Lesson Overview
The earlier lessons of this course built the Army's reverence piece by piece: what the Colours are and how they are consecrated, how they are guarded, trooped, and laid up, the honours system and the medals that mark courage and service, the order in which insignia are worn, and the guard of honour by which the Army renders the State and the Crown their due. This lesson turns from honour rendered to the living to honour rendered to the dead. It teaches the day of remembrance and the day of mourning, the marks each carries, and the military funeral, the occasion on which the Army gives the precision of the square wholly over to grief and renders the last honours to one of its own.
This is the lesson on which the firmest distinction in the whole course is tested, and it is set out here plainly because the careless get it wrong. A flag is flown, and is brought to half-mast as a mark of mourning. A Colour is not flown at all; it is borne on a pike, carried in the hand of the Ensign, and so it can never be half-masted. In mourning a Colour is draped with black crape or cased, carried covered, and that is its mourning, not a lowering on a mast it never stood on. Hold that difference, because everything else in this lesson hangs from it, and a member who muddles flags and Colours has missed the heart of what the Colours are.
By the end you will be able to describe the day of remembrance and the day of mourning and the marks they carry, set out the order of a military funeral and the honours rendered to the dead in sequence, explain firmly why flags are half-masted while the consecrated Colours are draped or cased and never half-masted, name the Commonwealth soundings the Army keeps and why they are never the American "Taps", describe the conduct of the National Flag upon the coffin from draping to folding to presentation, and explain the human care owed to the bereaved and the chaplain's central place in the rites.
Key Terms
- Day of remembrance: a settled, recurring observance on which the Army and the Principality honour the fallen and those who served before, kept with silence, the Last Post and the Rouse, and the laying of wreaths.
- Day of mourning: an occasion of national grief, ordinarily declared by the Royal Court for the death of the Sovereign, a member of the Princely House, or another the Crown directs, marked by flags at half-mast and the gravest bearing.
- Half-mast: the position of mourning to which a flag is lowered, having first been hoisted to the peak; the most public sign of the Principality's grief, and a thing only a flag flown on a mast can do.
- Draped (in crape): the covering of a consecrated Colour with black crape as its mark of mourning, since a Colour, borne on a pike, cannot be half-masted.
- Cased: a Colour carried covered in its protective case, which may itself serve as a mark of mourning or of a Colour not paraded in full honour.
- Bearer party: the party of soldiers, commonly six or eight, who carry the coffin at a military funeral in slow time, with matched and silent precision.
- Last Post: the bugle call that closes the soldier's day and, at a funeral or act of remembrance, sounds the farewell to the dead.
- The Rouse: the bugle call (the Rouse, or in its longer form the Reveille) sounded after the Last Post and the silence, recalling the living to their duty. It is the Commonwealth call, and it is never the United States "Taps", which belongs to a tradition the RKA does not keep.
- Volley: one round fired by the firing party as a single body on the word of command; the firing party customarily fires three volleys in succession, the Army's salute in arms to the dead.
- Next of kin: the family member to whom the folded National Flag is presented at the committal, as a token of the State's gratitude and the Army's honour.
Remembrance and mourning: the two solemn observances
Two kinds of solemn occasion ask the Army for the bearing of grief, and they are not the same thing, though they share many marks. The first is the day of remembrance, a settled observance kept again and again, on which the Army honours its fallen and those who served before it. The second is the day of mourning, an occasion of fresh national grief, declared when a death calls for it. Remembrance looks back across time and keeps faith with the dead of the past; mourning answers a present loss. A member should know which he is keeping, because the marks differ in their weight and their authority.
A day of remembrance is, in its forms, a funeral in miniature, and that is no accident. The Army keeps it with the same solemn elements: a silence, in which a body of disciplined soldiers stands wholly still in shared respect; the Last Post sounded into that silence and the Rouse to lift the parade out of it; and the laying of wreaths as a tangible act of honour and grief. The sequence carries the same meaning the funeral carries: the Last Post sounds the farewell, the silence holds the grief, the Rouse recalls the living to their duty. For a young Army the faithful keeping of remembrance is a particular duty, because an army earns the right to be trusted partly by how honestly it honours those who went before, and the RKA keeps these forms inventing no past it has not lived and claiming no battle honours it has not won.
A day of mourning is graver and more public, the Principality grieving in its own dignity. It is ordinarily declared by the Royal Court, for the death of the Sovereign or a member of the Princely House, for national grief, or as the Crown otherwise directs, and on it the Principality's flags are brought to half-mast on proper authority and the gravest bearing is owed from all who take part. Here a distinction must be drawn at once, and it is the distinction this lesson exists to fix. On a day of mourning the flags are half-masted; the Colours, if paraded at all, are draped or cased, and they are never half-masted, because a Colour is not a thing that can be. The next section sets out why.
