their other half to attend, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) lamented in the official protocol message regarding the event.

In the document, sent to overseas embassies late Saturday night, the department said it “regrets that, because of limited space at the state funeral service and associated events, no other members of the principal guest’s family, staff or entourage may be admitted.”

Heads of state unable to attend may choose someone else as their official representative, such as a head of government or senior minister.

According to the same document, King Charles III will host a reception for all the overseas leaders at Buckingham Palace on the evening before the funeral service.

On the day of the funeral, the heads of state and their partners will arrive at Westminster Abbey in escorted coaches from a location in west London, where “because of tight security and road restrictions” they will be required to leave their own cars.

“Multiple and comprehensive layers of security will be in place across London and at all the official venues used for the state funeral and associated events,” a second FCDO document detailing the logistical arrangements for those traveling from overseas states.

[From Politico]

So much for President Biden’s plan to not only attend the funeral, but to bring a delegation of American leaders. It sounds like Pres. Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden will be the only representatives allowed. So much for the British government’s new priority to make nice with the Biden administration too – putting Pres. Biden on a bus and telling him that he can’t use his secure, armored vehicle will not go over well. The visiting dignitaries are also being told that they can’t use helicopters within London, which is also pretty rich considering the Windsors have been using helicopters as their main form of travel for years now.

This whole mess is particularly revealing though – it shows that Operation London Bridge hadn’t actually taken into account the very real security details and security issues of visiting foreign leaders. It also shows that Liz Truss’s new government is in way over its head.

Our statement on the death of Queen Elizabeth II. pic.twitter.com/0n7pmVVg2w

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 8, 2022

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

In the now-infamous Oprah interview, the Duchess of Sussex told Oprah that while she was pregnant with Archie, there were conversations around her pregnancy and the idea of Harry and Meghan’s children and whether they would have titles. Once Archie was born, we were told repeatedly that Meghan and Harry chose not to give him a title, although I have my doubts (still, to this day) about whether M&H had a choice in the matter. In any case, Meghan told Oprah that the conversation was about when Charles became king, he would change the Letters Patent to deny the Sussex children their prince and princess titles, the birthright of the grandchildren of the sovereign. Meghan was torn to shreds about it in (guess what) the British media. Months later, the Daily Mail reported just that, that Charles had the intention of stripping royal titles from Harry’s children when he’s king.

Now that King Charles III is on the throne, the royal.gov website got updated in a hurry, and of course they updated the line of succession, which can be viewed online too. Remember how it took them more than SEVEN WEEKS to add Lilibet Diana to the online line of succession in 2021? Yeah, they manage to update that thing pretty quickly when it doesn’t involve the first mixed-race daughter of a prince of the realm. Well, in any case, “the Duke of Sussex” is listed (meaning, Harry still officially has his Sussex ducal title), but Lilibet and Archie are not given the courtesy of prince/princess.

Tell me again how King Charles III wants to lead the commonwealth and increasingly diverse Britain. Tell me again how no one in the all-white inner sanctum of King Charles III has considered the idea that making a big public show of denying royal titles to his mixed-race grandchildren looks completely awful, bigoted and racist. And just like the announcement of the Prince and Princess of Wales, it’s not necessary to have this stuff settled immediately. While Charles “intends” to change the Letters Patent, he hasn’t done it yet! He could have chosen a kinder, gentler, more diplomatic route for now and then a year from now, or whenever, he could have said “on second thought, here’s a new Letter Patent and here are the reasons why it’s not racist.”

Photos courtesy of Misan Harriman, Avalon Red, Sussex Royal, Harpo, Instar.

Operation London Bridge and the Scottish contingency plan, Operation Unicorn, pretty much spell out a rigorous ten-day mourning and commemoration process for Queen Elizabeth II. I was looking through our previous coverage of Operation London Bridge and doing the math, and I truly thought that QEII’s state funeral would be on Saturday, September 17th. I forgot the cardinal rule of the UK: business can never be conducted on weekends. So QEII’s state funeral will be held on Monday, September 19th. Here are the detailed plans, including when her body is moved from Balmoral to Edinburgh, then to Buckingham Palace and then to Westminster Hall, then to the Abbey.

Funeral arrangements for Queen Elizabeth have been unveiled. On Saturday, Buckingham Palace announced that the late monarch will be honored with a state funeral on Monday, September 19 at Westminster Abbey in Central London. It will be the first time a monarch’s funeral has been held at Westminster Abbey since the 18th century. The funeral will be followed by a committal at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor— where the Queen’s parents, sister Princess Margaret and beloved husband Prince Philip are laid to rest.

