ROYAL NEWS: THE QUEEN MOTHER 1900-2002

March 30th
Queen Mother Elisabeth of Great Britain died peacefully in her sleep this afternoon at 15:15 at the Royal Lodge at Windsor. Queen Elizabeth II was at her side. A Palace spokesman said: "Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had become increasingly frail in recent weeks following her bad cough and chest infection over Christmas. Her condition deteriorated this morning and her doctors were called. The Prince of Wales heard about his grandmother's death at his hotel in Klosters at 4:30pm after returning from the slopes. His sons William and Harry found out later when they came back. They will return to Great Britain tomorrow. The Duke of York, who is on holiday in Barbados with his ex-wife and daughters, is also making arrangements to return home. Other members of the Royal Family were already arriving at Windsor for their traditional Easter gathering when the news broke. The Union Flag is flying at half mast at Buckingham Palace. A notice informing the public of her death was placed on the gate outside. Already soon after the announcement a large crowd began to gather outside the palace gates. Also at Glamis Castle, where the Queen Mother grew up, the flag is flying at half mast in her honour.

The Queen Mother will lie in state in Westminster Hall later this week. The vigil will precede her last journey from Westminster Abbey, after the funeral service, to Windsor, where she will be interred beside her husband in St George's Chapel. Vast crowds are expected to queue to file past the coffin. It will be placed on the same spot where King George VI lay in state in February 1952. The coffin will be guarded round-the-clock by a contingent of Gentleman at Arms and Yeomen of the Guard. The Queen Mother will be only the second British Royal consort in modern times to lie in state. Her mother-in-law Queen Mary, who died in 1953, was the first. The coffin will be brought to Westminster Hall from the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace, close to Clarence House, the Queen Mother's London home. The lying in state will be followed by a ceremonial funeral service in Westminster Abbey conducted by the Dean of Westminster. The coffin will then be taken by road to Windsor. Its arrival will be signalled by the tolling of the Sebastopol bell, which was captured from the Russians in the Crimea War and used only for Royal obsequies. Tomorrow morning the Queen Mother's coffin will first be taken to the Royal Chapel of All Saints, a small private chapel in the grounds of Royal Lodge, where she was a regular worshipper.

Princess Margaret of Great Britain's ashes are expected to be interred with the Queen Mother's coffin in the George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor. Since the Princess's cremation on February 15, the casket containing her ashes has been resting in the Royal Vault at St George's Chapel, Windsor. It is understood that the ashes will now be transferred to the George VI Memorial Chapel within St George's when the tomb is opened for the Queen Mother's interment. The Queen Mother's final resting place, beside her beloved husband King George VI, will also be the final resting place of Princess Margaret.

March 31st
A group of about 50 to 100 Royal supporters held an all-night vigil for the Queen Mother outside Windsor Castle. Police said that, by late last night, numbers had dwindled but this morning a few hardcore Royalists who had slept huddled in blankets and coats on park benches were still paying their respects.

Books of condolence were opened in memory of the Queen Mother in London and Edinburgh. From 9am, members of the public are able to express their condolences at St James's Palace, London, and at Holyroodhouse Palace, Edinburgh. A book of condolence will also open at the Sandringham House Visitor Centre today. The books, which are likely to remain open until the day before the funeral, will be passed to the Queen and kept in the royal archives.

The Prince of Wales and his sons arrived back in England together by aircraft with the special permission of Queen Elizabeth II. Normally it is forbidden under royal protocol for the heir to the throne and his eldest son, William, 19, to fly on the same plane. They immediately travelled to Windsor's Royal Lodge to pay their respects to the Queen Mother. The Duke of York also flew home early from a Caribbean holiday in Barbados with his ex-wife Sarah and their children Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

