During her husband’s funeral service on Saturday, Queen Elizabeth maintained her stoic calm, alone and touchingly small under the echoing stones of the St. George Chapel.
Lonely in her pew due to strict social distance, she lowered her head to mourn her beloved 73-year-old companion, like widows of any rank and happiness.
But a chance photo of the monarch catches her eye earlier on the day she perhaps captured her only outward show of sadness.
Elizabeth, 94, who is rarely seen crying in public, is snapped and her black gloves touched to her eyes and her mask corrected as she sits in the back of her black Bentley and follows the funeral procession.
“The queen wipes away a tear as she bids farewell to her 73-year-old husband,” the Royal Central captioned the photo.
“Did Queen Elizabeth weep at Prince Philip’s funeral?” USA Today wonders in a headline.
“The state not to stop her grief,” the UK’s more unbridled Express insisted on her majesty.
Whether it was a tear or not may never be known. The queen was clearly gloomy, but was in control of herself by the time she arrived at the church and during the gloomy service that followed.
Perhaps the most famous gripping feature is her short drive from Windsor Castle to the St. George’s Chapel, her position of Bentley in the march.
During their marriage, Philip pursued the queen during a public procession, in accordance with the royal protocol.
But the queen, who looked small and fragile while she was grieving, especially while sitting alone in church, followed the funeral procession in her car on Saturday.
She was behind her hearse and marchers, rather than in front of them, where a monarch would normally be, as if he wanted to lead her, for a change and for their last march together.