The Queen’s coffin is currently lying at rest in the Ballroom at Balmoral Castle, where family members and royal household staff have been paying their respects and quietly remembering the late Queen.

On Sunday, a group of loyal gamekeepers — “people who have known Her Majesty, it’s a personal connection,” a royal spokesperson says — will carry her coffin from the Ballroom out of the castle, to start its journey south to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.

The drive, in a hearse, is estimated to take around six hours, royal officials said on Saturday. Once in Edinburgh, the Queen’s coffin will be taken to Holyroodhouse — where it’s set to arrive at about 4:00 p.m. local time, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshall announced.

On Monday, it will be taken from the Palace of Holyroodhouse at 2.35 p.m. in procession to St Giles’s Cathedral. The Queen’s coffin will lie at rest at St. Giles’s Cathedral until Tuesday, Sept. 13, when it will be flown to London, arriving at 8: 00 p.m.

On Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 2:22 p.m. the Queen’s coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall for lying-in-state, which will end on the morning of the state funeral.

On the morning of the funeral, the coffin will begin its journey to Westminster Abbey — in a procession from the Palace of Westminster beginning at 10.44 am local time.

The Queen’s funeral will follow a week of ceremonial activities that will see King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla tour the United Kingdom.

[From People]

Yes, King Charles III has to spend the next week on a tour of the UK. It’s like a Grief Tour, but it’s also about the new sovereign greeting his new subjects. I kind of feel like the grief tour should wait until after the funeral, but whatever, obviously I’m not in charge of anything, and these are the plans. As for how involved it is with the moving of the body and lying in state, it’s all very somber. I would imagine all of it will be done with a lot of dignity and gothic pomp. That’s something the Brits do well – state funerals, dignified grief on display. The vibe is so different from Princess Diana’s funeral.

Should I officially retire the stabbing-the-cake photos? They’re some of my favorites of her. This is how I’ll remember her – a woman who stabbed cakes and had beef with a Scottish pony.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Buckingham Palace, Instar.

Whew, the past 48 hours have been A LOT and please trust that we will cover everything that has been happening in detail in the days to come. For now, let me summarize: the British media has been grotesquely focused on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex since early Thursday, before Queen Elizabeth II even passed away. The media has made a huge deal about Harry’s movements, Meghan’s movements, where Meghan is, why she didn’t go to Scotland, and on and on. I’m not sure if the new king understands how bizarre this is or how it actually makes his reign start off on really horrible footing, but I suspect that they’re all in the dark about just what they’ve unleashed.

Today, there was one sign that *someone* understood that Harry and Meghan must be seen in a somewhat stage-managed public appearance. Prince William, the new Prince of Wales, is taking credit for being that someone. According to the official royal reporting, William extended an invitation to both Harry and Meghan to view the tributes and flowers outside of the Windsor Castle gates. To say that the body language was awkward is a massive understatement:

Both Kate and Meghan wore simple black dresses, with Meghan’s hemline even more conservative than Kate’s. There was little to no interaction between the wives. Although it did look like William said a few things to Meghan, and Meghan was sort of a buffer between the brothers at various points, although she did position herself so that William and Harry would be briefly side-by-side. Stage-managed, awkward, but arguably “important” in the grand scheme of things. Again, we’ll have a lot more in the days to come.

Updated with some new photos!

Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images, Instar, WENN and Avalon Red.

On Saturday, King Charles III had his meeting with the Accession Council, which was part of the first-ever televised Proclamation Ceremony. Basically, King Charles III made a speech to such luminaries as Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and the new prime minister Liz Truss. Then the new king signed some papers. Queen Camilla and the new Prince of Wales, Prince William, were there. Charles’s siblings are all still in Balmoral, with their late mother’s body. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were in Windsor while this happened at St. James’s Palace. Charles’s speech starts around the 8:30-mark. Watch everything around starting at the 14-minute mark though.

The business with the fountain pen and the ink pot is so… odd. Apparently, the document signed by Charls is the Accession Proclamation, and Charles merely had to sign two large documents with the pen. Charles motions for someone to get all of the extra pens off the table to he can sign the second document. Charles makes a “come on, do it” face at some aide. Then William, as the witness, has to motion to the same aide to present a pen to him because the king hijacked the good pen. The whole thing was extra awkward because Charles is a righty and William is a lefty. At no point did any aide or courtier simply suggest putting the inkwell and extra pens at the top of the desk. “No, that is how The Awkward Proclamation Inkwell has always been placed on the table, why would we do it differently, it’s HISTORY!”