The Queen Mother's funeral will take place on Tuesday April 9, Buckingham Palace has announced. There will be national mourning up to the day of the funeral, which will start at 11.30am. It will be a royal ceremonial funeral, not a state funeral, and will take place at Westminster Abbey. The coffin will then travel by road to Windsor for a private committal service and interment at St George's Chapel there. The coffin will rest at Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park until Tuesday, when it will be taken to the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace in central London. On Friday morning, the coffin will be carried in a ceremonial procession to Westminster Hall where it will lie in state from Friday afternoon until the evening of Monday April 8. The Queen Mother will finally be laid to rest alongside her husband in the George VI Memorial Chapel at St George's Chapel in Windsor. The ashes of Princess Margaret will be taken from the Royal Vault in St George's and interred in the memorial chapel at the same time. In accordance with the Queen Mother's wishes, there will be no official memorial service.

Draped in her Royal Standard, the coffin was carried from Royal Lodge to the nearby Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park by six pallbearers at 4pm. On the coffin was a small wreath of pink camellias picked from the garden at Royal Lodge this morning. Three members of the Queen Mother's staff - two men and a woman - walked behind in black livery. One carried a potted jasmine, given to the Queen Mother by the Prince of Wales for Easter and which was at her bedside when she died. At the stone-arched doorway of the 19th century chapel, Canon John Ovenden, Chaplain to the Queen Mother, and verger Alf Dixon waited to receive the body. The coffin was carefully carried inside the chapel and placed on two simple trestles of Windsor oak. The coffin will rest there until Tuesday when it will be taken to the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace in central London. A short service followed, with the Canon reading Psalm 121: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help ..." After a reading from the Gospel according to St John, the small congregation prayed, concluding with the Lord's Prayer. Later, members of the Royal Family arrived at the chapel for Evensong.

April 1st
Draped in her royal standard and adorned with a wreath of pink camellias, the coffin is before the altar of the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park. This allows members of her staff to pay their last respects. Last night, the Queen led royal mourners in prayer at the foot of her mother's coffin. Some 16 senior members of the Royal Family solemnly filed into the private chapel.

The Prince of Wales has paid a moving tribute to his "darling grandmother", the Queen Mother. In a passionate televised address from his Highgrove home Charles said she had an "utterly irresistible mischievousness of spirit" and her death was a moment he had dreaded. "Somehow I never thought it would come," he added: "She seemed gloriously unstoppable and ever since I was a child I adored her. She was quite simply the most magical grandmother you could possibly have and I was utterly devoted to her. Her departure has left an irreplaceable chasm in countless lives but, thank God, we are all the richer for the sheer joy of her presence and everything she stood for."

April 2nd
Draped in her royal standard, the Queen Mother's coffin was taken from the Royal Chapel of All Saints at Windsor to the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace, London. The Queen's Piper Jim Motherwell has played the Dark Island lament as the Queen Mother's coffin was carried from a small Windsor chapel on its way to the capital. Undertakers conveyed the Queen Mother's coffin by road, in a black hearse, on a journey that took about 75 minutes. In the cortege were also the Queen Mother's Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, and her private secretary, Sir Alastair Aird. As the coffin arrived in central London, it passed through the Queen Elizabeth gates, dedicated to the Queen Mother, in Hyde Park. Buckingham Palace staff were standing outside the north-centre gate at the front of the Palace to mark the passing of the coffin on its way to the Queen's Chapel. Finally, the cortege drove past Clarence House, the Queen Mother's London residence, before coming to a halt in Marlborough Road outside the chapel. The coffin was received in London by the Dean of the Chapels Royal, Bishop of London the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, and Sub Dean William Booth. A short service of prayers was said after the coffin was in place on a catafalque before the chapel altar. The coffin will rest at the Queen's Chapel until Friday when it will be taken to Westminster Hall where the Queen Mother's body will lie in state until the funeral and interment in the George VI Memorial Chapel within St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The next few days, before the public lying-in-state at Westminster, will allow members of the Royal Family, friends and personal staff to pay their private respects.

