AP FILE PHOTO

QUEEN MUM DIES: Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, is presented with flowers from well-wishers after arrival at Sandringham Church on the eve of her 97th birthday in 1997.

RELATED LINKS

· Our Queen Mother special section

· Photo gallery: Queen Mother's funeral

· Photo gallery: Historic images

· Send a message of condolence

· BBC tribute

· Buckingham Palace

· Monarchist League of Canada

· Guardian special report

· Times of London tribute

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 in his sermon, 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.' "

Later in a private service attended by the Royal Family, she 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.

The Queen Mother had a hand before her death in the details of her funeral, approving the public service that was steeped in royal traditions dating back centuries.

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.

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.

Clergymen paid thanks for a woman who was the steel in the glove of the royal family for much of the 20th century, untouched by the royal scandal of recent years, remembered instead for her leadership during the Second World War.

"In gratitude we bid farewell to a greatly loved queen, for her grace, humanity and sympathy, for her courage in adversity, for the happiness she brought to so many," said the Very Rev. Wesley Carr, Dean of Westminster.

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

As the cortege drove down The Mall past Clarence House, her London home, it was met by two Spitfires and a Lancaster bomber flying low overhead in a tribute to the woman who came to embody British resolve in the face of the Nazi Blitz.

An estimated 200,000 filed past the Queen Mother's coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall for four days, some waiting as long as 12 hours for a chance to pay their last respects. Even as the doors to the hall were about to close a few hours before the funeral on Tuesday, some were rushing in to file past.

Carey said the lines were a reflection of the affection with which people held the Queen Mother.

"Like the sun, she bathed us in her warm glow," he added. "Now that the sun has set and the cool of the evening has come, some of the warmth we absorbed is flowing back towards her."

Some had camped out for as long as two days to see the 12-minute procession of soldiers who marched with the horse-drawn gun carriage carrying the Queen Mother's casket the short distance from Westminster Hall to the abbey.

They sang the hymns and recited the prayers in tribute to the Queen Mother.

The coffin sat in the centre of the abbey, draped in the Queen Mother's personal royal standard, atop it her priceless coronation crown and a single wreath of flowers from her daughter.

When it was taken to the abbey on the gun carriage - the same one used for the funeral of her husband - senior members of the Royal Family filed behind, including Princes Philip, Charles, William and Princess Anne.

At times, Charles seemed to struggle with his emotions over the loss of a grandmother whom he has said "meant everything" to him.

For Margaret Kittle, the image of the Prince of Wales in full military dress getting into a car for the trip to Windsor will remain with her the longest.

"I think the most touching moment was when Charles went off with his granny," said Kittle, 67, of Winona, Ont., who camped since Sunday across the street from Westminster Abbey.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who was accompanied to the funeral by his wife, Aline, remembered the Queen Mother's humour and grace.

"She has been a role model for a lot of people, you know, a good sense of humour and enjoying life," he told a news conference. ``For me it was always pleasant (to meet her) because, and it was a good lesson to some Canadians, she spoke beautiful French. She always talked in French with me."

The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, and Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, were also on the guest list, along with the monarchs of Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Laura Bush, wife of President George W. Bush, represented the United States

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.

Lt.-Col. Julian Chapman of the Toronto Scottish was among those invited into the abbey and was struck by the sounds of the service.

"When everyone sang they really sang their hearts out, everyone who was in the abbey," he said. "Personally, it was quite incredible."

Lisa Mitchell, 35, of Toronto, arrived six hours ahead of the funeral to get a place in Parliament Square and 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, a member of the Monarchist League of Canada.

"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."