RIP Elizabeth II...

Queen Elizabeth II has been laid to rest and reunited with her beloved husband Prince Philip after a day of tears, cheers and pageantry saying farewell to Britain’s longest serving monarch.

The new King Charles and the royal family accompanied her coffin for a stately while emotional funeral at Westminster Abbey and then her final journey out of London, followed by a poignant committal service on the grounds of her Windsor Castle home before a private burial there.

She now rests in King George VI memorial chapel inside Windsor’s St George’s Chapel - not only beside her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, whose death she mourned sitting alone at his funeral in April last year, but also her parents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her sister Princess Margaret.

The committal included the Queen’s Bargemaster and a Serjeant of Arms removing from the coffin her sceptre and orb and finally the Imperial Street Crown she first wore at her coronation in 1953, before the Dean of Windsor placed them on the chapel’s high altar at 4.40pm.

Shortly afterwards her coffin was seen in public for the final time, when slowly lowered into the Royal Vault - ahead of the later non-televised burial.

Last night’s final act of dedication came after a day when hundreds of thousands of people came out on to the streets to celebrate her 70 years on the throne - not only in London but in towns and cities across Britain, following the Queen’s death aged 96 on September 8 at her Balmoral estate in Scotland.

Her great-grandchildren Prince George, nine, and seven-year-old Princess Charlotte were among those attending the hour-long Westminster Abbey service - Britain’s first state funeral for 57 years - amid 2,000 guests including 500 world leaders, dignitaries and foreign royals.

The King marched solemnly behind the 123-year-old State Gun Carriage carrying her coffin through London alongside his sister the Princess Royal and brothers the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex.

The new Prince of Wales followed behind along with his brother, the King’s other son, the Duke of Sussex and Princess Anne’s son Prince Phillip.

Crowds lining the streets of the capital strew flowers across the path as the Queen’s coffin passed, while there were bursts of applause and chants of ‘Hip, hip, hooray’.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, hailed the Queen in his sermon as a ‘joyful’ figure who had touched ‘a multitude of lives’ - and echoed her address to the nation during Covid by ending: ‘We will meet again.’

But among those seen wiping away tears were the new Queen Consort, the King’s wife, as well as the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Duchess of Sussex, George and Charlotte.

Westminster Abbey guests included US president Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, French president Emmanuel Macron, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsanaro, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and Britain’s six living ex-prime ministers - Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson and their spouses.

The grandly-planned day of honour had begun when public access to the Queen’s lying-in-state ended at 6.30am, after four days which had seen at least half a million people queue for hours to pay their respects at Westminster Hall.

Several thousand troops took part in dignified ceremonial processions, first from Westminster Hall to the abbey - and then, after the service, to Wellington Arch near Buckingham Palace and then on to Windsor - each journey watched by packed crowds.

On arrival at Windsor Castle, the committal service at St George’s Chapel opened shortly after 4pm when the coffin was carried up stairs by the same group of Grenadier Guards who had been her pallbearers all day.

After the orb, sceptre and crown were taken from the coffin, the King draped the Queen’s Company Camp Colour of the Grenadier Guards upon it - accompanied by the Lord Chamberlain’s Wand of Office which he first symbolically broke.

Charles spent the service in the same place occupied by the Queen, sitting alone due to social distancing rules, during her husband’s funeral in April last year - while the new Prince of Wales occupied the seat his father had that day.

At the end, the coffin was lowered into the Royal Vault as the Dean of Windsor, the Rev David Conner, read a final psalm and commendation - Psalm 103 which includes the traditional line: ‘Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.’

Finally her family attended her private, non-televised burial at 7.30pm.

The Queen was placed in the King George VI Memorial Chapel where her coffin was joined by that of her late husband whose had previously remained in the Royal Vault.

A momentous day, and reign, came to its eventual conclusion - with her tomb now to be adorned simply by marble engraved 'ELIZABETH II 1926-2022'.