The delicate diplomacy of the Queen’s funeral guest list

Transport and seating at Westminster Abbey presents special challenges, writes Sean O’Grady

Mourners queue at Southwark Park to see the Queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall (Reuters)

The Queen broke many records in her long life and reign, and her funeral seems set to be another unprecedented event. Perhaps strangely, this is the first funeral to be held at Westminster Abbey since George II’s in 1760. Most royal funerals since have been small, simple family services at Windsor – those of George VI in 1952 and the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, in 1972. The other exception is Richard III, interred at Leicester Cathedral in 2015.

This is going to be a far more ambitious operation, with a formidable guest list. Because the House of Windsor, and its predecessors, followed the dynasto-diplomatic European tradition of intermarrying families for the purposes of building alliances, the Queen was related to almost every royal house in London, deposed or not. Indeed she married her (third) cousin, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, albeit for love, which added another dimension to the family tree.

So the first names on the guest list pretty much suggest themselves via DNA: Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, King Harald V of Norway, and Queen Margrethe of Denmark. Emperor Naruhito of Japan will also be there. It will be the biggest assembly of mixed royalty for many years, and no doubt the now-deposed royals of Greece, for example, will attend as friends as well as family.