Buckingham Palace has issued a new update on the Duchess of Kent’s funeral, which will take place next week in London. Katharine, who died last Thursday at the age of 92, was married to the late Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, the Duke of Kent.
On Friday night, Buckingham Palace released a new statement about the funeral arrangements, which will take place over the course of two days on Monday and Tuesday, September 15 and 16. On Monday, a private vigil will be held at Westminster Cathedral, which will see a rite of reception, during which Katharine’s coffin will be welcomed into the church and will be followed by vespers, an evening prayer service.
On Tuesday afternoon, there will be a requiem mass, a Catholic funeral service, which will be attended by members of the Royal Family. The requiem mass at London’s Westminster Cathedral will be the first Catholic funeral service staged for a member of the Royal Family in modern British history.
In a significant move, King Charles, head of the Church of England, will attend, alongside Queen Camilla and others members of the family.
A devout follower of the Roman Catholic faith, the Duchess became the first member of the Firm 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.
According to the Palace’s latest update, on the evening of the requiem mass, the royal hearse will carry the Duchess of Kent’s coffin from Kensington Palace to Westminster Cathedral for a private Vigil for the deceased with rite of reception and vespers for the dead, attended by the Duchess’s immediate family.
The statement explained: “The Hearse will be preceded on departure from Kensington Palace by a Piper from The Royal Dragoon Guards, of which The Duchess was Deputy Colonel-in-Chief since the regiment’s inception in 1992.
“The Bearer Party receiving the coffin at Westminster Cathedral will also be found by The Royal Dragoon Guards.”
The coffin will then rest overnight in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On Tuesday afternoon, the King and Queen and other members of the Royal Family will join the Duke of Kent and members of Katharine’s family at the requiem mass.
It will be conducted by The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, with additional participation by Bishop James Curry, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, and the Dean of Windsor.
Following the mass, the coffin will be taken by hearse to the royal burial ground at Frogmore, Windsor.
Katharine, who died peacefully at her Wren Cottage home at Kensington Palace, was known for consoling losing Wimbledon tennis finalists, notably a tearful Jana Novotna in 1993, and presented trophies at the championships for many years.
She preferred to be known as Mrs Kent and dropped her HRH style, retreating from royal life to spend more than a decade teaching music in a state primary school in Hull.