Buckingham Palace has set up a special post box to cope with the increasing volume of mail being sent to Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. In order to cope with the expected influx of many hundreds, if not thousands, of letters of condolence following the Queen Mother's death, a special PO Box address has been arranged. Correspondence should be sent to PO Box 1900, Buckingham Palace, London SW1P 1AA, Great Britain.

The Prince of Wales has asked to travel with the Queen Mother's coffin on its journey to her final resting place. He wants to escort her coffin from Westminster Abbey to Windsor Castle next Tuesday for its interment. He is set to travel with the undertakers and royal officials in the funeral cortege from central London to Windsor after the funeral service at Westminster Abbey. The Queen Mother will be buried beside her husband in the George VI Memorial Chapel within St George's Chapel at Windsor during a private service.

The Princess Royal has cancelled all nine official engagements until the funeral so she can be at Windsor to comfort her mother Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. The Queen and her daughter have been out riding together in Windsor Great Park. The Prince of Wales has also cancelled a visit to Northumberland and will no longer attend Saturday's Prince's Trust Pop Idol charity gala in London's Docklands. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester have pulled out of a visit to British Airways headquarters at Uxbridge in west London. The Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of York, and the Earl and Countess of Wessex did not have any planned official engagements during the post-Easter week.

April 3rd
The Queen Mother's four grandsons - Charles, Andrew, Edward and David - will mount a vigil at her coffin as she lies in state. The Duke of York disclosed that the grandsons will pay the silent tribute to their grandmother in the medieval setting of Westminster Hall. It is expected the vigil, with the four Royals standing guard at each corner of the coffin, will take place on the eve of the Queen Mother's funeral. The poignant ceremony will be reminiscent of the vigil mounted for George V in 1936, on the same spot in Westminster Hall, when his sons, Edward, Albert, Henry and George, stood solemnly at the late King's coffin.

The Queen Mother's funeral procession will stretch for half-a-mile and involve 1,600 servicemen and women. In terms of pomp and ceremony, it will be bigger than the royal funeral for Diana, Princess of Wales in September 1997. The procession, on Friday morning from the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace to Westminster Hall, will be a military spectacular with troops from four Commonwealth countries as well as Britain. The Queen Mother's coffin, surmounted by her crown, will be borne on a horse-drawn gun carriage to Westminster where she will lie in state until her funeral the following Tuesday. Senior Royals, possibly including the Princess Royal as well as the principal male members of the family, will walk behind the coffin from St James's to Westminster. The gun carriage will be drawn by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and escorted by military detachments from British and Commonwealth regiments associated with the Queen Mother during her long life. As the procession leaves for the medieval setting of Westminster Hall, a 41-gun royal salute will be fired - one salvo every minute - from nearby Green Park. Along the route, military detachments, including cavalrymen from the Queen's Life Guards, will give royal salutes and there will be a guard of honour in Parliament Square.

April 4th
Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has been talking of the "kindness" of the tributes to her mother. She has been surveying a sea of flowers left in the Queen Mother's memory at Windsor Castle. She told well-wishers: "My mother lived to 101 which is a great age - she had a wonderful life. It's an amazing sight, isn't it? People are so kind." More than 2,000 bouquets have been placed on the lawn outside St George's Chapel where the Queen Mother's body will be interred on Tuesday. Dressed in black, she spent several minutes with the Duke of Edinburgh looking at the flowers and condolence messages left by people from all over the world. Some 200 people had gathered in the precincts of Windsor Castle as the Queen's Daimler came to a halt by the floral tributes. Later, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh went inside St George's Chapel to watch the preparations for Tuesday's private committal service and interment, and to look at a book of condolence which some 7,000 people have signed since Monday.

Several royal courts have announced that members of the family will attend the funeral of Queen Mother Elizabeth of Great Britain. Among them are Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik of Denmark, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway and King Albert II and Prince Philippe of Belgium.

