James Viscount Severn

[RoachTheHorse]

He looks so so young standing vigil. That must be hard.

Thanks re the medals!

I hope he's ok and felt proud that he did it - I think it took great bravery for someone of that age, particularly self conscious and who's been relatively protected from it all so far.

He did remarkably. They all did. I’m glad Sophie and Edward were there. Sophie looks so grief stricken. I like the way the 2 youngest were envelopes between their cousins.

Hopefully it was a choice that he and his parents were comfortable with. I think some 14 year olds would be mature enough for this and some not. Its different I think to Harry and William walking behind Diana's coffin. That was for a much longer amount of time, a less quiet, calm environment and there was a lot of attention focused on those two boys. I think the Royal family has had more time to prepare on this occasion, Westminister Hall feels calm and controlled and James was amongst a group of his cousins and sister without hopefully all the attention on him. His parents being nearby makes a difference too I think.

I think he'll be glad he did it, and being with his cousins will have helped. It's only 15 minutes, although I'm sure a very long fifteen minutes. We don't see much of him so his parents do a good job of keeping him out of the limelight and wouldn't have allowed it if they felt he wasn't up to it. I'm sure William and Harry would've had fairly strong opinions on him being forced!

What's a jubilee medal?

They are the Jubilee medals - he only has two (Diamond and Platinum) because he wasn't born at the time of the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. The other three male cousins have all three and Harry has his Afghanistan campaign medal too. I wonder why the women didn't wear theirs? They are just as entitled to wear them.

Medals were issued to members of the Armed Forces, emergency services and royal households on each of the Queen’s jubilees. The older grandchildren have gold, diamond and platinum, James has diamond and and platinum.

X-post with @WeegieWan. I wondered that too.

The jubilee medals were issued to everyone who was in service to the Queen (Armed Forces, Civil Servants, Public Servants etc) and had been for - I think - 2 years previously at the time of the 3 Jubilees. The Queen's family get them too. There may have been one for the Silver back in '77, but of course none of the Grandchildren are old enough for that one.

At the end when they were walking back around the rest seemed to keep their heads down but it looked like Louise gave him a look to check he was ok. Thought they were very brave.

Harry has been to the barbers

I think a big difference from William and Harry is that James has lost his 96yo granny who died peacefully at home, whereas Diana was the boys’ mother, she was young and her death was violent and unexpected. So presumably James is in a better place to start with and so better able to handle it. Hope so anyway. I’d far rather they had been able to do it privately- I started watching but had to turn off as it felt so intrusive.

On an incredibly shallow note, William and Harry both looked fine in their uniforms.

I am sure he wanted too and do not think it is wrong to let him decide. I did a reading at my granny's funeral at 15. It was hard, but I really wanted to do it for her. Plenty of teenagers have the resilience they need when it comes to honouring someone they love.

Thanks for the jubilee medal explanations!

Well done all the cousins.

Yeah he's young but if he wanted to do it then it is right that he was allowed to

Jubilee medals. Gift of the Queen

I can't imagine my grandson being able to stand still for that long.

I thought James looked so like William did at Diana's funeral, really tugged at my heartstrings

Does anyone else think that James looks so much like William from the side profile (it's all I've managed to see of him on TV)

I said the same thing on another thread that he looked so like a young Prince William

I thought it was lovely bless him so brave doing it with his cousins, his mum looked stressed though

My grandad died when me and my brother were 15 and (nearly) 13. We each had very strong opinions on exactly what we wanted to be involved in for the funeral. (My grandad was a semi public figure although obviously nothing in comparison to this.)

Although Peter has never been a working royal and hasnt any experience at this either so although he iwll naturally be more resilient to cope with it due to his age its not something he's used to either