Meanwhile, on Friday, the new PM Liz Truss had her first audience with the new king. Absolute shambles, made even funnier and more bizarre by the fact that Truss apparently can’t curtsy, she can only sort of halfway buckle uncomfortably. She tried to keep a respectful distance from Charles but he told her “come in, my dear.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

King Charles III made his first public statement just moments ago, a national address about 24 hours exactly after his mother’s death was announced publicly. Charles returned to London from Balmoral this afternoon, and he and Queen Camilla greeted mourners and supporters outside of Buckingham Palace, then recorded his address in the Blue Drawing Room of BP. Charles’s national address can be seen below.

King Charles pledged “lifelong service” to the nation and the Crown, he paid tribute to his mother and, notably, he announced that William and Kate would be getting the Wales titles. King Charles said: “Today, I am proud to create him Prince of Wales, Tywysog Cymru, the country whose title I have been so greatly privileged to bear during so much of my life and duty. With Catherine beside him, our new Prince and Princess of Wales will, I know, continue to inspire and lead our national conversations, helping to bring the marginal to the centre ground where vital help can be given.” I genuinely wonder when the investiture will be held? Will they do it before Charles’s coronation? I’m sure William feels like he’s already PoW. And Kate… well, what a payoff, at long last. Celebratory buttons for everyone!

Oh My God, they already changed their social media profile!!! Jesus H.

And this:

A royal source says William and Kate are “focussed on deepening the trust and respect of the people of Wales over time”. They’ll approach their roles in the modest and humble way they’ve approached their work previously.” #TheKing

— Emily Nash (@emynash) September 9, 2022

Incidentally, when the king and queen were greeting mourners outside of BP, someone shouted “guillotine, guillotine” at Camilla. You can hear it around the 30-second mark below, it also sounds like someone shouted for security.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Nicolas Cage & his wife Riko welcomed a daughter named August. [Dlisted]
Lainey brings up a good point, which is we’ve never had a major coronation in the digital age, the age of social media. [LaineyGossip]
Photos from the Venice amfAR gala. [RCFA]
Michigan is putting abortion rights on the ballot. [Jezebel]
Brad Pitt headed out of Venice. [Just Jared]
What’s been happening in Telluride & Deauville? [Go Fug Yourself]
More photos of Queen Elizabeth and her corgis. [Buzzfeed]
Review of Blonde: beautiful and contemptuous. [Gawker]
The trailer for AMC’s Interview with a Vampire series. [Pajiba]
Donald Trump boosts QAnon content when he’s under stress. [Towleroad]
Hailey Bieber & Charlotte Lawrence eat pizza in the bathroom. [Egotastic]
I cannot believe how many seasons they’ve gotten out of The Handmaid’s Tale. [Seriously OMG]

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Everyone knows that Prince Charles became King Charles the moment his mother died. The other title switches will take longer though – Prince William won’t become Prince of Wales until he has the investiture ceremony at Caernarfon Castle in Wales. William won’t be “invested” as PoW until King Charles III says so. While Charles was the “presumptive” PoW as a child, his investiture didn’t happen until he was 19 years old. My guess/theory is that Charles will make William wait for the PoW investiture until after Charles’s coronation. Like coronations, an investiture of that magnitude involves months of planning. Plus, Charles might want to make William squirm a bit.

So while William is not automatically Prince of Wales, he did automatically become Duke of Cornwall, and Kate automatically became Duchess of Cornwall. This title transfer happened the second the Queen passed, just like Charles’ kingship. The thing is, Kensington Palace was way too eager to add William and Kate’s new titles to their social media. Queen Elizabeth II had just passed only hours beforehand and this was Kensington Royal’s new header:

Before everyone yells at me, again, I know that Will and Kate are already the Cornwalls (and the Cambridges). It’s just tacky (to me) that they couldn’t wait until, like, after the funeral to claim these new titles on their social media profiles? Case in point: this is what Clarence House’s profile looked like at the very same time:

Camilla is not still the Duchess of Cornwall, but thankfully the Clarence House social media team were not concerned enough or tacky enough to immediately make the change to “King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla” within a few hours of the Queen’s passing.

As for why William and Kate are so grabby and “MINE” about the Cornwall titles… that’s where the money is. The Duchy of Cornwall is the largest land-holder in the UK. The Duchy makes tens of millions of pounds a year in farm profits, rents and investments. William and Kate can’t wait to get access to all of that money.

Meanwhile, I haven’t seen anything about William’s big, keen trip to New York? He was scheduled to be in New York on September 21. I think he’ll cancel, right?

