Prince Philipwas honored on Saturday with a 41-gun salute across the United Kingdom.
To mark the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, starting at noon local time, rounds were fired at one-minute intervals from The Tower of London, Edinburgh Castle, Cardiff Castle, Hillsborough Castle and at sea.
Although the tradition of gun salutes has evolved over the years, the tradition goes back to the 16th century.
“Ships of the Royal Navy used to, on entering a friendly port would fire off all their cannons to show that they had no loaded guns and therefore weren’t a threat,” explained Adjutant Captain Josh Bate in avideoposted on the British Army’s social media account over the weekend. “In response the friendly port would then fire their guns to show that they acknowledged the salute and also weren’t a threat to the ship coming in.”
“That’s evolved over the past 100 years, and now it’s just a more general sign of respect and we fire a different number of guns depending on who we’re paying our respects to,” he added.
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The “most common” salute is the 21-gun salute, “which is reserved for members of the royal family and is the Royal salute.”
“What we are going to see today, because it’s in honor of a death of a member of the Royal Family is a 41-gun salute,” he explained. “So we have an additional 20 rounds fired. In addition, the interval between firing the guns goes from 10 seconds to a minute.“Listen below to the episode ofour daily podcast PEOPLE Every Daywhere we are looking back atPrince Philip’s life and legacy.
On Saturday morning, the official Twitter account forQueen Elizabethand her family members also shared atouching quotethe royal once said about her husband.
“He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know,” she said about Philip in 1997.
Philip"passed away peacefully” at Windsor Castleon Friday, where he and the monarch have spent the majority of the past year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
His death came just weeks after hereturned to Windsor Castle following a month-long hospital stay, which included treatment for an infection and a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition.
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source: people.com
