Queen Elizabeth’s death and funeral

Follow more news on Queen Elizabeth II’s death and funeral here.

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II is now at London’s Westminster Hall, where the monarch will lie in state before her state funeral on Monday.

The Queen’s son, King Charles III, was joined by his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and other members of the royal family as he walked behind the coffin during its procession route Wednesday.

See more photos from Wednesday’s procession:

The end of the queue for people to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state is currently near London Bridge, according to the UK government’s live tracker. 

The queue is approximately 2.9 miles long (about 4 kilometers), the tracker says.

Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, UK Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said that the government is expecting “extremely large queues, that could go up to thirty hours.”

She added that “it won’t be thirty hours for everybody” but said that it was important people knew how long it could potentially take.

Donelan added that there will be more than 1,000 people per day on hand to help those in the queue, including from the Samaritans, the Red Cross, and the Metropolitan Police.

A woman who waited for two days to pay her respects to Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Hall said she became emotional as she passed by the late monarch’s coffin.

“It’s really, really emotional. It’s so sad. It reminds me of when my mom died in Ghana, and all the family has to go around and then pay our respects and say farewell to her. I couldn’t contain my emotion. Emotion is something natural. You can’t think, it has to come out. … I was choked up and had to cry,” Grace told CNN’s Bianca Nobilo.

Grace said that all the chairs have been taken away in Westminster Hall and mourners are in a single line to file past the Queen’s coffin.

“I was sad, just so sad not to see her again,” she said.

The first members of the public were seen entering Westminster Hall to view Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin lying in state after the hall was officially opened to the public at 12 p.m. ET (5 p.m. local time). 

The Queen will lie in state until the morning of her funeral on Monday.

Tesco supermarkets across the UK will close on the day of the late Queen’s state funeral, Tesco announced in a statement on Wednesday.

“On the morning of the funeral on Monday 19 September our stores across the UK will remain closed to allow our colleagues to pay their respects,” said Jason Tarry, Tesco UK’s CEO, in the statement.

However, some shops will remain open as an exception. 

“A small number of our London stores will be open along the funeral procession,” the statement added.

People in a 2.5-mile-long line (about 4 kilometers) in London to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II explained why they wanted to visit her coffin in Westminster Hall.

“I just feel like I will regret it if I don’t. And I just felt like I needed to come and say goodbye. That’s just me. And also, when my family has children — my boys have children — I’d like to teach them the history of it all. So, it just needed to be done today,” one woman told CNN’s Anna Stewart as she waited in line.

A group told Stewart that they were told the line could last about five hours from where they stood, but the queue is moving.

PBS announced a change in programming plans for coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

“The U.S and the Holocaust,” a three-part film directed by documentarian Ken Burns, will no longer air on Monday to accommodate special programming from PBS and BBC around the funeral.

Episode 1 of the docuseries will still premiere on Sunday, with the second episode moving to Tuesday.

Catherine, the Princess of Wales, wore a diamond and pearl leaf brooch that belonged to Queen Elizabeth II at the short service marking the arrival of the late monarch’s coffin at Westminster Hall, according to the UK’s Press Association.

The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, which led the procession of Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall earlier on Wednesday, has about 50% female regiment members, according to a defense source.

There is not a deliberate reason that a large number of the regiment members are women, the defense source told CNN.

“The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery role includes the firing of Royal Salutes to mark the grand occasions of State, including The Queen’s Birthday Parade, Royal Birthdays and Births,” according to the British Army website.

Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece, told CNN that his cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, was “one of the kindest people I knew.”

“She was always smiling … knowledgeable about everything… and had a very good sense of humor,” he said.

He also expressed his love and praise for King Charles III, and he acknowledged the unique position of being an heir.

“What you’ve been waiting for your whole life is also the saddest day of your life,” he said.

King Charles III, according to Pavlos, is “best prepared” to inherit the Crown due to his vast knowledge of his country and the Commonwealth that he has acquired through his charity work under the Prince’s Trust.

Around 100 employees at King Charles III’s former official residence, Clarence House, were given notice that they could lose their jobs after he became king, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said Wednesday.

