King Charles' coronation: Meet the Sussex Duke who will plan it - after his pitch perfect preparations for the Queen's funeral

Edward William Fitzalan-Howard became England's most senior peer, and the 18th duke, following the death of his father Miles in 2002.

The former racing driver’s hereditary duty, in the ancient office of Earl Marshal, is to organise funerals for members of the Royal Family, the coronations of Britain's monarchs, as well as State Openings of Parliament.

In an interview with SussexWorld, the Duke of Norfolk, 65, who lives at Arundel Castle in West Sussex, revealed that he spent 20 years preparing for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral – which was watched by billions across the world on Monday (September 19).

"The buck stops with me,” he said. “I’ve been planning this ever since I succeeded my father 20 years ago.

"We’ve had a plan for years and years. We kept refining, amending and upgrading it.

“When the Queen died, we had to put it into practice.”

‘Enormous group effort by hundreds of people’

The duke’s ancestors have passed down the ancient office of Earl Marshal since 1672. It was in this century that Operation London Bridge – the codename for the response to the Queen’s death – was first formed.

His Grace, known as Eddie, added: “Obviously, alongside me, there’s a wonderful team of people at the palace, the cabinet office, the police and army.

"It’s an enormous group effort by hundreds of people.

"It’s happened because we put hours and hours into the planning document over many years. We go through the plans once a year.

"When I first started doing this in 2002, there were 20 of us in Buckingham Palace at a meeting. When I last went through the plans in April this year, there were 282 people [in a virtual meeting].”

‘The eyes of the world were on us’

It has been reported that 4.1 billion people watched the Queen's funeral, making it one of the most viewed broadcasts in television history.

On the day of the funeral, more than 20,000 people were on duty, the Duke of Norfolk said.

These included 7,000 street liners from the army, police and security teams.

"It was a massive team effort and thank god we pulled it off very well,” the duke said.

“I think we got it absolutely right.

“The nation expected and the eyes of the world were on us.

"It’s the only time in my life I get to organise something half the world is party to.”

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The duke used the word ‘powerful’ to describe the numbers of people who turned out to remember ‘the amazing life of the Queen and her 70 incredible years’.

He was particularly impressed by those who queued throughout the night to see the Queen lying-in-state in the days before the funeral.

The Black Rod, Sarah Clarke OBE, was in charge of those queues but the Earl Marshal revealed that he was responsible for extending the formal occasion at Westminster Hall for an extra day – to allow an additional 85,000 people to see the coffin and pay their respects.

He said: “The announcement of death was late on Thursday. The accession council couldn’t meet on Friday, as there was no time to get members of the privy council together.

"So that gave ourselves an extra day. I managed to arrange things so the coffin came back down on Tuesday night from Scotland.

"It was taken to Westminster Hall, where an extra 50/60,000 people could see the coffin.”

The Duke of Norfolk said people were willing, ‘because of their love for the Queen’, to queue for up to 14 hours in some cases.

"Everyone was so incredibly well behaved,” he said. “Friendships were formed along the queue. No one tried to queue barge.

“When they finally got to the coffin, no one stood there and took too long. Everyone quickly paid their last respects and moved on.

"That was extraordinarily powerful that so many people cared so much.

“It was certainly the love and admiration that we had for her [the Queen].

"I think it’s also the love we have for the country going forward. Whatever people try to say, I think we are an amazing country, an amazing nation.

“That’s the hope and belief for the future."

High hopes for our King with coronation plans underway

The Duke now has another monumental task of organising King Charles III's Coronation next year, with plans already underway.

The Earl Marshal said: "We’ve got time and we are going to carry them out properly. We still don’t know dates.

"We’ve got to liaise with government, the cabinet office, the police, the palace and the King but we’ve started planning already.

“It’s an enormous task. You can’t bring off ceremonial and religious services like we did on Monday and the last ten days without massive planning and massive attention to detail.

"It will be an enormous thing – a joyous celebration of a new reign and the eyes of the world will be on us again.”

The Duke said the start of King Charles III’s reign has been ‘so far, so good’.

"I have every hope that he will be just as great a monarch, in due course, as his mother,” he added.

"He’s an amazing person. He’s had a vision he was castigated for 50 years ago about issues like climate change but he’s been proved right on practically everything.

“His work with setting up The Prince’s Trust and the hope he’s given to so many thousands of young people is something exemplary and visionary.

"We’ve reminded the world that we are still a great country. We have an incredible unwritten constitution which has evolved over 500 years but it is fit for purpose.

"We do have an ability in this country to do ceremonial events at an incredibly high level. It is probably unique in the world in what we achieve and the level of perfection.

“We have the British way of doing things which we can be extremely proud of and it serves us well.”

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