REMEMBRANCE AND MOURNING
DAY OF REMEMBRANCE DAY OF MOURNING
------------------------ ------------------------
a settled, recurring fresh national grief,
observance; faith kept declared for a present
with the fallen and death (Sovereign, Princely
those who served before House, or as the Crown
directs)
SILENCE, the Last Post,
the Rouse, the laying FLAGS at HALF-MAST on the
of wreaths order of the Royal Court;
the gravest bearing
a funeral in miniature:
farewell, grief, the COLOURS, if paraded,
living recalled DRAPED or CASED -- NEVER
half-masted
------------------------ ------------------------
COMMON THREAD: respect owed to the dead, rendered exactly
and in the Commonwealth manner (Last Post and Rouse).
The firm rule: flags are half-masted, Colours are not
This is the rule the whole lesson turns on, and it is got wrong so often that it must be stated without the least ambiguity. Flags are half-masted. Consecrated Colours are not. A flag, whether the National Flag or the Army Ensign, is a piece of cloth flown on a mast or a staff, hoisted to the peak and lowered by halyard, and so it can be lowered to a marked position below the peak as a sign of mourning. That lowering is half-masting, and it is the most public sign the Principality has of its grief. A Colour is a different thing altogether. It is a consecrated emblem of the Army's identity and its loyalty to the Crown, and it is not flown on a mast; it is borne on a pike, carried in the hand of its bearer, the Ensign, and lodged with honour when it is not on parade. A thing carried on a pike has no peak to be raised to and no halyard to lower it by. You cannot half-mast a Colour for the plain reason that it was never on a mast.
So the Colour mourns by another form. In mourning a Colour is draped with black crape, a band of mourning cloth tied to the pike below the finial, or it is cased, carried covered in its protective case as a mark that it is not paraded in full honour. That is the Colour's mourning, complete and correct, and it is no lesser a mark for being different. To attempt to half-mast a Colour, to lower the pike or carry the Colour trailed as though it were a flag dipped low, would be to mistake what a Colour is and to dishonour it. Remember too the rule from Lesson 08 and from the custody of the Colours: a Colour is dipped only to the Sovereign, and to no other person, living or dead. It is not dipped to the fallen, however senior or however loved, for that compliment belongs to the Crown alone. The honour shown to the dead is great, and is shown in the draping, the bearing, and every other form the funeral takes, never by lowering the Colour.
IN MOURNING: FLAGS vs CONSECRATED COLOURS
HOW IT IS FLOWN / HOW IT MOURNS
CARRIED
--------------- ------------------- ----------------------
NATIONAL FLAG flown on a mast; HALF-MASTED (hoisted
hoisted by halyard to the peak first,
then lowered)
ARMY ENSIGN flown on a mast/ HALF-MASTED (as above,
staff on proper authority)
--------------- ------------------- ----------------------
THE CONSECRATED borne on a PIKE in DRAPED with black crape,
COLOURS the hand of the or CASED
Ensign NEVER half-masted
(no mast to lower it on)
dipped ONLY to the
Sovereign, never to the
dead
--------------- ------------------- ----------------------
WHY: a flag is FLOWN and can be lowered; a Colour is CARRIED
on a pike and cannot. Different objects, different mourning.
The half-masting of a flag has its own exact form, and it is worth knowing because the form is itself a salute. The flag is first hoisted fully to the peak, and only then lowered to the half-mast position; to strike it or return it to full height at the end of mourning, it is first raised again to the peak before being lowered or struck. The flag is never raised directly to half-mast, because the hoist to the peak is the salute the flag renders before it is lowered in grief. The half-mast position is a matter of custom, the flag standing clearly below the peak, by convention about the depth of the flag itself, so that any observer sees at once that the flag is deliberately lowered and not merely fouled or slipped. And the authority matters as much as the form: the order to half-mast comes from the Royal Court, not from local discretion, so that the Principality mourns as one and on proper authority. None of this touches the Colour, which has no part in half-masting and never will.
The military funeral and the order of the honours
The military funeral is the occasion on which the Army renders the last honours to its own. It is conducted in slow time, with the slow march and the muffled solemnity that mark grief and respect, every movement made with the greatest care, because here precision is not display but reverence. A funeral done well tells one of the Army's own, and the family and the watching public, that this life was valued and this service honoured. Military honours in death are rendered without distinction beyond the forms proper to the rank and service of the dead: the humblest soldier is honoured as a member of the Service who served the Sovereign and the Principality, and the senior officer by the same care raised to the forms his appointment carries.