Troops have been on the streets of central London in a full-scale rehearsal of the Queen Mother's funeral procession. Though not a dress rehearsal - the servicemen and women have not worn ceremonial uniform - the practice run has followed the route to be taken on Friday morning.

April 5th
The first spectators already arrived yesterday to make sure of their places on the route along which the Queen Mother's coffin will be borne from St James's Palace to Westminster Hall, and spent the night on the street. Thousands of people are expected to line the route, but a dedicated few are in place many hours before the start of the solemn procession to claim prime vantage spots. Spectators arriving early for the procession took the opportunity to inspect the flowers and read some of the messages at the palaces along the route. Further up The Mall, the statue of King George VI - the Queen Mother's beloved Bertie - gleamed in the half light. The 12ft bronze statue had been polished in readiness for the procession, which will be beamed across the globe by more than 100 cameras.

The royal mourners stood in perfect silence for several minutes awaiting the signal to move off on the stroke of 11.30am. Then to the strains of Beethoven's Funeral March, and as the first of a 28-gun royal salute was fired - one for every minute of the procession - the Queen Mother's cortege began its journey to lie in state at Westminster Hall. It was the greatest funeral procession for 50 years. The Queen Mother's coffin, draped in her personal standard and surmounted by her diamond-encrusted crown, was carried from the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace and placed on a horse-drawn gun carriage. Also white flowers accompanied by a card mounted the Queen Mother's coffin reading simply "In loving memory, Lilibet". Three generations of the Royal Family were immediately behind the coffin, followed by members of the Queen Mother's personal staff. A military band played as the half-mile long procession made its way down The Mall. Queen Elizabeth II, dressed in black, was waiting in the medieval splendour of Westminster Hall together with Lady Sarah Chatto when her mother's coffin arrived to lie in state until her funeral. Eight pall bearers from the Irish Guards lifted it from the gun-carriage and carried it slowly to the 7ft-high catafalque covered in Braemar-purple pleated velvet, gold braid and garnet felt. Watching was a sombre gathering of courtiers and senior politicians including Prime Minister Tony Blair. After a short ceremony, the Queen drove back to Buckingham Palace accompanied by a wave of sympathetic applause from crowds in Whitehall, standing up to 20-deep in places. An estimated 400.000 people lined the route to witness the ceremony.

The Princess Royal has broken with the tradition that the mourners who follow on foot behind a (royal) funeral cortège are exclusively restricted to the men, a practice deriving from the ancient custom that only males attended funerals. Matching her father and two of her brothers in full dress naval uniform, she walked behind the coffin of her grandmother.

Thousands of people were waiting to pay their personal respects to the Queen Mother at Westminster Hall after her funeral procession. A queue was snaking back from Westminster Hall over Lambeth Bridge and along the south bank of the Thames as far as Westminster Bridge. Westminster Hall will remain open to the public in response to the long queues of mourners wishing to file past the Queen Mother's coffin. Members of the public will be able to visit the hall until 6am when it will close for two hours before re-opening at 8am.

April 6th
Westminster Hall has remained open throughout the night to enable mourners to pay their respects to the Queen Mother. A stream of well-wishers continued visiting the hall until 6am when it closed for two hours. Twenty minutes later a queue was already building up outside Westminster Hall to see the Queen Mother's lying in state. The original plan had been for Saturday's public viewing to be between 2pm and 6pm, but the many thousands wishing to attend the lying-in-state led to a change of strategy. By late afternoon as many as 20,000 people were queuing to pay their respects at the coffin. About 2,500 mourners were filing past every hour and those queuing were waiting for up to six hours. By mid-evening, those paying their respects were still having to wait four hours. A mile-long queue was formed in Victoria Tower Gardens in time for the reopening of Westminster Hall this morning. Around noon there was a seven-hour wait and the queue was three miles long. Around 35,000 people had already passed and police said there were over 50,000 people waiting. The Hall will be open on both Saturday and Sunday nights. Police are advising people to wrap up warm and to take refreshments with them. The number of people wanting to view the Queen Mother lying in state has surprised officials.

Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has been "very touched" by the many thousands of people paying their respects at her mother's coffin, Buckingham Palace said today. A Palace spokeswoman said: "The Queen has been very touched that so many people are paying their respects. This is a very rare occasion and it has been difficult to estimate the public response."

Officials announced more details of next Tuesday's funeral service, and confirmed that the Prince of Wales's partner Camilla Parker Bowles would be among the congregation at Westminster Abbey. Mrs Parker Bowles will be at the service as a friend of the Queen Mother, said the Palace. "She knew the Queen Mother well over the years and it is therefore appropriate that she should come," said a Palace spokeswoman. It is, however, unlikely that Mrs Parker Bowles will sit with the Prince, who is taking part in the funeral cortege and royal procession at the Abbey. There will be 25 foreign royals at the service.

The Queen Mother's body will be interred at St George's Chapel, Windsor early on Tuesday evening. Only close family members will be at the private committal service and interment. The Prince of Wales will accompany his grandmother's coffin as it is taken in a hearse by road from Westminster Abbey to Windsor Castle. The Queen and other senior Royals will travel to Windsor during the afternoon after the Abbey funeral service. The coffin, still adorned by her crown, will be conveyed in a five-car convoy. Preparations are already under way at Windsor for interment in the George VI Memorial Chapel within St George's Chapel in the Castle precincts. The black marble grave stone, covering the entrance to the vault, has been removed and is being inscribed by stone masons with the legend "Queen Elizabeth 1900-2002". The dates of King George VI "1895-1952" are being added to the stone which was previously only inscribed with his name.

April 7th
The soldiers, sailors and airmen who will form the Queen Mother's funeral procession have rehearsed the short journey that will take her coffin to Westminster Abbey. As dawn broke the Massed Pipes and Drums from 13 regiments led the horse-drawn gun carriage which will bear her coffin as it left Westminster Hall to travel the 300 yards to the Great West Door of the Abbey. Royal Marine and Royal Navy contingents, together with Scots Guards, lined the route across Parliament Square, their heads bowed and guns held in front of them in the Royal Salute as the carriage bore a replacement coffin draped in the Union Flag away from the palace of Westminster. Roads around the square were sealed as the funeral procession was rehearsed twice. The public viewing of the lying in state in Westminster Hall, which again continued throughout the night, was halted for three hours to allow the rehearsal to take place. Only a few dozen members of the public watched as the rehearsal procession, which on Tuesday will involve 860 service personnel, passed by.

