Britain wakes on Easter Monday to a period of mourning for the Queen Mother, who died at the weekend after a life spanning a century of tumultuous change.
After a Sunday of private royal grief and a modest display of public sorrow, preparations will continue this week for the Queen Mother s funeral to be held next Tuesday, April 9. Gun salutes will be fired throughout the country on Monday.
The 101-year-old royal matriarch died in her sleep on Saturday with Queen Elizabeth, her elder and surviving daughter, at her bedside.
Dressed in black, the 75-year-old monarch made her first public appearance on Sunday since her mother s death, leading her family in remembrance and prayer at the coffin of the Queen Mother in Windsor s Royal Chapel of All Saints.
Her coffin will be moved the short distance from Windsor to St. James Palace in central London on Tuesday.
On Friday, it will be taken to Westminster Hall, part of the Houses of Parliament , where it will lie in state until the day before the funeral at Westminster Abbey across the road.
The coffin will then travel back by road for a private burial later that day at St. George s Chapel, Windsor, where the Queen Mother will lie beside her beloved husband, King George VI, who died in 1952 at the age of 56.
Though dominating British media, her death has not led to the same public outpouring of grief that followed the sudden death in 1997 of Princess Diana , when thousands flocked to her London home, laying a sea of flowers.
The nation almost ground to a halt for the funeral of the ex-wife of Prince Charles , Queen Elizabeth s son and heir.
The Queen Mother s death came just seven weeks after that of her younger daughter, 71-year-old Princess Margaret, whose ashes will be placed alongside her parents.
Seen by many as the most popular member of the House of Windsor, the Queen Mother was feted as the plucky little woman who stood up to the Nazis by staying in London with her husband during the German blitzkrieg bombing of the British capital in 1940. Adolf Hitler branded her Britain s most dangerous woman.
The doughty Queen Mum kept the royal family together through seven tempestuous decades -- from the 1936 abdication crisis that propelled her shy husband onto the throne vacated by his wayward elder brother, King Edward VIII, to Prince Charles s bitter divorce from Diana in 1996.
Across Britain, flags on public buildings will fly at half mast until April 9, the end of the national period of mourning for a woman widely seen as representing the best of British.
Artillery salutes will be fired at noon (1000 GMT) on Monday. Parliament is being recalled on Wednesday so members can pay respects to the nation s favorite grandmother.
There was to be a minute s silence at Easter Monday soccer matches while at race meetings jockeys would wear black armbands in special tribute to a woman who had a passion for horses.
Windsor Castle , Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, the Queen Mother s official London residence, are providing a focus for restrained public mourning.
Flowers were laid at the gates of Buckingham Palace and teddy bears stuffed through the bars. One scrawled tribute said: Our nation lost its grandmother today.
Under a gray Sunday sky, Britons caught their first glimpse of the coffin. Draped in her personal standard and topped with pink flowers, it was carried through a corridor of golden daffodils to the small Windsor chapel.
Behind the coffin walked members of the Queen Mother s staff. One carried a potted jasmine given as an Easter present to the Queen Mother by her favored grandson, Prince Charles.
Charles, who is said to be absolutely devastated by the death of his grandmother, and his two teenage sons flew back from a skiing holiday in the Swiss resort of Klosters.
In a break with custom, the queen allowed the three to fly on the same plane, something usually avoided by the royal family for security reasons.
After the evensong service at the chapel where the coffin had been placed, Charles and his sons left Windsor for their Highgrove home, affording the heir to the throne some time to mourn his grandmother. The two were particularly close.
The Queen will stay in Windsor with some members of her family until the funeral.
The royal family will end their official period of mourning on April 19, after a memorial service for Princess Margaret.
Until then they will be carrying out official duties, although some engagements may be postponed our canceled, Buckingham Palace said.