The honours have a settled form, and you should know each part and its meaning. The bearer party, commonly six or eight soldiers, carries the coffin with slow, exactly matched steps, bearing the weight of a comrade with a dignity that conceals all effort. The coffin is draped with the National Flag, laid over it as the senior flag of the Principality and the emblem of the State the soldier served; this is one of the proper uses of the National Flag, and it is the flag that drapes the coffin, never a consecrated Colour. The firing party, where one is found, fires volleys of blank rounds, customarily three, each as a single body on the word of command, the Army's formal salute in arms to the dead. The Last Post is sounded, the bugle call that closes the soldier's day and here sounds the farewell to one whose duty is done; after the silence that follows, the Rouse is sounded, recalling the living to their duty. Before the committal the National Flag is removed from the coffin and folded with ceremony, and is later presented to the next of kin. Where flags are flown at the place of committal they are at half-mast for the mourning, on the order of the Royal Court where the death is one that calls for it.
The order in which these parts come is set out below. The drill of each movement is certified on the square; what follows is the sequence, the shape of the whole, so that a member on parade knows what comes next and his place within it. The exact form varies with the rite, the wishes of the family, and the faith of the dead, and the family's wishes and the requirements of their tradition always govern. What is set out here is the military framework into which those wishes are fitted, never a rigid scheme imposed over them.
THE ORDER OF A MILITARY FUNERAL (military framework)
(always fitted to the family's wishes and the rite of the dead)
0. REHEARSE bearer party drills the slow march, lift,
carry, lower with a weighted coffin; firing
party drills the volleys; bugler sure of the calls
1. FORM UP / parade formed; coffin received, DRAPED with the
RECEIVE NATIONAL FLAG (a flag) correctly oriented
2. PROCESSION borne by the BEARER PARTY in the SLOW MARCH;
escort/firing party in slow time, arms reversed
/ rest on arms reversed; Colour, if carried,
DRAPED in crape (NOT dipped, NOT half-masted)
3. COMMITTAL coffin set down with care; the rites of the dead
conducted (chaplain / minister; family's
tradition LEADS)
4. FLAG FOLDED NATIONAL FLAG removed and FOLDED with ceremony
before burial; LATER PRESENTED TO THE NEXT OF KIN
(the flag is NOT buried)
5. VOLLEYS FIRING PARTY fires three volleys, each as one
body on the word of command (salute in arms)
6. LAST POST bugler sounds the LAST POST (the farewell)
7. SILENCE a period of SILENCE; the parade wholly still
8. THE ROUSE the ROUSE / Reveille sounded; the living recalled
to duty (Commonwealth practice; NEVER US "Taps")
9. MARCH OFF parade brought to order and marched off; FLAGS at
HALF-MAST for the mourning; bearing held to the end
The funeral is rehearsed beforehand, and this is not optional. A bearer party that has not drilled the slow march, the lift, the carry, and the lowering until they need no thought will falter on the day, and a falter at a funeral is a wound to the family. The bearer party rehearses with a weighted coffin until every step is matched and the lift and lower are smooth and silent; the firing party rehearses its volleys until they fall as one; the bugler is sure of the calls; and the whole parade knows the sequence. The rehearsal is the price of the dignity, and it is paid in full, because the audience is a grieving family at the worst hour of their lives, and the message of every exact movement is that their soldier was valued and is honoured to the end.
The National Flag upon the coffin
The drape of the National Flag over the coffin deserves its own treatment, because it is the most visible honour of the funeral and the one most easily confused with the Colours. Understand it clearly: the coffin is draped with the National Flag, a flag, and not with a consecrated Colour. The flag is laid over the coffin correctly oriented, the place of honour of the flag set as the custom of the Service provides, and it lies there throughout the procession, borne by the bearer party in the slow march. It is the State the soldier served, laid over the soldier who served it, and it is among the plainest and most powerful honours the Army renders.
The flag is not buried. Before the committal the bearer party lifts the flag clear of the coffin and folds it with ceremony, deliberately and without haste, into the close, exact fold the Service keeps, every motion matched and silent. The fold is itself a mark of respect, and a fold fumbled or hurried mars the moment, which is why the bearer party rehearses it until it needs no thought. The folded flag is then presented to the next of kin, placed into the hands of a widow, a parent, a child, as a token of the State's gratitude and the Army's honour. To a family this small act is often the moment of the whole funeral they carry longest: the flag of the Principality, folded by steady hands and given to them, telling them without a word that their soldier mattered to the Army that buried him and to the State he served.
