The woman who has visited Queen Elizabeth’s coffin seven times

A woman who has visited Queen Elizabeth’s casket in Edinburgh seven times says she was inspired by the late monarch's faith in God.

Elizabeth Sabey, a 43-year-old evangelist and missionary, had visited the casket seven times and planned to go in as many times as she could before the coffin departed for London. She said she was supportive of the Royal family but was principally inspired by the late Queen’s strong Christian faith.

Speaking before she embarked on her eighth visit, she described the atmosphere in St Giles’: "It's beautiful, it's not just like a gimmick, like 'Let me see how many times I can go in'. I've got a really strong faith and I just felt God's presence, like a unity among people, no divisions.

"Everybody came to pay their respects and it felt so peaceful and beautiful. Sometimes I've gone in and they've been praying or they've been changing the guards around her. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and when you go round just once it's like you just want to remember it.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that she passed away in Scotland, it was all, I feel, divinely orchestrated ... I just think that's how it's meant to be."

"I am a Christian, a really strong Christian, and she lived her life, faith was central to her life and essential to my life. 

"When you listen to her speeches, especially at Christmas, it just brought tears to my eyes to hear somebody at the pinnacle of our country and yet she has a very vibrant, living, real, genuine faith, it wasn’t just something that a monarch needs to do, it was something genuine and deep.

"And that came across because she was so sincere when she shared moments when she used to bring a public message. She doesn’t hide behind it, she’s actually fairly forthright in how she’s sharing her faith, and I love that.

"She’s not just a figurehead she’s actually a spiritual representative that actually walked the life of Jesus in a pure way, humble way. Even though she was the head of the country she actually did it in a beautifully humble way something that each one of us would want to exemplify in our lives.”

When crowned, she said Queen Elizabeth kneeling at the altar she was “submitting to God, and then obviously in that submission she’s submitting to her country but it was first to him, anointed, and she took that so seriously.”

She said she had made a “little family” among the queues who had woken her when she drifted off to sleep during the wait overnight.

"I've just been upright but actually I flopped over loads of times and I had to have people every so often wake me up. Especially on the second and third times I flopped over and I literally did go to sleep and then I had people in the queue that were like my little family members that I'd made."

She found out the news on the Isle of Lewis and travelled down specifically to be here.

Ms Sabey had worked as a missionary in Cambodia, including with sex workers in the region. In a video describing her work in 2014, she said she and her fellow missionaries had booked out rooms in karaoke bars to prevent women being exploited.

“I’ve loved being a part of that and may eventually go back there,” she said. “I went back year after year and eventually in 2019 I stayed for four months did some initial training, and I was going to go back there but Covid hit,” she said.

During Covid, she said she “positioned myself on a bench” to speak to people who were worried or anxious about the pandemic including people who were sleeping rough in Ham Riverside.

She had also been involved in speaking to people who were seeking to end their lives. “Because of my faith I ended up being guided to the right place at the right time. 

"Sometimes it’s late at night , sometimes early in the morning, sometimes it’s half eleven at night and I’ve thought, I’ll go out and get a naan bread and just happened to be there at the right point. She was crying out and saying ‘nobody cares,’ so I just cried out to her, ‘God cares and I care.’

Accompanied by her toy dog, named Wilson, which she purchased during a kayak trip, she said that the police and public had started to recognise her in the queues. She planned to stay in Edinburgh to the close of today and then climb Arthur’s Seat to see the sunset at the end of the day, “and have some sleep at some point”.