With the poignant sight of the widowed Queen, the world glimpsed an era that is not just ending, but inevitably on its way

You could barely see her, but you could glimpse the future. Maybe it was the sepulchral gloom of the dark wooden stalls of St George’s chapel, or perhaps it was the restraint of a TV director keeping their distance, respecting the privacy of the moment, but the Queen was hardly visible in the live coverage of her late husband’s funeral on Saturday. Masked and in an unlit corner, the monarch was all but unseen.

When the camera did catch her, it made for a poignant sight: the widow alone, an image that “broke hearts around the world,” in the words of the Washington Post, but one that will resonate in the UK especially. Even the sternest republican has long admitted that an extraordinary bond exists between Elizabeth and the people who have been her subjects for nearly seven decades. Now, if anything, that bond will be strengthened.

Prince Philip’s funeral was an unusual affair, watched by the monarch from her familiar seat in the family chapel

Nearly everything about the setting itself must have felt touchingly familiar. Just before 3pm the Queen took her usual place in the corner oak pew under the ancient banners of the Knights of the Garter in St George’s Chapel, Windsor – her family’s “home” church. It was a seat she had occupied countless times for Sunday communion, for christenings and weddings and funerals. Only this time, for what must have seemed the first time, her consort and husband, her “strength and stay” of almost 75 years was not sitting beside her. During yesterday’s funeral service for Prince Philip, the monarch remained steadfast as ever, head down, perhaps grateful for her black mask, with only the ever-present cameras for company. In her bubble of one, however, socially distanced from the sparse congregation around her, it went without saying that she had never looked quite so alone.

Until last March the only funerals that many of us had ever watched on screens had probably been royal ones. Princess Diana’s, maybe the Queen Mother’s. The long months of pandemic have made virtual send-offs horribly commonplace, though. Death and farewells have come to Zoom and Facebook Live. That fact gave a particular poignancy to yesterday’s events, attended by only 30 of Philip’s family and closest friends, instead of the planned 800.