Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral

Final preparations for the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral have begun ahead of the Queen and her family saying their farewells to Philip.

Tributes were paid to the duke from friends and colleagues in the hours before his interment and the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage debuted a poem written to mark the death of the Queen’s consort.

A small group of the duke’s close family and friends will attend a televised funeral service at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle at 3pm.

Covid regulations have reduced the scope of the service with public elements cancelled, mourners reduced from around 800 to just 30, and all guests wearing face masks and sitting apart.

The public have been visiting Windsor, bathed in bright spring sunshine, to pay their respects and leave flowers at the castle gates.

Prince Hassan bin Talal, a member of the Jordanian royal family, described his friend the Duke of Edinburgh as a “remarkable human being”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “I think I was very close to knowing the man, the human being, and in that sense I feel the privilege in having known not only an encyclopaedia of knowledge, but also an icon of human dignity.”