The Princes William and Harry of Wales have given their own tribute to the Queen Mother at York House, their home in St James's Palace, moments after returning from their march behind the Queen Mother's coffin, on Friday. Recalling fond memories of their great-grandmother, the princes explained how she had inspired and encouraged them, and made them howl with laughter. Harry said: "She was determined to do things without help. She always wanted to walk up steps on her own. She was amazing. And she was very interested in everything we did, whether it was school or polo or anything." William added: "I remember her as being a huge inspiration to me, someone to really look up to and admire." He went on: "She was incredible - nothing stopped her at all. Whenever I felt ill, I always used to remember that in the same circumstances she would battle on, no matter how she felt. She never gave up." William recalled: "Anything that was meant to be formal and went wrong, she enjoyed. She would have a good giggle." William said: "She loved a good laugh, even if the joke was about her. She had such a young sense of humour. Every single thing that went wrong or was funny for any reason she laughed herself stupid about - it kept us all sane." He recalled the day the Queen Mother discovered Ali G - the TV and film character played by Sacha Baron Cohen - and learned how to mimic his trademark finger snap and "Respec"' catchphrase. They remembered how she astonished the Queen at a family Christmas lunch at Sandringham by telling her in a mock accent: "Respec'." "It was two or three Christmases ago, and we were sitting down watching Ali G on TV," said William. "We were laughing when she came in. She couldn't understand what was going on, so we explained to her what he was doing. She saw Ali G click his fingers and say 'Respec', and Harry and I showed her what to do. She loved it, and after three goes she had it. Later that day, we were all in the dining room, having Christmas lunch, when she tried it out." Prince Harry remembered exactly what the Queen Mother did. He said: "It was at the end of the meal, and she stood up and said: 'Darling, lunch was marvellous - respec,' and clicked her fingers." William said the entire family burst out laughing, including the Queen. The fondest memory William has of the Queen Mother was being with her on her 101st birthday, August 4, 2001 when the Royal Family had assembled outside her home, Clarence House, to greet well-wishers and watch a military march-past. "Being with her on her 101st birthday was great," said the prince. "Standing at the gates with your great-grandmother who is 101 years old as her troops go by was quite something." The Queen Mother also liked to keep up to date with the Princes' life at school, Prince William said. "She loved to hear about all my friends and all they got up to and relate it to her own youth," he said. "And she loved to hear about how much trouble I got into at school." William also said: "I remember her as being a huge inspiration to me, someone to really look up to and admire. She was a historic link. I looked up to her because what an achievement it was to live to 101. It was a pleasure to sit next to her at lunch. She always had some great war stories and, to hear them from her, it really brought it all to life." Prince William recalled how he had lunch with the Queen Mother on the day of his arrival at St Andrews University last September. He said that she had made him late by laying on a spread of food at Birkhall, her home on the Balmoral estate in Scotland. "She gave me an amazing lunch, better and longer than normal, and we talked about me going to university and what I was studying. She always took a great interest in all her great-grandchildren." Afterwards, as the Prince set off for St Andrews full of anxieties, the Queen Mother found the words to bring a smile to his face. "As she said goodbye, she said, 'Any good parties, invite me down.' I said yes, but there was no way. I knew full well that if I invited her down she would dance me under the table." About their father's relationship with the Queen Mother they said: "They were very close. She gave him a lot of advice and help. They always joked about everything. They had the same sense of humour." As he grew up, Prince William became protective of his frail great-grandmother. He said: "My favourite photograph of us together was a picture of me aged about nine or 10 helping the Queen Mother up the steps at Windsor Castle. I remember the moment because she said to me: 'Keep doing that for people and you will go a long way in life'."

Crowds of people have continued queuing through the night to file past the Queen Mother's coffin in Westminster Hall. By 1am on Sunday police were warning people at the back of the queue that they would not get in before the Hall closed at 5am. Emergency supplies of foil blankets were brought in to protect thousands of people from the cold. Ambulance workers in Victoria Tower Gardens had to bring dozens of people in from the cold and give them warm tea and blankets. Not everyone realises how cold and windy it is near the river. Today queues are expected to exceed the lengths of 2.5 miles seen yesterday. By 9am, they were already 1.5 miles long and back up along the south bank of the River Thames towards Blackfriars Bridge. Today it was announced that the public will be allowed to view the lying in state of the Queen Mother until the morning of her funeral service. Westminster Hall will remain open until 6am on Tuesday - only five hours before it is carried in procession to nearby Westminster Abbey. The decision to allow the public to pay their respects until the latest possible moment was made as it was announced that it was estimated that by mid-morning today 100,000 people had filed through the hall in tribute to the Queen Mother. People were still joining the end of the line in their thousands this morning, although they were being warned that they faced a wait of up to 12 hours. Around noon the police estimated about 70.000 people lining. Meanwhile the first members of the public have begun claiming vantage points for the funeral procession, preparing to wait on the streets for more than 48 hours.

The Duke of York and his daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have gone to Westminster Tower Gardens to meet members of the public at the head of the queue for the Queen Mother's lying in State. They also met volunteers helping with the crowds. The Prince looked relaxed as he spoke to the crowds in Victoria Gardens, next to Westminster Hall. Followed by his daughters, both of whom were dressed in black, the Duke of York spent several minutes talking and joking with men and women, some of whom had waited since dawn in a queue up to two-and-a-half miles long. The Duke of York looked surprised at the length of the wait before waving his arm and ushering more people along the path.

