Any question answered...

Yes, that's a hornet. Lovely pictures. I can't work out if it's male or female, but it doesn't look like a queen. Probably a late-surviving worker. You can record the spot here if you like:

https://www.bwars.com/content/submit-sighting-vespa-crabro-hornet

I also just found this lovely video of a young queen that can't fly yet:

https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=OO4dnIMpWOo

In the comments, you can see the level of fear of hornets--queens are even less likely to sting you than workers. They have very different concerns at that stage, and one of the last things they're going to do is endanger themselves. They're only keen to get underground.