Monday's interment of Queen Elizabeth II at St George's Chapel, Windsor, following a service at Westminster Abbey, was marked with pomp and circumstance not seen in Britain since the state funerals of Sir Winston Churchill on January 30, 1965, and of George VI on February 15, 1952.
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Westminster Hall, where hundreds of thousands have viewed the Queen's coffin lying in state, has been a silent witness to the march of history since being built by Rufus, the son of William the Conqueror, in 1089.
It was here, on January 27, 1649, a special High Court of Justice found Charles I guilty of treason and sentenced him to death.
St George's Chapel at Windsor has long been the favoured burial place for British Kings and Queens.
Monday's funeral obsequies are a reminder that the parliamentary democracy we hold so dear and the monarchy are rival institutions that have evolved together over a millennium. King John, a successor of the King Rufus who built Westminster Hall, illustrated one of the lessons of history when he signed the Magna Carta - "the great charter" - of which a copy is displayed in Australia's Parliament House, in 1215.
That is that in the fullness of time tyrants and despots do as much - and often much more - to advance the cause of liberty than more benevolent and tolerant monarchs. Just as John's oppression drove his barons to revolt, it was Charles I's insistence on exercising the divine right of kings that sparked the English civil war and led to the creation of a Puritan republic ruled by the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
While Cromwell's regime did not survive his death, with millions welcoming the restoration of Charles II in 1660, the Stuart ascendancy was short lived.
When James II reverted to his father's tyrannical habits he provoked the "glorious revolution" of 1688 that led to the proclamation of King William III and Queen Mary as joint monarchs following the passage of the "Bill of Rights" by the Parliament in 1689.
The monarchy was the grit in the oyster that produced a priceless pearl; the Westminster system of government and Parliamentary democracy.
In some respects the pageantry of the modern monarchy can actually be seen as a symbol of the triumph of the people over those who claim to have arbitrary powers.
While it remains to be seen if Australia chooses to go down a republican path during the reign of Charles III, no-one can deny that the monarchy has played a crucial part in our national story.
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