Funeral attendees then sang the national anthem, some of them saying the words "God save the king" for the first time. A final lament from the queen's bagpiper brought the service to a close.
Then, as the sun pierced through the heavy cloud cover that had blanketed London in the morning, Royal Navy sailors took the casket once more to Wellington Arch, to the sounds of a funeral march backed by Big Ben's tolling and the loud report of artillery guns. The coffin was loaded onto a hearse, which drove to Windsor Castle, where the royal family is to lay the queen to rest in a private ceremony in St. George's Chapel.
After the funeral, the tables outside the City of Quebec pub just across from Hyde Park filled up quickly.
"To the queen," a group of three friends said as they clinked glasses of Guinness beer and watched ongoing BBC coverage of the procession on a cellphone.
Reflecting on "the end of an era," Zoe Dearsley marveled at the queen's seven decades of service.
"She served for all that time with such grace. To be 96, two days from death and still doing her duty, meeting with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, probably the last thing she wanted to do, it's just remarkable."
Dearsley's boyfriend, Dan Ellis, said that, as a native South African, he's always been somewhat less enamored of the British monarchy but still recognized the queen's dedication and staying power.
"I'm somewhat skeptical of monarchy generally, but she had such character," he said. "She was the best of leadership."
