Prince George and Princess Charlotte are publicly saying goodbye to their great-grandmother.
The eldest of the three children of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Prince and Princess of Wales, joined their parents and other members of the royal family—including King Charles III, Queen Consort Camilla, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle—for Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral at Westminster Abbey in London Sept. 19. The kids' younger brother Prince Louis, 4, did not attend the event.
Following the memorial service, the queen's coffin will travel in procession to Windsor Castle near London, where a Committal Service will be held at St. George's Chapel.
The Queen died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, her vacation home, on Sept. 8 at the age of 96. Over the next week, the Queen's coffin was slowly transported across the U.K. to allow mourners to pay their respects.
When it reached London, it lay in state at Westminster Hall at the Palace of Westminster, and for days, fans lined up to view it and say their farewells to their queen. The king and his three siblings, plus William, Harry and their six cousins stood vigil at times prior to the funeral.
While she was the longest reigning monarch in British history, to 12 her great-grandchildren—including George, 9, Charlotte, 7, and Louis, 4—Queen Elizabeth was reportedly known as "Gan Gan." In a 2016 ITV documentary Our Queen at Ninety, Kate revealed that the Queen left gifts in the rooms for her great grandchildren when they visited her at one of her many palaces.
When greeting mourners at Windsor Castle on Sept. 10, the Princess of Wales shared Louis' heartbreaking reaction following the Queen's death. Referring to the death of the monarch's husband Prince Philip in April 2021 at age 99, Louis told his mom, "She's not with Great-Grandpa."
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic kept the Queen from being able to visit in person with her great-grandchildren, but she didn't let her age and social distancing keep her from seeing them virtually. Harry shared a sweet antidote of the queen and Philip chatting with his and Meghan's son, Archie Harrison, on Zoom in Feb. 2021.
"Both my grandparents do Zoom," he said on The Late Late Show with James Corden. "They've seen Archie running around."
He also revealed that the Queen asked what Archie wanted for Christmas and Meghan told her he wanted a waffle maker because he was obsessed with waffles for breakfast. He said, "She sent us a waffle maker for Archie. So breakfast now, Meg makes up a beautiful organic mix" and throws it in the waffle iron."