The Duchess of Kent died earlier this month aged 92
The Prince and Princess of Wales will attend the Duchess of Kent’s Catholic funeral later on Tuesday, Kensington Palace has confirmed. The service will be held at Westminster Cathedral, attended by the King and Queen and other members of the royal family.
The requiem mass, a Catholic funeral, is the first to be held for a member of the monarchy in modern British history and will feature a Scottish bagpipe lament performed during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022. A piper from The Royal Dragoon Guards will play the lament – Sleep, Dearie, Sleep – while processing from the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, past the duchess’s coffin in the Nave and down the cathedral’s central aisle.
The late Queen’s funeral service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, ended with a piper playing the same tune. Katharine, 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.
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. Charles and Camilla are expected to be joined by senior members of the royal family at the mass, as well as the duchess’s immediate family and her friends.
Her coffin is a wicker construction made from English willow and is draped with the royal standard which has a white ermine border signifying she was the spouse of a prince. A large wreath of British garden flowers, chosen by the duchess’s family, has been placed on top of the coffin and includes white roses, the symbol of Yorkshire, the county where she was born, and sprigs of yew from the gardens of Hovingham Hall, the duchess’s childhood home, representing eternal life.
Soldiers from The Royal Dragoon Guards have played an important role during her Catholic funeral, which traditionally runs over two days, with a piper leading the funeral cortege and other soldiers carrying the coffin into the cathedral when it arrived on Monday evening. Hers will be the first royal funeral at the cathedral, in Victoria, central London, since its construction in 1903.
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.
