THE mourners shuffling past the Queen’s coffin in St Giles' cathedral looked sombre and over-awed. The sight of the small oak coffin, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, bearing the Scottish crown and guarded by the Company of Archers, brought some to tears. The hush as thousands processed through the vaulting hall where the coffin lay was nothing less than reverential.

For a moment, indeed, it was as if the late Queen and the holiness of the church were almost one and the same.

Since the moment Queen Elizabeth’s death was announced, it has been difficult to remember that ours is an age of religious disbelief and profound political division and scepticism.

Instead, to watch the formalities surrounding the Queen’s removal from Balmoral to Edinburgh, and the medieval trappings of the accession of Charles III, is to be plunged back into the middle ages at break neck speed.

That the ancient Stone of Destiny is to be removed from Edinburgh Castle to Westminster Abbey for Charles’s coronation says it all. When it comes to the royals, all the clocks stopped centuries ago.

Historians often like to say that, contrary to what novelists would have you believe, our forebears were not just the same as us but wearing tunics or wimples. Their existence was unrecognisably different, both physically and, more importantly, mentally. With a world-view shaped by church rituals, harsh cosmic certainties and bone-deep superstition, their experience of life was utterly removed from ours.

After what we’ve seen these past few days, however, I begin to wonder. When even the windows of Harvey Nichols are blacked out as a mark of respect, it’s clear there has been a seismic psychological event. You might not have been swept up in the mass adulation and sorrowing, but it would take a hard heart not to be touched by the Queen’s death and the tsunami of sentiment it has provoked.

A spontaneous and genuine national outpouring of sadness followed her coffin’s progress from Balmoral to Edinburgh. At Tweedbank train station in the Borders, I spotted garden roses and sunflowers wilting by a plaque commemorating the day the Queen opened the renewed Waverley line in 2015. For the flower bearers, compelled to find some way of registering their respect, this was the closest to her they could get.

Those tens of thousands who trooped past her coffin in St Giles got even closer. The instinctual urge to be in the presence of the Queen, even in death, is an unbroken thread that connects our era to previous centuries.

Elizabeth was, without a doubt, a remarkable woman. Yet what draws people to her is not only appreciation of a lifetime of tireless service, nor her personal charm, but the fact that she was royal. Today, as in medieval times, a monarch, whoever they are, carries with them an aura of mystery and authority that strikes an old chord within us.

The plethora of reminiscences by those who met the Queen have one thing in common beyond their banality. Whether it’s a Ballater butcher, or a Church of Scotland minister or a former prime minister, they all say they will never forget their encounters. Many recollections are appended with the comment that meeting her was one of the highlights of their life. Whether their conversation was prosaic, platitudinous or worthy of Oscar Wilde, they were star struck and smitten.

You might be tempted to see such anecdotes as fawning or self-aggrandising, but I think it goes much deeper than that. For all that we like to think of ourselves as modern, the majesty of the throne bypasses the intellect and decades of democracy, and aims straight for the heart.

Little wonder that in past ages commoners would try to touch the hem of royalty’s gowns as they passed. Back then, and perhaps even now, they were deemed anointed by God.

How a brute like Henry VIII could be considered anyone’s spiritual heir is hard to credit. But so it was. Indeed, such was the assurance of their divine role that the King’s Touch, as it was called, was thought to cure the sick. James VI and I was unusually squeamish in this respect and, rather than actually touch the afflicted, would merely flap his hands above them.

While the Queen’s coffin lay in St Giles, the shades of John Knox must have been stirring uneasily. This was the kirk where he lambasted the rule of Mary Queen of Scots, and lived to tell the tale. Unlike the member of the crowd who yelled abuse at Prince Andrew and was arrested, Knox spoke his mind, yet was not thrown into a cell. In his day, the monarch had absolute power. To disrespect the sovereign was to toy with your life. Thankfully for him, Queen Mary was merciful.

Given the power of the throne, it’s no wonder people’s knees knocked when they were ushered into the audience chamber. Yet while all vestiges of direct rule by the palace are long gone, our DNA seems not to have caught onto that fact. In the presence of the Queen, or now the King, there is still an inexplicable tremor of awe.

How to explain this? It's not as if these past years have not offered countless opportunities for reverence to die: learning the Queen was a devotee of Tupperware was hardly fitting after the glamour of the golden state carriage and diamond tiaras.

Far worse for the royal image, you might have thought, have been the never-ending scandals, from Charles and Diana’s miserable marriage to Prince Andrew’s abject disgrace and the persistent rumblings of discontent from Harry and Megan, which show no signs of abating any time soon.

Yet regardless of the revelations emerging from Buckingham Palace, the public has remained enchanted. If anything, familiarity is breeding a more intense devotion. The country felt for the ageing Queen as her family fractured, and especially when her husband died. By that point, she was viewed almost as one of us, accessible – or so we liked to imagine – and relatable.

Today we warm to Charles, empathising with his grief as if he were an ordinary mortal like us. Which of course he is. And yet, regardless of common sense and all evidence to the contrary, some ancient, feudal part of us continues to behave as if he, like his mother before him, inhabits another realm.