Prince Philip’s final resting place
The duke will first be interred in the Royal Vault of St George’s Chapel, but not forever.
Following his funeral, the Duke of Edinburgh will be privately interred in the Royal Vault of St George’s Chapel – but this will not be his final resting place.
When the Queen dies, Philip will be transferred to the gothic church’s King George VI memorial chapel to lie alongside his devoted wife of 73 years.
The tiny chapel houses the remains of the Queen’s father George VI, her mother the Queen Mother and sister Princess Margaret.
It is inscribed with “George VI” and “Elizabeth” in gold lettering and accompanied by their years of birth and death.
On Saturday, the Queen and close members of her family will gather privately after the funeral as the duke’s coffin is interred in the Royal Vault – a burial place set beneath St George’s Chapel – for the time being.
It will be placed on a marble slab in the Quire and lowered into the Vault by electric motor.
Also interred in the vault are George IV and William IV.
Others buried there include George III’s wife Queen Charlotte and their daughter Princess Amelia, George IV’s daughter Princess Charlotte and Queen Victoria’s father the Duke of Kent.
Princess Margaret, who died in 2002, was cremated and her ashes were initially placed in the Royal Vault, before being moved to the George VI memorial chapel with her parents’ coffins when the Queen Mother died just weeks later.
The princess wanted to be cremated because she found the alternative royal burial ground at Frogmore in Windsor Great Park too “gloomy”.
“She told me that she found Frogmore very gloomy,” Lady Glenconner said. “I think she’d like to be with the late King, which she will now be. There’s room I think for her to be with him now.”
George VI died in 1952, but was first interred in the Royal Vault and moved to the memorial chapel when it was built 17 years later.
