One by one, they stood before the coffin, straightening their backs, squaring their shoulders, pulling in their shirttails. Most bowed their heads, some curtsied and others blew kisses. Many blessed themselves. A few, wearing military caps, raised their hands in a crisp salute.
Tens of thousands of people waited up to 24 hours to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday, their individual acts of mourning commingling into a vast national expression of bereavement.
It was the third day the queen’s body lay in state under the ancient vaulted timber roof of Westminster Hall. With foreign leaders and royalty arriving in London for her funeral Monday, the endless river of ordinary people was joined by dignitaries from the sovereign’s far-flung realms: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia.