Queen Elizabeth II's coffin begins journey to London

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who died Thursday after reigning for 70 years, left Balmoral Castle in Scotland on Sunday to begin the journey to London, BBC reports.

People lined the road as her procession passed through small Scottish towns, with some mourners throwing "flowers in the path of the vehicles," The New York Times notes.

Her coffin will lie in the throne room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the monarch's official residence in Scotland, on Sunday before traveling to Edinburgh's St. Giles Cathedral the following day.

After a flight to London and a procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, the queen's body will then lie in state at Westminster for four days before her state funeral — Britain's first since Winston Churchill died in 1965 — on Monday, Sept. 19.

With the queen dead, several of King Charles III's 14 remaining Commonwealth realms could cut ties with the monarchy, as Barbados did in 2021.

Just hours after Charles was proclaimed as king of Antigua and Barbuda, Prime Minister Gaston Browne told ITV News that he planned to hold a referendum within three years on whether the Caribbean nation should become a republic.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Sunday that he would not push for a referendum to cut ties with the British monarchy during his first term, ABC News reports. This pledge would delay such a referendum until at least 2025, unless early elections are called. In 2020, Albanese said Australia was "entitled to have one of our own as our head of state," The Sydney Morning Herald noted.

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