A mass of the Queen Mother's favourite traditional English summer garden flowers will adorn Westminster Abbey for her funeral service. Arrangers are working in the body of the Abbey on displays of sweet-smelling pastel-shaded flowers with more than 2,000 individual blooms. The flowers, including fragrant lilies and stocks, will be set in informal, rather than stylised, arrangements. "They are the type of flowers that would be growing in the gardens of England in the summer time and of which the Queen Mother was especially fond," said one of the arrangers from the National Association of Floral Arrangement Societies who are working over two days to decorate the Abbey with floral displays. Work is also continuing to transform the Abbey to broadcast the service around the world. Scores of lights have been installed in the 13th Century building to help filming. The final touches were also being put to a massive security operation, in conjunction with police and Buckingham Palace officials.

April 8th
Buckingham Palace expects 25 members of royal families from around the world to attend Tuesday's funeral of the Queen Mother it was announced. Bulgaria's former King Simeon II, now Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, will attend the funeral, the Bulgarian government press office said.

The Princess Royal, her husband Commander Tim Lawrence, her son Peter Phillips and the Countess of Wessex spoke to the members of the public waiting in line to view the Queen Mother's coffin in Westminster Hall. They also shook hands and posed for photographs during the walk along the South Bank of the river Thames. "We had been in the queue for several hours, so it was such a nice touch for this to happen. We weren't bothered about queuing up for so long, but this has certainly made it worthwhile." a member of the public said.


The Queen Mother's four grandsons - Charles, Andrew, Edward and David - have mounted a vigil at her coffin as she lies in state from around 5.45pm to some 30 minutes later. On the eve of the Queen Mother's funeral, they echoed history in a poignant ceremony reminiscent of another royal vigil, on the same spot at Westminster Hall, for King George V in 1936. They took their positions around the 7ft-high catafalque. The Prince of Wales wore the dress uniform of a Rear Admiral and the Duke of York that of a Royal Naval Commander. The Earl of Wessex and Princess Margaret's son Viscount Linley, who both don't hold military rank, were clad in black morning coats. Charles and Andrew rested both hands on their swords and all four grandsons stood silently, heads bowed. The Princes William and Harry, the Princess Royal, her husband Timothy Laurence, Peter Phillips and the Countess of Wessex stood in the background as the vigil took place. Also Camilla Parker Bowles was invited but stayed in the background. The Vigil of the Watch took place as members of the public continued to file past the Queen Mother's coffin, paying their respects.

April 9th
The doors to Westminster Hall closed at 6am, bringing to an end the public's homage to the Queen Mother. Thousands queued for hours along the banks of the Thames for the chance to spend a few minutes passing silently by the coffin. The final visitors were led through the hall just as dawn broke and the doors closed to allow for the preparations for the Queen Mother's funeral. Officials at Westminster said no one was turned away as the queues had finally dwindled to just a few dozen in the last hour. As the queues began to die down, the final estimate proved slightly lower than originally thought, with just over 200,000 people believed to have paid their respects. Late yesterday evening the Prince of Wales had also returned to pay a much more low-key tribute after the vigil earlier in the evening.

Crowds were gathering around Westminster Abbey, hours ahead of the funeral of the Queen Mother. By dawn, several thousand people had congregated in near-freezing temperatures in Parliament Square. They joined the scores who had been camping in prime positions opposite the Abbey, some since the weekend. Some people were huddled in tents and wrapped in duvets to keep out the chill. The crowd, gathered behind safety railings, was up to five deep in places. A steady flow of people continued to stream into the square in search of any remaining prime viewpoints. Three people were said to have hypothermia after camping out overnight. The Red Cross says the trio, believed to be middle-aged, were taken to hospital after police noticed their distress.

