The Duchess of Kent’s coffin has travelled from her home at Kensington Palace to Westminster Cathedral in Central London for a series of private funeral rites ahead of her Catholic funeral service tomorrow
The Duchess of Kent’s coffin has arrived at Westminster Cathedral ahead of her funeral tomorrow as the Duke of Kent – her husband of 64 years – poignantly bowed his head.
The Duchess, the wife of the late Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Kent, died peacefully at home surrounded by her family on the evening of September 4, aged 92.
Today, her coffin left her home at Kensington Palace draped in the Royal Standard, led by a military piper from the Royal Dragoon Guards, for Westminster Cathedral, where a series of private funeral rites were held. As it arrived in the royal hearse at the cathedral in Central London, the Duke of Kent bowed his head as he stood supported by their daughter Lady Helen Taylor. The couple also had two sons, George, Earl of St Andrews, and Lord Nicholas Windsor.
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Other members of the Royal Family were also there to receive her coffin, including her brother-in-law Prince Michael of Kent, sister-in-law Princess Alexandra, who was in a wheelchair, as well as Lord and Lady Frederick Windsor. Also attending were the Duchess’s grandchildren, including Lady Amelia and Lady Marina Windsor.
A bearer party made up from the Royal Dragoon Guards, the regiment the duchess supported as deputy Colonel-in-Chief since its inception in 1992, carried her coffin into the building.
During a private vigil inside, funeral rites included a Vigil for the Deceased, Rite of Reception, which usually involves the coffin being sprinkled with holy water, and evening prayers known as Vespers led by Bishop James Curry, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and Titular Bishop of Ramsbury.
Her coffin will rest overnight tonight in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary before her requiem mass, a Catholic funeral, which will take place tomorrow, attended by the King, Queen, and other senior royals. It will be the first Catholic funeral service held for a member of the royal family in modern British history.
A devout follower of the Roman Catholic faith, the duchess became the first member of the royal family to convert to Catholicism for more than 300 years, doing so in 1994, and it was her wish to have her funeral at Westminster Cathedral.
However, the King will not be the first monarch to have attended a Catholic funeral, as Queen Elizabeth II attended the Catholic state funeral of King Baudouin of the Belgians, at St Michael’s Cathedral in Brussels, in August 1993.
Charles, when Prince of Wales, went to Pope John Paul II’s funeral, representing his mother the late Queen, in 2005, while his son William attended Pope Francis’s funeral mass earlier this year.
Born Katharine Worsley, she became best known for presenting the trophies at Wimbledon and memorably comforted a sobbing Jana Novotna after she lost the 1993 ladies’ singles final to Steffi Graf.
In 2002, she stepped back from royal duties, dropping her HRH style and spending her time as a low-key music teacher at a state school in Hull, where she was simply known as Mrs Kent.
She was born in Yorkshire in 1933 and grew up in Hovingham Hall near York. In 1956, she first crossed paths with the Duke of Kent, who at the time was serving with the Royal Scots Greys and stationed at Catterick Garrison in Yorkshire, and romance eventually blossomed.
Five years after their first meeting, the couple announced their engagement, and they married in the wedding of the year in June 1961 at York Minster. The venue was a break in tradition from Westminster Abbey, but Katharine was keen to marry there, describing herself as a “Yorkshire lass”.
After tying the knot, the couple had three children – George, Earl of St Andrews, Lady Helen Taylor, and Lord Nicholas Windsor. The glamorous Kents threw themselves into public life, representing the late Queen at both home and abroad.
In the 1970s, the Duchess suffered two devastating losses of a child. In 1975, she terminated a pregnancy after contracting rubella, which can harm an unborn baby. Two years later, she gave birth to a stillborn son called Patrick.
In 2002, Katharine stepped back completely from royal duties, telling the late Queen she would no longer use her HRH title – but rather than retire, the Duchess took up her low-key job.
She became a music teacher at Wansbeck Primary School in Hull. She also taught part-time in a school attended by children who lived in Grenfell Tower, and in 2018, attended a memorial service at the base of the high-rise building to mark the first anniversary of the fire, which claimed 72 lives.
The Duchess also volunteered for the Samaritans, toured countries as a UNICEF ambassador and, in 2004, founded the charity Future Talent. The organisation aims to give children from low-income backgrounds equal opportunities to excel in music by helping them with the cost of buying instruments and music lessons.
Her public appearances became few and far between in recent years, although she attended Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018.
She was last seen in public last October at an event to mark the 89th birthday of her husband, when he was serenaded with Happy Birthday on the bagpipes outside the entrance of their Kensington Palace home, Wren House.