A word on the consecrated Colour, because a Colour may be present at the funeral of one entitled to it. Where the Colour is carried in the procession it is draped in crape as its mark of mourning, borne on its pike with the Ensign as always, and it is not dipped to the dead, for the Colour is dipped only to the Sovereign. The Colour honours the dead by its presence and its mourning, not by any lowering. Keep the two objects firmly apart in your mind: the flag drapes the coffin and is folded and given to the family; the Colour, if present, is draped in crape and carried, dipped to no one but the Crown and half-masted never.
The Commonwealth manner: the Last Post and the Rouse
The soundings of the funeral and of remembrance are the Last Post and the Rouse, and they are the Commonwealth calls the Royal Kaharagian Army keeps. They are not interchangeable with the calls of other traditions, and in particular they are never the United States "Taps", which is a separate bugle call belonging to a different military tradition the RKA does not use. This is not a small point of fashion; it is a matter of the Army knowing honestly what tradition it has inherited and keeping that tradition faithfully rather than borrowing a foreign form because it has been seen elsewhere.
The two calls carry the meaning of the occasion between them. The Last Post is the call that historically closed the soldier's day, the last call of the night, sounded when the day's duties were done and the soldier could rest. At a funeral or an act of remembrance it is sounded as the farewell: the dead soldier's day is done, his duties complete, and the call that closed the working day now closes the life. It is sounded into stillness, and a silence follows it, a period in which a body of disciplined soldiers stands wholly still in shared grief and respect, the silence itself a kind of honour, unbroken and unhurried. Then, breaking the silence, comes the Rouse (or in its longer form the Reveille), the call that historically woke the soldier to a new day. It lifts the parade out of the silence and recalls the living to their duty: the dead are honoured and at rest, and the living must take up the day again. The shape of it is the shape of grief honestly kept: a farewell, a held silence, and a recall to life. To replace either call with "Taps" would be to keep the form while losing the tradition that gives it meaning, and the RKA does not.
A member who renders or stands at these calls should understand the why of them, because understanding keeps a tradition observed with meaning rather than by rote. When you hear the Last Post sound the farewell and the Rouse recall the living, you are keeping the same forms the Army keeps at every funeral and every day of remembrance, the Commonwealth forms it inherited and keeps with care, and you are keeping them honestly, which for a young Army is the whole of the matter.
The bereaved and the chaplain's place
The choreography of a funeral is only its outward form. At its heart is a grieving family and a comrade lost, and the honours mean nothing if the human care beneath them is absent. To carry the coffin steadily, to fold the flag with reverence, to present it to a widow or a parent with quiet dignity, is to tell a family without a word that their loss is seen and shared and that their soldier mattered. The wishes of the family and the beliefs of the deceased are to be respected in the conduct of the funeral, so far as is consistent with the honours of the Service, and where they govern, they lead; the military honours are rendered around and in support of the rites of the dead, never imposed over them.
The bereaved have needs that drill cannot meet, and the member should understand where his part ends and another's begins. The grief of a family, the long aftermath of a death, the questions of meaning and faith a death raises, these are carried by the chaplain and, where the family wishes, by the ministers of their own tradition. The chaplain's place at a military funeral is central, not incidental: it is the chaplain who conducts or supports the rites, who sits with the family before and after, who is the confidential ear and the bridge to the family's own community of faith, and who is trained for the depths of grief in a way an untrained soldier, however kind, is not. The Caring for Those in Need course teaches this fully in its lesson on chaplaincy and spiritual care, and that teaching applies directly here: the member's part is to render the honours with dignity and to support the chaplain's work, not to carry the family's grief himself.
What the member can offer is real and within his reach. It is presence: a steady, calm, respectful presence that does not flee from grief or hurry it along. It is the small dignity of doing his own part perfectly, because to a family the steadiness of the bearer party is the message. And it is restraint: the member does not preach, does not explain the death, does not offer the well-meant phrases that make a loss smaller than it is, and does not promise answers he cannot give. If a grieving family member speaks to him, he answers honestly and gently, and where the need runs deeper than he can carry, he ensures the chaplain reaches them. Respect for the dead and care for the bereaved are two faces of one duty, the Army's value of Respect for Others made visible, and the member owes both.
In Practice: The Flag the Family Kept
A small establishment loses one of its own, a soldier who died in service, and a young member is detailed both to the bearer party and to the part that troubles her most: she is to carry the establishment's Colour in the procession, and she is anxious about the marks of mourning, afraid of getting them wrong on the one day they cannot be got wrong. Her sergeant settles it for her plainly. The Colour she carries is draped in black crape, tied to the pike below the finial, and that is its mourning, complete and correct; she is not to lower it, not to trail it, not to dip it, for a Colour is dipped only to the Sovereign and half-masted never, because it stands on no mast. The flag the family will remember is a different thing entirely: the National Flag laid over the coffin, a flag and not a Colour, which the bearer party will fold and give to the dead soldier's father.
