By BBC News
Staff
Without exception, the papers all focus on the start of the Queen's lying-in-state, with a number of titles choosing to use full-page photographs – and few words – to report yesterday's events on their front pages.
Metro features the procession taking the Queen from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster, with the Imperial State Crown placed on top of her coffin in sharp focus in the centre of the image. "Our jewel, her crown", it says.
The Daily Mail also has a single photo, showing the coffin in place at Westminster Hall, guarded by a soldier bowing his head in respect. "She lies at peace as her people bid solemn farewells", says the headline.
The front page of the Daily Express highlights the scale and grandeur of the occasion, with the Queen's coffin towards the bottom of an image that includes the magnificent hammer-beam roof of Westminster Hall.
On its wraparound, the Times shows members of the First Battalion Grenadier Guards carefully laying the regiment's flag on the steps leading up to the coffin, in what it says was their last act before becoming the King's Company. The paper has the headline, "Her Crown And Glory" – as well as a quote by the Queen from September 2001, when she responded to the terror attacks on New York by saying, "grief is the price we pay for love".
The same image – of the Prince and Princess of Wales, standing at Westminster Hall ahead of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – dominates the front page of both the Daily Mirror and the Sun.
The Mirror notes the "pride and the pain" that was felt by the Royal Family as they mourned the Queen "amid scenes of pageantry" – while the Sun says their faces were "etched with grief" as they looked on at an "emotion-filled" ceremony.
The Daily Telegraph says the royals "carried their grief with dignity" for six long days before passing the Queen's coffin from their care to the public – "as the greatest lying-in-state spectacle in living memory begins".
"They opened the weir gates just after five o'clock and the flow began", says the Times – describing the moment when people who had queued for days began filing past the Queen's coffin.
The first mourners allowed into Westminster Hall have told the Guardian how they were overcome with emotion as they paid their respects – several say they were "fighting back tears" at what one describes as a "shattering and incredibly upsetting" experience.
The i reports that a tourist from Minnesota said it was the "honour of a lifetime" to be the first American through – adding that he described the scene as "very understated, elegant, regal and perfect".
Several papers echo those thoughts in their editorials. "A triumph of sad splendour", says the Sun – "flawless and magnificent".
The Daily Mirror acknowledges a "display of precision-perfect pageantry" – while the Daily Express says the huge crowds were "every bit as breath-taking as a Red Arrows flypast".
"In a highly-charged week of memorable, heart-breaking and sombre moments", says the Daily Mail, "yesterday was perhaps the most remarkable. Even in a country with a history as long, distinguished and glorious as ours, barely a day can have pulsated with such intensity and emotion."
What next? A day-by-day guide from now to the funeral
Watch: Queen Elizabeth II's lying-in-state
Who's invited to the Queen's funeral – and who's not?
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