BRITAIN: Up to one million people lined the route from Westminster to Windsor yesterday to say farewell to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, "the sweet presence of a good diffused".
Flowers were strewn in the path of the cortege as the British public confounded sceptics and astounded the royal family with a display of love and affection reminiscent of the scenes which attended the funeral of Princess Diana almost five years before.
Police - who seemed unprepared for crowds lining the roads beyond west London and Heathrow en route to Windsor - estimated 400,000 people had packed into the area framed by the Mall and Whitehall for the funeral procession to Westminster Abbey, where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, pondered the public response to the death of a Queen Consort and Queen Mother who had survived and outlived the twentieth century.
"How should we explain the numbers?" he asked: "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'. Like the sun, she bathed us in her warm glow.
"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."
That public warmth helped sustain Queen Elizabeth on her saddest and loneliest day. And Prince Charles, too, visibly straining every sinew to remain composed through the hour-long service cast by the Archbishop as a celebration of his grandmother's "strength, dignity and laughter".
The queen retained her customary composure but the public smile faded into pain as her mother's coffin was carried to the waiting hearse while the pipes and drums played an Irish lament and Prince Charles readied to accompany the Queen Mother on her final journey to Windsor.
Massive crowds waited there, too, for the arrival of the coffin, still draped in the Queen Mother's personal royal standard, bearing her crown and that single wreath from "Lilibet".
And there were more flowers, and ripples of applause, as the castle gates finally closed against the watching world in preparation for the private, family service and the Queen Mother's interment alongside her beloved "Bertie", her late husband King George VI, together with the ashes of their younger daughter, Princess Margaret Rose.
Across the UK millions more watched the proceedings on television, while tens of thousands participated in special services and observed two minutes silence in public places as Westminster Abbey's Minute Bell tolled mournfully across Whitehall for 101 minutes, reflecting each of the 101 years of the Queen Mother's life.
The Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and his wife, Cheri, sat alongside Commonwealth leaders and representatives of 25 foreign royal families in a 2000-strong congregation which included all the Queen Mother's personal staff.
Prince Charles's partner, Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles, was there as was the Duchess of York, former wife of Prince Andrew and mother of the Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
Three former prime ministers - Lord Callaghan, Lady Thatcher and Mr John Major - represented three earlier decades of political power, while still-more recent political change was represented by the presence of the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, Mr David Trimble and Mr Mark Durkan.
The President, Mrs McAleese, was accompanied by the Irish Ambassador, Mr Daithí Ó Ceallaigh. In a tribute to the Queen Mother, the President said: "I know many people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and, indeed, in Ireland mourn her passing because with her, we know, goes the end of an era.
"When she was born, Dublin was the second city in the empire.
"She was not to know it but she was to face into two world wars, the aftermath of the Easter Rising and the amazing transformations which have taken place in the latter part of the century that now allows us to enjoy the prospect of much better relationships between our two countries."
Part of that transformation allowed the President's presence "to commemorate along with the people of the United Kingdom the passing of somebody who meant so much to so many people - an icon in many ways".
Dr Carey quoted the Book of Proverbs in its description of a gracious woman: "Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come." And again: "Many have done excellently but you exceed them all."
Meanwhile, the anonymous poem on the order of service echoed the queen's invocation to celebrate her mother's life as well as mourn her loss: "You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday, You can shed tears that she is gone Or you can smile because she has lived."
PA adds: Tens of thousands of people across Northern Ireland paid tribute to the Queen Mother.
Some shops and cafes closed for two minutes to allow staff and customers to pay their respects. Members of the new Police Service of Northern Ireland were given the option of taking part in a two-minute silence.