She left to morning birdsong, the muted sobs of her devoted Balmoral staff and Glen Gelder, a favourite lament played by a lone piper – her own piper, of course.More than six hours and 175 miles later, following a final journey across the land she loved perhaps more than any other, Elizabeth, Queen of Scots arrived in the most handsome of her capitals last night to find its most famous thoroughfare filled to capacity. In between, she progressed at a stately pace – saluted by tearful subjects, livestock and even tractors – as she meandered her way through the rugged glens, villages and cities of eastern Scotland.She had known them all as well as anyone alive. For there cannot have been very much of this route which she had not either owned, opened or visited at some point in her record-breaking reign. (Indeed, as her motorcade reached the Queensferry Crossing over the Firth of Forth, which she opened in 2017, it was astonishing to think that she had also opened the adjacent Forth Road Bridge in 1964).
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