Is lying in state a closed coffin?

[GreenGreenGrassBlue]

I’m from a country where all our funerals are open coffin so we follow that culture here too and bring the body home for family and friends to visit. I’m assuming it’s a closed coffin due to the number of days for the Queen?

Yes you did.

Tbh, I hasn’t realised it would be a people queuing to look at a coffin affair. My automatic assumption, based on my experiences of many funerals in Scotland, was that they’d be going to actually see the person.

You don't need to see the queens body so in relation to her, PPs are right. Unless on tv, how would you even see it? Only those in the chapel would.

In relation to your own family, it is a normal ritual and part of saying goodbye.

I think there is more of a tradition to see the deceased at the undertakers in the chapel of rest here, rather than being in an open coffin at home.

Having said that we gather at the bedside before the person is taken away, and if possible before they died.

Anyone that can't get there before the body is collected can go and visit them in the chapel of rest.

I've not been to an open casket funeral or wake, but I have seen both my grandfathers when they died. It was ok. I don't fancy going to the chapel of rest, but would for close family.

It's been a mix- and my family is mixed - British, Indian and Catholic/CofE.

No one does it rightly or wrongly, it is most definitely whatever makes those closest to the deceased feel happiest.

This was a very interesting thread, OP. There was not one thing wrong with your question. Not at all. It was just sadly invaded by a very ignorant and bigoted poster.

Yes, Gorbachev was shown in his open casket just last week, and open casket is very common for many heads of state. Death is normal and comes to us all.

I'd never seen an open casket funeral, or 'said goodbye' in a funeral home, but went with DH to identify his brother after he was deceased. It was only then that I could really believe and accept that he'd passed. I can fully understand why it is a comfort to people.

I found this description really beautiful thank you, gave me a sense of peace.
I am finding the whole discussion very interesting. I have only seen one family member after death , in a chapel of rest and I found it very distressing at the time, probably because I didn't know what to expect.
For me, I think I would feel my loved one were in a state of vulnerability if people saw them dead, like being seen in their pyjamas. Fine for close family but.not public viewing. Interested to know if others would have this feeling re wanting to protect the vulnerable?

No one 'gawps', you look, say something if you want and move on.

Some people might, how can they not? If it's their first time seeing a dead body. Personally I wouldn't want a vague acquaintance looking at me/ a loved one dead so one reason people are very private about it.

Someone asked where she was embalmed. It will have been done soon after death at Balmoral. The undertakers can bring all the necessary equipment and a team would have been on standby as part of the meticulous preparations for the Queen’s death. The body will have been embalmed regardless of the coffin used (someone said Diana probably wasn’t due to them using a lead-lined coffin - this isn’t true. She was embalmed in France before being flown back. It contributed to a conspiracy theory as it was suggested (incorrectly) that the embalming would disguise a pregnancy and that’s why it was done).

I’m baffled why some people think she’s not in her coffin. Of course she is. Embalming rages a few hours, it was done the day she died and her coffin has been ready for years (literally - she and Prince Philip chose and had them made together). Rumour has it she knew she was close to the end and had made her wishes clear she wished to die in Scotland, so the coffin would have been flown there ready. And now it’s under 24 armed guard. Of course she’s in it. The simplest explanation is the correct one.

Embalming takes, sorry.

The coffin will have been made and been in storage for a good while. It’ll have been brought up to Balmoral at some point.

The undertakers who work for the royal family will have been flown up. They’ve worked for them for a long time, and tbh given the age of the Queen they’d likely have been prepared to go at a moments notice for a fair while.

With Victorians I heard that because most people didn't have access to cameras, and the cameras needed to be perfectly still, it's was pretty much the only opportunity they got to have a photo. Whatever they did to the bodies, they looked in good shape, so it's not particularly morbid. It makes sense.

Seeing a loved one after the normal process today might not look as you expect, and we have cameras everywhere so most people don't opt for photos after death.

I like hearing different research rituals, anyway. Closed caskets aren't universal, no, but it's the vibe they're going for here. Very private.

You asked a perfectly reasonable question. It had momentarily crossed my mind too but then I remembered the images of the Queen Mother's lying in state with the closed coffin covered by her standard.

My great-grandparents, all born in the Victorian era, were brought home to lie in open coffins for family and friends to pay their respects before the funeral. That was in the 1970s and 1980s and they were English. My DF is Northern Irish and it remains normal to do so there. I think ways have changed, especially in England, in quite recent generations though that's still not universal.

When my DFIL died (before lockdown) my then 5 year old asked to see him in the chapel of rest - I said yes as that was my family's normal, and it was helpful to him in his grieving, although many friends were horrified I let him . It was interesting that he instinctively felt the need to do this and he also asked me why Grandad's coffin wasn't at home where he belonged until the funeral, though to my knowledge he had no awareness of that earlier tradition. I think the old ways of grieving go quite deep in instinct and memory.