Some employees have worked there for decades, PCS noted.

This is a “significant majority of the household and many of these staff will be the same people who have so diligently supported the new king during this period of mourning, working extremely hard over recent days only to be given redundancy notices as thanks,” PCS added.

“While some changes across the households were to be expected, as roles across the royal family change, the scale and speed at which this has been announced is callous in the extreme. Least of all because we do not know what staffing the incoming Prince of Wales and his family might need,” PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said.

Clarence House’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Britain’s capital city expects hundreds of thousands of people to visit Queen Elizabeth II as she lies in state in Westminster Hall ahead her funeral on Monday, the mayor of London Sadiq Khan told CNN, adding that the situation was “unprecedented.” 

“We expect to see over the course of the next few days hundreds of thousands of people personally pay their respects to her majesty the Queen, but also we expect to see prime ministers, presidents, members of the royal family, and others from across the globe,” he continued. 

“The really reassuring thing is our King, King Charles III, had the best possible mentor, and the best possible apprenticeship and that’s why I’m so confident he will be a wonderful king,” he added.

As world leaders and their teams arrive in London for the Queen’s funeral, Khan said the city has never before seen such crowd and this presence.

“In just a couple of days, we will have almost 300 world leaders and their teams and entourages coming to London. I don’t think our city’s ever seen the sort of presence we’re going to see over the next few days,” Khan told Sky News.

The number of mourners far exceeds the scale of other events, such as the London Olympics and other Royal events, he said, suggesting that the crowds for the Queen’s passing are larger than all those events combined.

“If you think about the London marathon, the carnival, previous royal weddings, the Olympics – it’s all that, in one,” Khan said. 

“This is a massive operation and we’re working really hard together to make sure that we can do her, we can do King Charles, we can do the Royal Family, our city, our nation, and the Commonwealth, what it deserves,” the London mayor added.

King Charles III and the rest of the Queen’s relatives have filed out of Westminster Hall, following the short service marking the arrival of the late monarch’s coffin.

In less than two hours, the doors of the hall will open to the public for her lying-in-state.

Queues are already weaving through central London and unprecedented numbers of mourners are expected.

The live queue tracker for people attending Queen Elizabeth II’s lying-in-state is now live on YouTube.

As of 10:26 a.m. ET on Wednesday, it says the line is approximately 2 miles long, with the nearest landmark to the end of the queue being Blackfriars Bridge.

This is being updated as the queue moves.

US President Joe Biden spoke with King Charles III on Wednesday, the White House announced.

The rare call between a US President and a monarch comes ahead of Biden’s attendance at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on Monday and days after the King ascended to the British throne.

Biden, offered “his condolences on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II,” the White House said in a readout of the call.

It added: “The President recalled fondly the Queen’s kindness and hospitality, including when she hosted him and the First Lady at Windsor Castle last June. He also conveyed the great admiration of the American people for the Queen, whose dignity and constancy deepened the enduring friendship and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. President Biden conveyed his wish to continue a close relationship with the King.” 

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is giving a service after the Queen’s coffin was placed in Westminster Hall.

Welby, the most senior bishop in the Church of England, read an opening prayer and an extract from John 14.

The Queen’s coffin is being carried into Westminster Hall by the bearer party, having completed its journey from Buckingham Palace.

As the coffin enters, the Choir of Westminster Abbey and the Choir of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace, is singing Psalm 139.

The Queen’s procession has passed The Cenotaph on Whitehall, where the late monarch would attend annual Remembrance Day events recognising Britain’s war dead each November.

Her coffin is approaching Westminster Hall, and will arrive in the next few minutes.

Along the way it also passed a statue of Winston Churchill, the last person to receive a state funeral in Britain in 1965.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told CNN it is a “gift” to “play a part in saying goodbye” to Queen Elizabeth II.

He is due to lead a short service once the Queen’s coffin has arrived at Westminster Hall on Wednesday.

It is a huge privilege and honor to be part of the occasion, he said.

“It’s also a very solemn moment because I had the privilege of meeting the Queen on many occasions,” he added. “There’s a deep sense of loss.”

