Flowers for Queen Elizabeth II

Flower Tribute outside Hampton Court Palace - September 17, 2022

When my friends and I planned a girls’ trip to England, we didn’t expect to arrive during the United Kingdom’s official state of mourning. Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday, September 8, 2022. We arrived in London on Wednesday, September 14th.  All the palaces owned by the royal family were closed to the public. Churches were only open for prayers and services. Tours we’d booked in advance were canceled while the country grieved. Our taxi ride from Heathrow airport to the Tower Hotel required two hours due to road closures necessitated by the arrival of the Queen’s coffin from Scotland. The detours cost us twice what I’d budgeted for cab fare. Much of what I wanted to see in London could only be viewed from a distance.

After checking into our hotel, we walked to the Tower of London. It is not owned by the royal family, so it remained open to the public despite the Queen’s death. A Super Bloom greeted us as we entered. The moat had been transformed into a sea of flowers in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. The growing season had ended and many of the blossoms were spent, but the remaining foliage radiated loveliness. Royal purple hues and violet cornflowers transcended the browning leaves as summer wilted into fall.

Multiple buildings lay inside the palace gates — and so many stairs. I mounted the steps to tour exhibitions protected by railings and glass. The pinnacle being the Crown Jewels which we glimpsed from a moving walkway that didn’t allow for lingering. Bedazzled crowns of long dead kings and queens glittered in locked display cases. Queen Elizabeth’s crown was absent, as were her scepter and orb. These had been spirited away to accompany her as she lay in state.

On Thursday evening, we attended the musical “SIX” at the West End Vaudeville Theater. It felt right to see a play about the wives of King Henry VIII in the country where he’d reigned from 1509 to 1547. As I listened to the characters describe their lives as wives of a despotic king, I pondered the Bechdel test for evaluating sexism. Yes — everyone on stage was female, but all of these women were defined by their relationship to one man. The actors voiced feelings that the real wives could never have said out loud. Only in the finale did they express a desire to transcend their narrow roles as dutiful helpmates. 

I think the six wives of King Henry VIII would have been proud of Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, who eschewed marriage in order to maintain her singular reign over the British Empire during the sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth II eclipsed their wildest yearnings by marrying without being defined by her husband. She ruled with quiet dignity and grace for seventy years.

On Friday morning, we visited the Churchill War Rooms. Blockades kept us from taking the most direct route from the St. James tube station to King Charles Street. The detours confused both me and the map app on my phone. We passed men lined up to take showers. I assumed they were traveling soccer players, but soon learned they were military men in town for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. Armed service members passed us on the street as we navigated our way to Winston Churchill’s covert bunker. Entering the underground fortress where Churchill's staff mapped battle plans felt surreal after witnessing the show of force on the London streets above our heads. Elizabeth II was still a princess during World War II, but I felt her presence as I toured the museum devoted to her father’s prime minister. 

We walked to Buckingham Palace in the afternoon. Our tour had been canceled due to national mourning, but we thought we might catch a glimpse of the palace. We joined a throng of mourners and were herded between temporary barricades until we reached the palace gates. We waited in crowds five deep to peer through the entrance before being pressed into the multitude drifting toward Green Park where memorial flowers were being collected. Though flowerless, we followed the floral-bearing masses like lemmings toward the sea. I expected to have my backpack searched in a tent set up outside the memorial garden, but I was diverted away. Instead, mourners were compelled to submit their bouquets to have cellophane removed before being allowed inside the fence. We watched distraught citizens lay their tributes on the ground to honor their fallen queen and read poignant cards and letters displayed artistically beside Paddington Bears and portraits of the Queen drawn by children. A stranger even thanked us for participating in their national lament.

We made our way toward the Green Park tube station but were turned away by a guard who informed us that one could exit the station but not enter. She directed us toward the Piccadilly Circus station, on an entirely different transit line. We took the Piccadilly line back to Green Park where we changed to the Jubilee line, getting off at Westminster station. I then took the clipper boat to Tower Hill. On board, I spoke with two women who had waited in line for five hours to pay their respects to the queen. They gloried in their experience and did not regret the long hours of waiting. People in line were friendly and held each other’s places during coffee runs and potty breaks. From the boat I could see crowds still waiting in line along the Thames. Their journey to Westminster Abbey would take many more hours.

We took the train to Hampton Court on Saturday. Numerous floral tributes to Queen Elizabeth lay outside the castle gates, the favorite palace of King Henry VIII. He brought his new bride Anne Boleyn here, after divorcing Catherine of Aragon. His fifth wife, Catherine Howard, is said to still haunt the palace. The interior is historical and beautiful but I was most enchanted by the royal gardens. 

We’d hoped to tour Windsor Castle on Sunday but had to content ourselves with viewing it from a distance. Media outlets had already set up tents around town in anticipation of the upcoming funeral. Police barricades guided us through the streets toward the palace where floral tributes lay on all sides of the gates.

The trip from Windsor back to London was full of delays as the police closed streets in preparation for Monday’s funeral. Our tour bus had left from Victoria Coach Station without difficulty that morning, but twelve hours later the streets to Victoria Train Station were blocked. The bus driver dropped us off at South Kensington Station because the new king was making an appearance at Sloane Square which lay between us and our destination. Thankfully, we’d purchased seven-day transit tickets and could find our own way back to our hotel.

Everything was closed on Monday, so we watched the queen’s funeral on TV. I admired the crown and scepter atop the Queen’s coffin that I’d missed seeing when I viewed the other Crown Jewels displayed at the Tower of London. A magnificent bouquet adorned the casket as well as the jewels.

After the funeral service, the news showed the royal family in limousines processing toward Windsor for another service. Cameras panned the castle I’d seen on Sunday, but the view had changed. The grass inside the gates had been transformed into a carpet of flowers. 

England went back to normal on Tuesday after the funeral, but that left little sightseeing time for four American women scheduled to fly home the following day. We took a river cruise in the morning and went to Harrods that afternoon. Looking back now, I realize what impressed me most on our trip were the floral tributes to Queen Elizabeth II, starting with the Super Bloom to honor her Platinum Jubilee and ending with the numerous bouquets to mourn her passing.