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CNN Live Today
Mourners Pay Respects to Queen Mother
Aired April 09, 2002 - 14:17 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A million mourners lined the streets of London today to watch the royal procession carry the Queen Mother to her final resting place. CNN's Christiane Amanpour has more.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the moment of final farewell to empire, as they paid their last respects to the woman who symbolized Britain's greatest age. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's life of public service spanned an entire century. And the best of British pomp and circumstance paid tribute.
A gun carriage bore her coffin, atop which lay the crown she wore for the coronation of her husband, King George VI, in 1937, as well as a wreath of white roses from her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. Behind and on foot, the senior male members of the royal family, led by Prince Philip, her son-in-law, her grandsons, and in a break with tradition, her granddaughter, Princess Anne.
The queen led the rest of the royals inside Westminster Abbey, where prime ministers, politicians, foreign dignitaries and representatives of 25 foreign royal families made up more than 2,000 mourners. The funeral was marked by the Queen Mother's favorite hymns, Bible readings, and a eulogy to the very human, as well as the formal side, of a long and eventful life.
MOST REV. GEORGE CAREY, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: The Queen Mother's strength as a person was expressed best through her remarkable dealings with people -- her ability to make all human encounters, however fleeting, feel both special and personal.
AMANPOUR: Outside, the public followed the service by loudspeaker. And when the funeral ended, the queen and her family escorted the coffin past the tomb of the unknown soldier, where the wreath of roses will be laid, echoing what her mother did in 1923, when she spontaneously placed her wedding bouquet on the tomb.
The public lined the route and some threw flowers, as the hearse carrying the Queen Mother's coffin wound slowly to her final resting place. A flyover by the battle of Britain vintage aircraft, a final tribute to the woman who had done so much to help rally and comfort the country during the darkest hours of World War II.
The Queen Mother is now buried in the historic Windsor Castle outside London, reunited half a century later in the family vault with her husband, King George.
(on camera): In 1900, when the Queen Mother was born, the British empire covered one-fifth of the earth's surface. And the hundreds of thousands of people who turned up to view her coffin lying in state and her funeral, were perhaps saying farewell as much to a proud history, as to a beloved national symbol. Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Westminster.
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