Asked what some people might not have known about the Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury said her “extraordinarily quick sense of humor” and her “phenomenal memory.”

“She remembers people forever. Her phenomenal memory and her absolute commitment to work,” the Archbishop added. “The King is just the same. It seems to run in the family, it’s absolutely wonderful,” he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the principal leader of the Church of England, of which the British monarch is the head.

Camilla, the Queen Consort, has now left Buckingham Palace by car, along with Catherine, the Princess of Wales, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

The King’s Life Guard is meanwhile turning out in the Front Yard of Horse Guards parade and will give a Royal Salute to the coffin as it passes.

The procession of the Queen’s coffin has turned off from The Mall and is making its way down Horse Guards Parade, in the direction of the Palace of Westminster.

Horse Guards Parade is used for the Trooping the Colour ceremonies, and the road adjoined to it is adorned with the flags of Commonwealth countries.

The Queen’s oak coffin was made more than 30 years ago and is lined with lead, the royal undertakers told the British newspaper The Times.

On Monday, The Times reported the current undertakers to the royal family had inherited the coffin from the previous firm of royal funeral directors, Kenyons. 

Leverton & Sons, an independent family firm of undertakers from London, became undertakers to the royal family in 1991 according to The Times. 

The coffin “is made from English oak, which is very difficult to get hold of … Oak coffins are now made from American oak. I don’t think we could use English oak for a coffin now. It would be too expensive,” Andrew Leverton, who runs the firm, told The Times in a previous interview four years ago.

The King is wearing full day ceremonial uniform with the rank of Field Marshal, and is carrying a Field Marshal Baton presented to him by the Queen when he was given the rank in 2012.

Charles is also wearing the Order of Merit (neck decoration) with the Order of the Garter Sash and Star.

King Charles’ medals include:

Prince William is meanwhile wearing an RAF No1 uniform, Garter Sash with RAF Pilot Wings and Garter Star Chest Order. He is wearing medals to mark the Queen’s Golden, Diamond and Platinum Jubilees.

Andrew is wearing a morning suit, rather than military uniform, because he is no longer a working royal.

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nute Guns are being fired from Hyde Park by The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery while the Queen’s coffin moves in procession to the Palace of Westminster.

Big Ben is also tolling at one-minute intervals as the cortege moves through the streets of central London, which are packed with mourners.

The Queen’s coffin is draped with the Royal Standard on which is placed the Imperial State Crown on a velvet cushion and a wreath of flowers. The wreath includes:

The coffin is on a gun carriage of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. The bearer party is founded by the Queen’s Company 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards.

An escort party of two officers and 32 rank and file is founded by the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards.

The 10 pallbearers are from service equerries to the Queen, both serving and former.

The members of the royal family walking in the procession behind Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin are:

Members of the royal family travelling by car include Camilla, the Queen Consort, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. They are the spouses of King Charles, William, Edward and Harry, respectively.

The procession taking the Queen’s coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall has now begun.

King Charles III, his siblings and his sons are in the party following the coffin through London.

The coffin will arrive at Westminster Hall at around 3 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET). A service will take place, and the Queen will then lie in state until Monday, the day of her funeral.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has addressed the Queen’s funeral in an interview with CNN. “She was loved,” Khan said. Her death has been “quite personal for some people,” he added.

“She was born in London, and we’re really proud that she’s back home.”

When asked what he made of the current huge Commonwealth presence in the city to watch the Queen’s procession and pay respects, Khan said “I was born in London to Pakistani parents and Indian grandparents: she’s our Queen. She was the continuity in our lives. Presidents come and go. Prime Ministers come and go. But she was always there.”

The mayor has also tweeted that he wished King Charles III “every success” in his new role.

“On behalf of all Londoners, I wish our new monarch King Charles III every success as His Majesty takes on this momentous responsibility,” Khan said in a tweet following Charles’s public proclamation on Saturday. 

God Save the King has been played by a military band outside London’s Buckingham Palace, as the Queen’s procession from the palace to Westminster Hall approaches.

