Queen Mother

AP / The coffin of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, is placed on the catafalque in Westminster Abbey during her funeral service which was attended by royalty, heads of government and other dignitaries from around the world.

AP / Members of Britain's Royal Family look over the Queen Mother's coffin draped with her personal standard. From left, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Princess Beatrice, Prince William, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, Prince Charles, Viscount Linley, Peter Phillips, Prince Edward and Prince Harry.

AP / Prince Charles, flanked by his sons, Prince William (left) and Prince Harry, listens to the sermon of the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.

AP photo / Contingent of Guardsmen present arms as gun carriage with coffin of the Queen Mother passes through Parliament Square in London during funeral ceremonies.

AP / The procession carrying the coffin of the Queen Mother, bottom right, leaves Westminster Hall en route to Westminster Abbey for the state funeral service.

AP / Thousands of people line the streets as the hearse carrying the coffin of the Queen Mother passes through the town of Datchet as it travels from London to St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle where the Queen Mother will be laid to rest next to her husband, King George VI, and the ashes of Princess Margaret, who died last month.

AFP / Tears glisten in the eyes of Queen Elizabeth as she leaves in a limo from Westminster Abbey after the Queen Mother's funeral, ending more than a week of mourning.

AP / Royal Air Force's Battle of Britain flight, composed of a Second World War Lancaster bomber and two Spitfire fighters, pass over flag on Treasury building in London.

AP / Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia (front row) Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia (center row) and Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja (rear row).

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher

U.S. First Lady Laura Bush

Princess Caroline of Monaco

Lady Sarah Ferguson

Belgian Crown Prince Philippe

AP / Camilla Parker Bowles (centre) with unidentified companions.

AP / British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie Booth.

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LONDON -- More than one million people lined the city's streets yesterday to pay homage to the Queen Mother, providing one of many lasting images in a pageant-filled funeral service that paid tribute to her strength, dignity and laughter.

The funeral ended a 10-day chapter in British history the likes of which haven't been seen since the death 50 years ago of the Queen Mother's husband, King George VI.

Fittingly, Britain paid its last respects to the royal matriarch at Westminster Abbey, a 13th-century landmark that played a central part in the 101 years of the Queen Mother's life.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, reflected on the abbey's connection to the Queen Mother, describing it as a "place where the story of our nation and the story of the woman we now commend to her Heavenly Father are intertwined."

As Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daughter of a Scottish aristocrat, she was married in the abbey. She was crowned Queen alongside her husband inside its ancient walls in 1936, and it was the scene of her daughter's coronation after his death in 1952.

"In the 10 days since she left us, there have been countless tributes and expressions of affection and respect, including those of the many people who have queued and filed patiently past her coffin lying-in-state," said Carey.

"How should we explain the numbers? Not just by the great length of a life, famously lived to the full. It has to do with her giving of herself so readily and openly. There was about her, in George Eliot's lovely phrase, 'the sweet presence of a good diffused.' "

The Queen Mother had a hand before her death in the details of her funeral. There was no shortage of ceremony in a day that began with the stirring skirl of a mass band of 198 pipes and drums at the head of the funeral procession.

Charles, the heir to the throne, was often at the centre of the occasion. He was the Queen Mother's favourite grandson, and it showed in his obvious sorrow as he marched sombrely behind her coffin in full naval dress uniform.

At times, Charles seemed to struggle with his emotions over the loss of a grandmother whom he has said "meant everything" to him. He saluted as her coffin was lowered into the hearse, then bit his lip, blinked several times and bowed his head.

People wiped tears from their eyes outside the abbey as the angelic sound of fresh-faced choir boys cloaked in red and white echoed off the buildings around Parliament Square as the service began, broadcast to them by loudspeakers.

Her coffin was carried by hearse from the abbey to Windsor Castle in a slow-moving funeral cortege as some among the crowds who lined the 32-kilometre route threw flowers and petals at the passing vehicles.

A dozen members of The Toronto Scottish Regiment, The Black Watch of Canada and the Canadian Forces Medical Service served as ushers at the funeral or lined the cobbled path into the abbey. The Queen Mother was colonel-in-chief of the three units.

Lisa Mitchell, 35, of Toronto, was struck by the finality she felt when the Last Post was sounded.

"When you heard all of her titles read out, and then you heard that bugle sound, I mean it was just like, this is it, this is the end. It was kind of the real moment," said Mitchell.

"The other thing for me was just seeing the real faces of grief on Charles and William and Harry, and Prince Philip, also. They looked just devastated."

Later in a private service attended by the Royal Family, the Queen Mother was interred next to her husband in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The ashes of her other daughter, Princess Margaret, who died two months ago, were also interred during the ceremony.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, Gov.-Gen. Adrienne Clarkson said at a commemorative service yesterday that the Queen Mother may have been born into privilege but she lived a life of intense dedication.

"There are many people who live in privilege in Canada, or Great Britain, or anywhere in the world, who never have the sense of intention, who never are able to communicate to people that sense of community, that sense that I can only describe as peace."