WINDSOR, ENGLAND (UK) – Mourning the death of his “dear papa” Prince Philip, Britain’s Prince Charles said the royal family missed him enormously and that the 99-year-old would have been amazed at the touching reaction across the world to his death. He paid a personal tribute on Saturday to his father
“As you can imagine, my family and I miss my father enormously,” Charles, the couple’s eldest son and heir to the throne, My dear papa was a very special person who I think above all else would have been amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about him and from that point of view we are, my family, deeply grateful for all that. It will sustain us in this particular loss and at this particularly sad time,” said outside his Highgrove House home in west England.
Buckingham Palace announced that the funeral for Philip would be held on April 17, and that the queen’s grandson Prince Harry, who had become estranged from the family after moving to the United States with his wife Meghan, would attend.
Meghan, who is pregnant with their second child, will not attend on doctor’s advice, the palace said.
The palace said long-established plans for the funeral had to be redrawn and scaled down because of COVID-19 restrictions, but they remained very much in line with Philip’s wishes.
Philip, who was officially known as the Duke of Edinburgh, will be given a ceremonial royal funeral, not a state funeral, as planned before the pandemic. But there will be no public processions, and it will be held entirely within the grounds of Windsor Castle and limited to 30 mourners.
The funeral, which will be broadcast on live television, will be held at the castle’s St George’s Chapel and will be preceded by a minute’s silence across the country.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be among the guests in order to make space for as many family members as possible, his office said.