The procession will begin at 2:22 p.m. (9:22 a.m. ET).

Members of the British public and people from around the world have been queuing outside Buckingham Palace to watch the procession which will soon accompany the Queen’s coffin to Westminster Hall. 

David, a 75-year-old military veteran, camped overnight to pay respects. “The least I can do after serving in the armed forces for her … is to go and say goodbye,” he told CNN.

Sheila traveled from Yorkshire, northern England, to pay her respects and said she took the news of the monarch’s death badly.

“It’s weird, it’s like you know her. I didn’t know her, but I’ve known her my whole life… and now she’s gone,” she said.

All ceremonial viewing areas in central London are now full, the city’s government tweeted.

It also requested the public to head to screening areas in Hyde Park to “watch the procession for the Lying-in-state on large screens.”

The gun carriage of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery is moving into position in the Quadrangle of Buckingham Palace, ahead of the procession that will move the late monarch’s coffin to Westminster Hall.

Huge crowds are present outside Buckingham Palace and along the route, with the sun emerging over London ahead of the journey.

McDonald’s announced it will shut its restaurants in the United Kingdom on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral next Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences after Queen Elizabeth II died, but he has no plans to attend her funeral, according to the Kremlin.

“President [Putin] has sent a telegram of condolences. From the very beginning, the president had no other plans to participate in memorial or other events,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said said during a regular conference call with journalists.

His comments come in response to reports that Putin will not be invited to the Queen’s funeral.

When asked last Friday if Putin was planning to attend her funeral in person, Peskov had said it was “not being considered.”

A senior UK government source told CNN on Tuesday the full list of invitations had not been finalized but Putin will not be invited to the funeral because of his invasion of Ukraine. Officials from Belarus and Myanmar had also been ruled out, the source added.

In condolences to King Charles III expressed on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Putin said last Thursday, “For many decades, Elizabeth II rightfully enjoyed the love and respect of her subjects, as well as authority on the world stage.”

Around five million people followed the route of the Royal Air Force flight carrying Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin from Edinburgh to the RAF Northolt airbase on Tuesday, making it the most tracked flight in history, according to the website Flightradar24 on Wednesday.

More than 4.79 million people watched on the flight tracking site and app with another 296,000 watching on a YouTube live stream, the website said.

It added that within the first minute of the aircraft’s transponder activating, six million people attempted to click on the flight carrying the Queen.

Flightradar24 said the Queen’s record “will likely remain at the top for a long while.”

According to Flightradar24, the previous record was when 2.2m people followed a flight carrying US speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan last month.

London Fashion Week, which starts on Thursday, has rearranged its schedule to move catwalk shows from the day of the Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and cancelled all parties that day.

The Queen’s funeral is set to take place on Monday.

“No shows or events will take place on Monday 19th September,” a statement from the British Fashion Council – London Fashion Week’s organizers – read on Wednesday.

“As a business-to-business event London Fashion Week will continue while observing Royal Protocol and the event will be dedicated to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with our own moments of respect,” it said.

“Having spoken to designers and industry members, we as an industry want to unite as a creative and business community to celebrate Her Majesty’s legacy and commitment to creativity and design,” the statement continued.

“There will be a celebration of London Fashion Week in October which will include City Wide Celebration as well as parties and events that have been rescheduled (exact date tbc) with designer shows and presentations celebrated during this period,” it read.

In February 2018, Queen Elizabeth II attended British designer Richard Quinn’s runway show alongside Dame Anna Wintour. 

Quinn was the first recipient of The Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, according to Buckingham Palace.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday describing her as “a legend” during her annual State of the Union address.  

Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Von der Leyen said the Queen was “a legend” who “spoke not only to the heart of her nation, but the soul of the whole world.”

“She was a constant in the turbulent and transforming events in the last 70 years, stoic and steadfast in her service, but more than anything she always found the right words for every moment in time. From the calls she made to war evacuees in 1940, to her historic address during the pandemic,” Von der Leyen said. 

