Camilla, Queen Consort, honored Queen Elizabeth by wearing a brooch gifted to her by the late monarch
- Camilla, Queen Consort, wore a brooch gifted to her by the late Queen Elizabeth II.
- Camilla wore the brooch at a Service of Thanksgiving for the British monarch on Monday.
Camilla, Queen Consort, attended a Service of Thanksgiving for Queen Elizabeth II's life wearing a special brooch that paid tribute to the late monarch.
Queen Elizabeth died peacefully at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on Thursday, Buckingham Palace announced. She was 96.
The monarch's coffin was transported from Balmoral in Aberdeenshire to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on Sunday. King Charles and his siblings led a procession from the palace to St Giles' Cathedral on Monday before attending the service which honored Her Majesty's life.
Camilla, 75, attended the ceremony wearing a diamond thistle brooch that was gifted to her by Queen Elizabeth before her death, People reports.
The brooch originally belonged to the Queen Mother and was inherited by Queen Elizabeth after her death in 2002, Hello! Magazine reports. The Queen Mother considered it one of her go-to pieces and would pin it to her hat on formal occasions, the outlet added.
It is not known when Queen Elizabeth gifted the brooch to Camilla. Camilla was first seen wearing it publicly in 2015, Hello! Magazine reports, and she was also seen wearing it in a video posted to Clarence House's Twitter account for Burns Night 2021. Burns Night is celebrated on January 25 each year in Scotland in honor of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. The thistle is Scotland's national flower.
Queen Elizabeth had a deep affection for Scotland and its people. She spent every summer vacationing at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands and made annual visits to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh for "Royal Week," in June, according to the royal website.
"I have spoken before of my deep and abiding affection for this wonderful country and of the many happy memories Prince Philip and I always held of our time here," the monarch said at the opening of Scottish Parliament in 2021, according to BBC News.
"It is often said that it is the people that make a place and there are few places where this is truer than it is in Scotland," she said.
Camilla was previously known as Duchess of Rothesay in Scotland before becoming queen consort. The title has now been passed on to Kate Middleton upon King Charles' ascension. Middleton and Prince William have also inherited Charles and Princess Diana's former titles of Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Queen's coffin will lie in rest at St Gile's Cathedral until Wednesday, when it will be relocated to Westminster Hall in the Palace of Westminster in London, where members of the public will be able to visit in advance of her funeral on Monday, September 19, the royal website states. On Monday, an estimated 20,000 mourners joined a mile-long queue to pay their respects to the monarch at St Giles' Cathedral, according to the BBC.
Recent guidance from the UK government said queues at Westminster are expected to be "very long," adding that visitors "will need to stand for many hours, possibly overnight, with very little opportunity to sit down, as the queue will keep moving."