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After queuing for hours to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth, the first members of the public to file past the coffin of Britain’s longest-serving monarch on Monday spoke of their sadness and a sense of peace within the cathedral.
Queen Elizabeth died on Thursday in her holiday home at Balmoral in the Scottish Highlands, and her coffin was taken along the Royal Mile in the Scottish capital on Monday to lay at rest in the city’s St. Giles Cathedral for 24 hours.
“It was very beautiful, very peaceful and quiet,” said Marie Claire Cross, 55, who works in the National Health Service and had been queuing since 11am to enter the cathedral, before finally making it in over seven hours later.
“I was awed by the fact that I was in the cathedral with Queen Elizabeth, who I have looked up to all my life.