Up to 400,000 people have lined the streets of central London to watch the Queen Mother's funeral procession, while another estimated 600,000 people lined the route from the Westminster Abbey to Windsor. The crowds at Parliament Square fell silent during the ceremony as the sound of the choir was relayed on loud speakers. Many followed the order of service, bowing their heads and reciting the Lord's Prayer as it was said inside the Abbey. Thousands gathered along either side of Whitehall in silence to listen to the service being broadcast over loudspeakers. Barely a sound could be heard along the normally bustling street as the crowds stood three or four deep along either side of the road with heads bowed.

April 10th
The Queen Mother's final resting place next to her husband George VI in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle is opening to the public from today until April 19th. The chapel also holds the remains of the Kings Henry VIII, Charles I, George III, Edward VII and George V. Several hundreds of people were queuing to see the place where the Queen Mother was interred yesterday. Four wreaths have been laid around an altar by senior members of the royal family. A wreath of white roses from Princes William and Harry, and a wreath of flowers picked from Prince Charles' garden at his Highgrove Estate, ring the altar on the floor. Princess Margaret's children, Lady Sarah Chatto and Viscount Linley, has also left wreaths of pink and red carnations. All the flowers bear cards carrying personal messages from the grieving members of the royal family. They lay inches away from the black marble gravestone, which had been removed by stonemasons but is now back in place. It originally read simply King George VI, but now the years of his birth and death, 1895-1952, have been added. Underneath it reads simply: "Elizabeth 1900-2002." A bronze plaque will be fixed at a later date to the chapel wall to commemorate Princess Margaret, according to chapel officials.

The Queen Mother is to be honoured with a memorial fund by the British Red Cross. The Queen Mother Memorial Fund aims to raise £1 million to expand the organisation's Tracing and Message Service. It reunites families that have been separated by wars or natural disasters. Sir Nicholas Young, chief executive of the British Red Cross Society, said: "The Queen Mother was involved with the British Red Cross for nearly 80 years and we hope that the memorial fund will provide a fitting legacy for (her)." The Queen Mother was elected to the governing board of the council in 1923 and became president of the British Red Cross in 1936 following the accession to the throne of her husband.

The life of the Queen Mother will be celebrated with a set of commemorative stamps, the British Royal Mail has announced. The four stamps will feature portraits from different eras of the Queen Mother's life and go on sale on April 25. Originally issued to mark her 90th birthday in 1990, the stamps have been framed in black as a mark of respect. They will carry the inscription "HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother 1900 - 2002." The Queen's head will also be in black. The stamps chart the phases of the Queen Mother's 101 years of life. They show her as Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1907, as the Duchess of York in 1930, as Queen Consort to her husband King George VI in 1948 and finally as the Queen Mother in 1980. Presentation packs containing the stamps together with photographs and information about the Queen Mother will also be available. A commemorative first day cover, containing a set of stamps postmarked "St James's Palace, April 25" will be available for an extended period until May 23.

April 12th
Floral tributes left in memory of the Queen Mother are being removed and given to the Royal family to read through. The grassy areas in front of at Clarence House, St James's Palace and Westminster Hall have been carpeted with flowers by well-wishers. The flowers will be used in compost for the royal parks, and the cards and messages sent to Buckingham Palace to be read by the Queen. The tributes which came from people from across Britain and from overseas, prompted members of the Royal Family to make a series of impromptu walkabouts to inspect them. A spokesman for Buckingham Palace said: "The flowers were very much appreciated and I am sure the messages will provide great comfort." The book of condolence at St George's Chapel, Windsor, will remain open until Friday April 19. Messages can also be left in the on-line book of condolence, on the Buckingham Palace website. Meanwhile, the Castle of Mey - the Queen Mother's holiday retreat in the north coast of Scotland - is likely to be opened to the public at the beginning of August.