The nation has been left heartbroken by photographs of the grief-stricken Queen sitting alone during her husband’s funeral at Windsor Castle today as she was forced to mourn away from her devastated children and grandchildren during the Covid-secure ceremony. 

Her Majesty, 94, wiped away tears and bowed her head in reverence in St George’s Chapel this afternoon as she bid a final and emotional farewell to her ‘strength and stay’ Prince Philip, to whom she was married for 73 years, while socially distancing and wearing a face mask. 

Slashed was the 800-strong guest list of royals, politicians and celebrities who may have been expected to descend on Windsor for the historic send-off.

Instead just 30 mourners and four singers were allowed at the service as bottles of hand sanitiser were dispensed. 

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, MailOnline columnists Piers Morgan and Dan Wootton, and Good Morning Britain (GMB) presenters Kate Garraway and Susanna Reid led the nation in showing their support for the monarch as social media users called the scenes ‘heartbreaking’, ‘cruel’ and ‘shameful’.

Ellwood tweeted: ‘No words’, while Morgan said: ‘Has there ever been a more heart-breaking picture of The Queen?

The cruel separation and loneliness suffered by so many in this pandemic, web page now endured by the world’s most famous woman as she says goodbye to her husband of 73 years. Just devastating.’

Garraway, who has documented her husband Derek Draper’s illness after he contracted the virus last year, said on Instagram: ‘So alone – my heart breaks for gilded bronze paintings High-class bronze paintings her and so so many others who have lost loved ones this year. Just shows who ever you are the pain of grief and the loneliness it brings.’   

Radio and TV presenter Fearne Cotton said: ‘The shots on the BBC of Her Majesty The Queen alone are breaking my heart in two.

A beautiful ceremony. A long, amazing life celebrated so perfectly.’   

This Morning presenter Ruth Langsford wrote on Instagram: ‘My heart is breaking for her. RIP Prince Philip’, while singer Peter Andre posted: ‘Farewell Prince Philip. Thinking of our Queen’. 

BBC presenter Jeremy Vine tweeted: ‘HRH. Such an intense moment, seeing this on TV just now’, as Anglican priest Giles Fraser said: ‘We are with you. In our prayers’. Author Benjamin Butterworth similarly tweeted: ‘She is alone in the chapel.

But the whole country is with her in thoughts and prayers’. 

Reid tweeted: ‘Everything about Prince Philip’s funeral was moving. Honouring a man who had lived well for a century. The nation’s silence. The gun salute. The choir. The mourners distanced. The Queen alone. Echoes of other funerals and other families, especially in this difficult year.’

Times Radio presenter Stig Abell said: ‘I think some of today’s images stand bronze paintings of honor and worship not just for web page the funeral of a man but for the aberrant loneliness caused by Covid for many.’ Anglo-Iranian YouTube star Mahyar Tousi tweeted: ‘I love this woman.

She might be a widow now but she’s not alone. Millions around the commonwealth adore and support her. She’s our nation’s grandmother. God Save The Queen’.

However, other pundits were criticial of the restrictions themselves. MailOnline columnist Wootton thundered: ‘The cold hell of a Covid funeral in one picture. Shameful putting any grieving widow through this isolation at their greatest moment of need’, while activist Emily Hewertson said: ‘This world has become so cruel’.