Photos courtesy of Instar, Backgrid.

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Here are photos of Prince Harry leaving Scotland this morning. He was the first member of the Windsor clan to leave Balmoral following Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, and he caught a private plane out of town. Prince William, Prince Andrew and the Wessexes all flew up together on Thursday and Harry, it seems, was not invited to travel alongside them. Which likely says something about the “new rules” under King Charles III. Those new rules being…William and Harry can keep fighting, I guess.

While there has been some wishful thinking amongst commentators that the death of their beloved grandmother might knock some sense into the feuding brothers, the fact that they couldn’t even get it together to take the same plane suggests that insiders who doubt a reconciliation will happen any time soon are unfortunately correct.

As one former royal staffer who used to work with the brothers told The Royalist: “I’m sure they will all put on a good show for the funeral, just as they did for Philip’s. But that occasion very much failed to bring the brothers together in any meaningful way. This won’t be any different.”

[From The Daily Beast]

I mean, I halfway agree that the Queen’s death won’t change William and Harry’s relationship for the better. If anything, I bet it becomes much worse now that William is free to become even more rageholic and power-mad. Speaking of, British outlets and British commentators like the Daily Beast’s Royalist are definitely “gloating” about how Harry has been noticeably snubbed:

Harry’s solitary pilgrimage to and from his grandmother’s deathbed is no accident. The choreography represents a clear message from King Charles: Harry is an outsider, a second-tier royal now. The Daily Mail reported the plane he used was “owned by the commercial jet leasing company Luxeaviation UK.”

His ruthless treatment will only serve to reinforce speculation of ongoing bad blood between Harry, Meghan, and the rest of the family.

[From The Daily Beast]

Yeah… I don’t know. I think King Charles III has his hands full with a lot of different things and he’s likely not going out of his way to make a big public show of snubbing his younger son. At least I hope that’s not the case. Now, William? This has William written all over it. As for Harry being a “second-tier royal now” – he’s literally the son of the king and fifth in line to the throne. If anything, it should be much more worrying to King Charles III that the bulk of British headlines are not about QEII, nor the new king and queen, but Harry and Meghan.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty.

Prince Harry made arrangements to travel to Balmoral yesterday soon after the Palace released an honest assessment of Queen Elizabeth’s failing health. For hours, it was believed that Harry and Meghan would be traveling up to Balmoral together, then we learned that no, Harry was traveling alone. We don’t know why that change happened – my theory is that it was a simple security issue, and Harry felt (correctly, I think) that Meghan would be safer and more secure if she stayed in Windsor. I’ve seen the theories that Meghan was “forced” to stay in Windsor because Kate was left behind too. I don’t think that was a factor (but I could be wrong). The thing which has piqued my curiosity is that Prince William, the Wessexes and the Duke of York all traveled up to Scotland together, and arguably they would have flown out of an airport close to Windsor. Did they refuse to invite Harry, who was also in Windsor, to travel with them?

Harry ended up arriving at Balmoral hours after his grandmother had passed away and after the Palace announced her death. He arrived around 8 pm GMT, and he’s reportedly already left Balmoral – he was the first member of the family to leave, at around 8 am GMT. The Windsors had gathered at Balmoral and all of them stayed overnight. Harry is headed back to Windsor and he will reportedly stay in the UK for the time being, according to Omid Scobie. I would imagine he will stay through the funeral.

There has (so far) been no mention of Meghan’s plans, and whether she’ll fly back to California to be with their children, whether she too will attend the funeral. BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell suggested on air that Meghan didn’t go to Balmoral because she “might not be terribly warmly welcomed.” Because even on a somber day, these people had to get their jabs in. I would imagine that Harry and Meghan will figure out the logistics of what they’ll both do when they see each other in person.

Now that Harry’s father is King Charles III, that means Harry’s two children are now Princess Lilibet Diana and Prince Archie Harrison, as all grandchildren of the monarch are automatically princes and princesses. Meghan spoke about this issue in the Oprah interview – during her pregnancy with Archie, there were conversations about how Charles wanted to change the rules to strip the Sussex children of their titles when he was king. It might still happen eventually, but I can’t see King Charles III concerning himself with that issue right now, or even before his coronation.

Last thing: the Sussexes changed the Archewell main page to an all-black image in memory of Harry’s grandmother.

Prince Harry has officially joined the rest of The Royal Family on a grim day for all who loved Queen Elizabeth. https://t.co/gqdtoLeT1p

— TMZ (@TMZ) September 8, 2022

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Archewell.