by Crown Prince at the age of 73, King Charles III ascended to the throne on 6 May 2023 following the death of his mother.
The late Queen Elizabeth II was buried in the George VI Memorial Chapel in Windsor, 11 days after her death on 8 September.
The death of a monarch is so significant that it requires a lot of planning to ensure a smooth transition of power.
For the Queen, this plan was called Operation London Bridge, and it laid out everything from how the public would be informed, about her lie-in-state and her funeral. Hundreds of thousands of mourners queued for hours to pay their last respects to the Queen and millions watched her farewell at Westminster Abbey by world leaders and heads of state.
Operation London Bridge included full details of what would happen in the 10 days following the Queen’s death, including where her coffin would go, how the Prime Minister would publicly address the news, and how Charles would react. his first few days as King.
And when the Queen died, it meant that a new plan had to be implemented to eventually kill the new King, Charles.
What is Operation Menai Bridge?
Operation London Bridge was created as early as the 1960s, just a few years after the Queen’s coronation, and was revised several times in the years leading up to her death in 2022. The codename for the eventual death of King Charles III is Operation Menai Bridge, named after him. the world’s first iron suspension bridge in Anglesey, Wales.
According to the royal protection officer, Simon Morgan, preparations for the Menai Bridge began shortly after the death of the late Queen. In an interview with Today, he said at the time: “Even the King said in accepting that he will take this role as long as life allows him.
“He is 73 years old, he has to be in the back of your mind, and from the police, we have to start planning again for the future.”
How were people informed of the Queen’s death?
The day the Queen died was referred to as D-Day, and each day thereafter was referred to as D+1 and D+2 and so on. According to leaked documents, there would be a “cascade of calls” hours after the monarch’s death to inform the prime minister, the cabinet secretary, and several senior ministers and government officials.
In honor of her 70 years on the throne, the monarch’s coffin was paraded through Scotland from Ballymore to Edinburgh before lying in state at Westminster Hall for four days before her funeral on 19 September.
More than 250,000 people poured into the streets of London to form a rather orderly queue before filing through the ancient hall at the Palace of Westminster to pay their respects.
The coffin of the late Queen was then taken to her final resting place in the King George VI Memorial Chapel in Windsor.
How would Operation Menai Bridge happen?
It is expected that there will be many similarities between the announcement of Operation Menai Bridge and Operation London Bridge.
Once the Menai Bridge is under way, next in line to the throne, William, Prince of Wales, would become king alongside his wife Kate Middleton, who is expected to be Queen Consort.
The new king would then address the nation, as Charles did on September 9, and the public would enter a period of national mourning before the funeral.
Like the Queen, the King’s private secretary would inform the Prime Minister, as would the King’s Privy Council Office.
The department’s permanent secretaries would be given a script to inform government ministers, and the cabinet secretary would send an email to senior civil servants. After this email was received, flags across the White Hall would be lowered to half-mast.
Why do we have code names for royal deaths?
Code names for royal deaths were first introduced to prevent news of the death leaking to the press before the official announcement.
The use of code names prevented switchboard operators at Buckingham Palace from learning the news before it was published.
Now, however, the codenames have become common knowledge.
The funeral arrangements for the Queen Mother and Princess Diana shared the codename Operation Tay Bridge and the plans were 22 years old by the time the late monarch’s mother died aged 101 in 2002.
Operation Forth Bridge was the code name for the death of the late Duke of Edinburgh, where his funeral took place at St George’s Chapel in Windsor and his coffin was placed in the Royal Vault.
