NOT QUITE THE END OF THE ELIZABETHAN ERA?

A grieving member of the royal household staff who rushed forward and tried to lift the lid off the coffin of Queen Elizabeth as her funeral cortege neared Buckingham Palace on Monday has been released by London police without charge.

Beryl Buntingswaithe, 28, the second cutlery polisher in the closet near the main galley stairs, had to be restrained by one of the 142 Royal Navy sailors pulling and steering the Queen’s gun carriage after she threw the Queen’s colours off the coffin and attempted to lift the lid, screaming: “She’s Alive! She’s alive!”

The metropolitan police released Beryl (pictured below just before Monday’s incident) early this morning Australian time, and she spoke exclusively to The Bug to explain her bizarre actions on the day.

“We had all been given time off without pay and I was standing on the lawn to the west side of the Queen Victoria memorial and I had an earpiece in, listening to that wonderful man doing the BBC commentary,” Beryl explained.

“I was already quite emotional as the Queen had always been like my grandmother – my own two nans died when I was very young, you see.

“So I was already close to becoming a blubbering mess when I heard the commentator say …” a deeply poignant moment in this procession as her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second approaches Buckingham Palace for the last time..”

“That really choked me up. Of all the royals, the Queen used to complain the least if I didn’t polish the silverware proper.

“Anyway, the commentator continued : ‘…and here we have, what is for the late Queen, her final glimpse of that famous balcony where she appeared on so many occasions’.”

Beryl told us that she now appreciates what the police had patiently explained to her over the past few days; that the commentator was simply being whimsical as only any true master of the English language is capable of, and in the process had indulged in a British form of magical realism, giving the late Queen everlasting spiritual powers as the Defender of the one True Faith and selected by God for that role.

“But how was I to know that, know wot I mean? I’m just a humble girl from the dodgy end of Wandsworth.

“I truly thought Her Majesty was stuck in that coffin and was desperately trying to get out.

“Still, wouldn’t it have been wonderful if I had managed to lift that lid up and seen Queen Elizabeth’s lovely head pop up and say ‘thank you’ with that wonderful smile of hers?

“I would have loved to have seen the face on the former King Charles the Third.”