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The body of Queen Elizabeth lay in state at Westminster Hall, in a coffin draped in the royal standard on which were placed the orb and sceptre, before her funeral in Westminster Abbey on 19 September, declared a bank holiday. She had died at Balmoral on the afternoon of 8 September, two days after appointing Liz Truss Prime Minister there. The new King took the name Charles III. In a televised address the next day, he said: ‘As the Queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself, throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation.’ Of his wife Camilla he remarked with curious phraseology: ‘In recognition of her own loyal public service since our marriage 17 years ago, she becomes my Queen Consort.’ He spoke of his ‘responsibility towards the Church of England – the church in which my own faith is so deeply rooted’, and he created the Duke of Cambridge Prince of Wales. He concluded by addressing his mother: ‘May “flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”’, a quotation from Hamlet sung at the funeral of his late wife, Diana, Princess of Wales.

An Accession Council of great office-holders, such as the Lord Great Chamberlain, with the Lord Mayor of London and 200 of the 719 privy counsellors, witnessed the King signing an oath at St James’s Palace to preserve the Church of Scotland. Garter King of Arms proclaimed the King from the Accession Gallery. Parliament sat to make its condolences and to allow MPs to swear oaths to the King. Charles III addressed the Lords and Commons two days later in Westminster Hall, then flew to Scotland to do the same to members of its parliament. From the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Queen Elizabeth’s four children followed the coffin; the Princess Royal, in uniform, movingly curtseyed to it. Thousands gathered to pay their respects. The Queen’s body rested at St Giles’ Cathedral for a day and night, then was flown to London. The King visited Belfast. Postal workers, having cancelled a strike out of respect for the late Queen, were told by Royal Mail that they would not have to work on the day of her funeral. Meanwhile, mourners looked for a way to express their feelings, and thousands queued to lay flowers in Green Park, near Buckingham Place; their demeanour was informal, sorrowful, sincere. Sarah, Duchess of York, is to look after Queen Elizabeth’s corgis Muick and Sandy.

These events completely overshadowed plans by Liz Truss to ameliorate the effects of energy prices. The main plank was a limitation of domestic bills to an average £2,500 a year. Energy companies impatiently urged more details. British gross domestic product rose by only 0.2 per cent in July, having fallen by 0.6 per cent in June. Unemployment fell to 3.6 per cent for the three months to July, largely because of a rise in the numbers of the economically inactive. Inflation meant a 2.6 per cent real-terms fall in pay. The annual rate of inflation fell a touch to 9.9 per cent in August, from 10.1 per cent in July. In England, the number testing positive for Covid fell to one in 70 by the end of August (from one in 60 a week earlier) and rose in Scotland to one in 50 (from one in 55).

Abroad

Ukraine broke through Russian lines south-east of Kharkiv, recapturing hundreds of square miles and the strategically important cities of Izyum and Kupiansk. Russian troops retreated in haste, leaving behind tanks and armaments. A wave of missile strikes by Russia on 11 September caused power cuts across the region. Ukrainian forces made some advances too on the southern front, near Kherson. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine appointed the Turkish manufacturer Haluk Bayraktar to the Ukrainian Order of Merit; his company has produced the highly effective Bayraktar TB2 drone.

In China, where millions are under Covid lockdown, some complained of running out of food. In Hong Kong, five speech therapists were sentenced to 19 months for publishing children’s books about sheep and wolves, deemed to refer to China. Jean-Luc Godard, the film director, died aged 91.

At least 11 people drowned when a small craft carrying migrants to Italy sank off the coast of Tunisia, with 12 others missing; this year 1,033 Mediterranean migrants have been reported dead or missing. The Swedish general election was on a knife-edge, with gains for the right. CSH