It passed Lambeth Palace, built at a time when kings of England still held the same title in France, and the longtime London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England's most senior cleric. The various plumed helmets, bearskin hats and crimson, blue and black uniforms familiar from Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London add an air of medieval pomp and pageantry.Īlongside sections of the slow-moving River Thames, this torrent of humanity now runs past a veritable tour route of London's historic landmarks.Īt times this week, the line of those wishing to pay their respects started as far away as the Globe Theater, where the works of England's greatest-ever poet, William Shakespeare, were first performed in the late 16th Century. Officers from a British Army regiment known as the household cavalry division - named for the royal household - and veterans belonging to a yeoman of the guard group that dates back more than 500 years, stand watch around the coffin, spears and swords pointed downwards and rested on the ground, their heads bowed. Sebastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images Women leave the Westminster Palace after paying their respects to the late queen on Thursday. A middle-aged man held the hand of his partner, a knapsack slung over one shoulder and a tissue in his hand dabbing at his eye. An NPR reporter saw one woman with her arms wrapped around a friend, who was weeping and shaking after passing the coffin, raised up on the carpeted platform. Uniformed policemen and velvet rope lines help guide the crowds through the space, some of the mourners visibly moved.

They then descend the ancient stone steps of the hall, roughly half the length of a football field, that was built just a generation after the Norman Conquest of Britain by an ancestor of Elizabeth.Īs they file past her oak coffin, draped in the mostly yellow royal standard flag and flanked by four tall candles, they are permitted to pause for several seconds in a moment of reflection, before continuing. Members of the public, with no more than one bag permitted on their person, are scanned by airport security workers. Her body rests inside Westminster Hall, a cavernous space with a soaring arched roof that has served for more than nine centuries - sometimes simultaneously, sometimes separately - as the center of Britain's royal, legal, administrative and now parliamentary system.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images People put on the wristbands that indicate their place in line along Shad Thames while waiting in line to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth.

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