On the day it goes as it was rehearsed. The bearer party carries the coffin in the slow march, every step matched, the weight hidden, the National Flag lying over it correctly oriented. The young member walks with the Colour on its pike, crape at the finial, the Colour upright and honoured and dipped to no one. At the committal the bearer party lifts the flag clear and folds it with care, the fold close and exact, and it is presented to the father, who holds it as though it were the soldier himself. The firing party renders its three volleys as one; the bugler sounds the Last Post into the silence, the parade stands wholly still, and then the Rouse lifts them from it. There is no "Taps", for that is not the Army's call. A chaplain is at the family's side throughout, and when the father's composure breaks the young member does not flinch or look away; she holds her bearing and her place, the Colour steady in her hands. Afterward, when the father thanks the parade, she says only that it was an honour, and means it. Nothing she did was dramatic, and that is the whole of it. She kept the flag and the Colour each in its own honour, the one half-masted and folded and given away, the other draped and carried and lowered to no one, and in keeping them rightly she gave a grieving family the steady, dignified honour the Army owes its dead.
Check Your Understanding
Explain the firm difference between a flag and a consecrated Colour in mourning. Why is the National Flag half-masted while a Colour is draped or cased and never half-masted? Set out the correct form for half-masting a flag, and say who orders it.
Set out the order of a military funeral from the procession to the march-off, naming the parts in sequence. Explain the part played by the National Flag upon the coffin from its draping to its folding to its presentation, and say why the flag is not buried. Then explain the firing party's volleys, the Last Post, the silence, and the Rouse, and why the Rouse, and not the United States "Taps", is the call the Army sounds.
Describe the day of remembrance and the day of mourning and the marks each carries. Then describe the member's part, and the chaplain's, in caring for the bereaved at a funeral, and explain what the member can rightly offer and what he must leave to the chaplain.
Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson rests on a distinction that seems small but is not: flags are half-masted, Colours are draped or cased, because a flag is flown on a mast and a Colour is carried on a pike. Think about why the Army holds this distinction so firmly, and why it matters that the Colour mourns by its own form rather than by borrowing the flag's. Then think about the human care beneath the honours, the steady bearer party, the folded flag given to a family, the chaplain at their side, and consider why an army that renders such exact honours to those who can no longer know it is given is an army that can be trusted with the living. What does it say about a soldier, and about the Army, that the last honours are rendered with the greatest care of all?
Summary
- Two solemn observances ask the Army for the bearing of grief: the day of remembrance, a settled, recurring keeping of faith with the fallen and those who served before, marked by silence, the Last Post, the Rouse, and the laying of wreaths; and the day of mourning, fresh national grief declared by the Royal Court, marked by flags at half-mast and the gravest bearing.
- Flags are half-masted; consecrated Colours are not. A flag is flown on a mast and can be lowered to half-mast; a Colour is borne on a pike and so cannot be half-masted at all. In mourning a Colour is draped with black crape or cased, and that is its mourning, complete and correct. A Colour is dipped only to the Sovereign, never to the dead.
- A flag is half-masted by hoisting it first to the peak and only then lowering it, never raised directly to half-mast, the hoist to the peak being itself the salute; the order to half-mast comes from the Royal Court, not local discretion.
- A military funeral renders the last honours in slow time and in a settled order, rehearsed beforehand: the bearer party carries the coffin in the slow march; the National Flag (a flag) drapes the coffin, is folded before burial, and is presented to the next of kin; the firing party fires three volleys; the Last Post sounds, a silence is kept, and the Rouse follows; flags are at half-mast for the mourning.
- The funeral soundings are the Last Post and the Rouse (or Reveille), the Commonwealth calls the Army keeps, the Last Post the farewell and the Rouse the recall of the living; they are never the United States "Taps", which belongs to a tradition the RKA does not use.
- The National Flag draping the coffin is a flag, never a Colour; it is not buried but lifted, folded with ceremony, and given to the family. Where a consecrated Colour is present it is draped in crape and carried, dipped to no one but the Sovereign and half-masted never.
- The honours mean nothing without the human care beneath them: the member renders dignity and supports the chaplain, whose place is central, while the bereaved's deeper needs are referred onward; the family's wishes and the beliefs of the dead govern, and the military honours are rendered in support of the rites, never over them. All of it is the Army's value of Respect for Others, owed even to the dead, kept by the young RKA with care and honesty.
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