“And when I think of the situation we are in today her words at the height of the pandemic still resonate with me. She said ‘We will succeed and that success will belong to every one of us.’ She always reminded us that our future was built on new ideas and founded in our oldest values,” the EU chief added. 

“Around 33,000 people” paid their respects to Queen Elizabeth II while the late monarch was lying at rest in St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, the Scottish government said on Tuesday.

“People across the country paid their respects, attending remembrance events and reflecting on a life of service,” the government said in a tweet.

It added this “had been a very special part of history for Scotland.”

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II will be moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall – the oldest part of the Houses of Parliament – on Wednesday.

Here are some key details about the historic hall:

The Hall is more than 900 years old, with construction having begun in 1097 under King William II – the son of William the Conqueror. 

The first recorded coronation feast for a king took place in the Hall in 1189, for King Richard I, the Lionheart. 

Henry VIII’s coronation banquet took place in the Hall in 1509 – as did the banquet of his ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn in 1533, and their daughter Queen Elizabeth I in 1559.

Guy Fawkes, the most famous of the Gunpower Plot conspirators, was tried in the Hall in 1606. So was King Charles I in 1649, after he lost the English Civil war and was executed.

Queen Elizabeth’s mother and father both lay in state in Westminster Hall before her: King George VI in 1952, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in in 2002. So did her grandfather George V in 1936 and her great-grandfather Edward VII in 1910 – the first royal lying-in-state.

Winston Churchill lay in state in Westminster Hall after his death in 1965. 

Nelson Mandela delivered an address in the Hall as President of South Africa in 1996.

Some flights from London’s Heathrow Airport will be disrupted between 1:50 p.m. and 3:40 p.m. local time (between 8:50 a.m. and 10:40 a.m. ET) on Wednesday to “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall.”

Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest international airports, said Tuesday that “out of respect” for the mourning period it will be making “appropriate alterations to our operation.”

“Passengers will be notified by their airlines directly of any changes to flights,” it added.

“We anticipate further changes to the Heathrow operation on Monday September 19, when Her Majesty’s funeral is due to take place, and will communicate those in more detail over coming days,” it said on its Twitter feed.

“We apologise for the disruption these changes cause, as we work to limit the impact on the upcoming events,” it added.

Wider airspace restrictions are in place in London until Monday evening, Sept. 19, after Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral is held at Westminster Abbey.

Aircraft are banned below a certain altitude (2,500 feet above sea level) within central London, the UK Civil Aviation Authority said earlier.

Restrictions also apply to all drones flying, it said.

Trains in the United Kingdom will run through the night to ease the journey for mourners visiting London to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II, according to Britain’s PA Media news agency. 

Limited trains will operate overnight from Wednesday night, while the Queen is lying-in-state in Westminster Hall, and around 200 daily services will be added to timetables, according to PA.

“The Westminster area will be exceptionally busy from Wednesday 14 September onwards as ceremonial events take place and Lying in State starts,” Transport for London said in a statement. 

“Transport providers have well-developed plans with extra staff and services coming on-stream to help people get to where they need to be,” the Rail Delivery Group said in a statement on Monday.

The public will be able to file past the Queen’s coffin 24 hours a day from 5 p.m. (local) on Wednesday until 6:30 a.m. on the day of the monarch’s funeral on September 19, according to the UK government. 

Large crowds are expected and those wishing to attend will be required to line up for many hours, possibly overnight, the UK government added. All those attending the lying-in-state will go through “airport-style” security with only small bags permitted.

With previous reporting from Anastasia Graham-Yooll and Anna Stewart

Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday, giving Brits a chance to pay their respects to the late monarch before her funeral on Monday.

It means that the new King, Charles III, will make another difficult journey, following his mother through London and to Westminster Hall during the procession.

He will be joined by his siblings, Princes Andrew and Edward and Princess Anne, as well as his own children, Prince William and Prince Harry.

Once the coffin has arrived at Westminster Hall, a service will take place and the Queen will lie in state until Monday.

Queues to see the Queen’s coffin have already started forming. As London prepares to host its first state funeral since Winston Churchill’s death in 1965, the city is braced for unprecedented numbers of well-wishers.