DFIL was not embalmed, it was a green funeral but the undertakers were happy he was still "fit to be seen" even after 3 weeks thanks to freezers and their skills with make-up etc.

@EmmaH2022
I think a lot of people saw unburied coffins and people during the plague outbreaks. There was a shortage of grave diggers, not least because few were willing to do the job.

During the Great Plague of 1665 the City of London was experiencing 8,000 deaths a week. The disposal system became overwhelmed and bodies were buried in mass graves called "Plague Pits".
Even now these are still being discovered when excavations are commenced for new building work.
www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/tfl-photos-show-gruesome-plague-7112886

We're in England but my dad was Irish. Before he passed away he expressed his wishes to come home the night before his funeral (which was 16 days after he died)
We honoured his final request and we had an open coffin laid out for anyone who wanted to pay their last respects to him. He obviously looked quite different to when he was alive but not terribly so.
Not something I'd ever experienced but it was all done in a very respectful and dignified manner.

Anyone can go to the lying in state and view the coffin (casket?), literally thousands will do so.

I also think….we don’t like thinking about death, for ourselves or our loved ones. The Queen had thought about and prepared a lot more for hers than any of us. That’s largely due to the constitutional significance of her death, obviously. She was very involved in her funeral plans and she knew exactly what would happen, including the embalming and lying in state. We have to assume that everything now happening is a direct result of those plans and therefore is being done with her full knowledge and consent, or even as her express wish. And I don’t think it’s morbid to talk about it. I think she was absolutely at peace with the idea of death. She saw Charles mature, and find love and happiness. She adored William and Kate and now George is there too. She’s more than done her duty, the succession is secure and she had a very strong Christian faith which sustained her throughout her life.

Lying in state simply means the casket is often draped in the flag of the country of the notable person and laid on a catafalque which sometimes has four guards, one at each corner.
Members of the public are usually then invited/allowed to file past and pay their respects.
It has nothing to do with whether the casket is open or closed which is a matter for each country's state department to decide.

I always think an open coffin is odd. I want my last memory of the person to be of them living, not a shell of the person who embalmed in a coffin.

Yes its closed unlike Russia. I went to an open coffin funeral for a dear friend in his 40s. We all without exception either kissed his forehead or held his hand. It was a lovely experience and very comforting. We all felt we had proper closure.

Captain said because there's more ways of preserving the body nowadays

No. I didn’t see my mums body as her being in a vulnerable state. The first time I saw her body was in her bed after the paramedics removed all the equipment. They then placed her in bed and tucked her in so we could go see her.

She wasn’t there. She was an empty shell. Everything that made her my Mum was gone. I felt like I could feel her downstairs, oddly. But her body was just empty. We had an open casket wake at home. Sorting the funeral and the wake felt like her body was just a physical symbol of her. It wasn’t her, but it’s what we could say goodbye to. Just like I can talk to her photos now.

Over the following days, many people will have touched her. They attempted to do her PM via scan, it didn’t work. So she had an actual PM. The paramedics saw her. The funeral directors took her away, took her for a PM brought her back and looked after her before her funeral. That involved lots of people seeing her.

I don’t see that someone coming and paying respects and being able to see the body is, seeing them in a vulnerable state or that they are exposed.

Is there a "standard size" for a royal coffin? I only ask because the Queen was the same height as a friend who died and the one thing that set me off, that I really hadn't anticipated was that her coffin was so little...

the memory still brings tears to my eyes... she was such a huge personality, reduced to her physical dimensions, it just seemed wrong.

Absolutely

it was an interesting question and there have been some interesting answers

when my mum died my dad asked for the coffin to be left unsealed on the morning of the funeral so he could see her and make sure she looked like she would have wanted to look

my dad, my brother and i put photos in the coffin and ds1 who was very young waved granny goodbye, the coffin was closed for the actual funeral. My dad asked if my mums sister wanted to look but she had an awful experience as a child where she had been forced to look and didn’t want to

@ChestnutGrove oh i’m just joking. I’m referring to the time he kissed the remains of Katherine V (ew!) because the coffin was open.

‘it being Shrove Tuesday; and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois; and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen, and that this was my birth-day, thirty-six years old, that I did first kiss a Queen.’

Why Samuel why

@NanaNelly : thanks for your comment

We do the same re family washing/preparing body if possible, again the deceased’s children (daughters for a woman, sons for a man), with support of elder family/friends

when you say ‘the next prayers’ do you mean the Friday prayers or that day/one of the several prayer occasions in that day?

@0live : I completely agree that this is disrespectful

@PickAChew : shame on you. I don’t know anyone who is medically trained (and actually practising) who speaks that way. What an insult to the family. Friends of mine who were medics were appropriately grateful, tactful and attended the eventual funeral to pay their respects.