Edinburgh crowds cheer the pontiff in a tartan scarf

They were born almost a year apart, one a princess, the other the third and youngest child of a Bavarian police officer.

As children he was drafted into the Hitler Youth on the outbreak of the Second World War while she, her father already King, staged pantomimes at Windsor Castle to help raise funds for military uniforms.

Today Queen Elizabeth, 84, and Pope Benedict, 83, greeted each other warmly as he began the first papal State visit to Britain amid a swirl of recriminations about the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

An estimated 60,000 turned out in Edinburgh to witness the Pope's convoy speeding from the airport to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and then his tour of the city. There was the odd polite protest but the vast majority of onlookers wanted to demonstrate Scotland's reputation as a hospitable nation. In return the Pope wore a tartan scarf around his shoulders as he blessed the crowds from the Popemobile.

He had been met at Edinburgh airport by the Duke of Edinburgh, and was given a tour of the Queen's official home in Scotland by the monarch and her husband, prior to the official exchange of gifts.

Appearing chilled by the autumnal Scottish weather that had earlier blown his cassock around as he disembarked Shepherd One, Benedict, addressing the assembled VIPs outside the palace, remembered how Britain had stood against Hitler.

He said: "We can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against the Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

"As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny."

He praised the achievement of peace in Northern Ireland but appeared to make a plea for multi-cultural Britain to respect "traditional" Christian values.

"Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multi-cultural society," he said. "In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate."

The Queen wished him a "most fruitful and memorable visit" and said the four-day trip, costing the taxpayer £12 million, provided an opportunity to "deepen the relationship" between the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. Children lined the start of the Popemobile route opposite St Andrew's House, the Scottish Government headquarters, where a Vatican flag was flown.

Alex Salmond, the SNP First Minister of Scotland, sported the St Ninian's Day tartan scarf — specially woven in the Scottish Borders and the first papal visit plaid — when he was introduced to the Pope.

All 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament had been presented with one last week by Cardinal Keith O'Brien, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, and the wily cleric was keen to pass one to the Holy Father.

A Catholic Church source said Cardinal O'Brien had "hidden scarves in his own cassock" for the Pope in case he had not been allowed to take them inside Holyroodhouse.

"He hid them and then put them in the Popemobile," the source said. It worked — providing possibly the defining image of the Pope's first day. On leaving Holyroodhouse, the Pope was presented with posies by six schoolchildren dressed in kilts.

Eleven-year-old Amelia Brown said: "He shook our hands. They were very cold. He was very nice."

Benedict's day had begun at 5am in his private apartment in his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo on the outskirts of Rome.

Usually the Pope is up at 6am to celebrate Mass with his private staff but he missed it to get to the airport on time. The Pope and his 30 strong entourage were flown to Scotland on a new Alitalia Airbus A320, Shepherd One.

The Pope was travelling from Edinburgh to Glasgow, where he will address about 80,000 pilgrims at an open-air mass at Bellahouston Park. Reality TV star Susan Boyle will sing at the event. He then flies to Heathrow for two days in London before the culmination of the visit in Birmingham on Sunday, with the beatification of Cardinal Newman, who died in 1890. This is the penultimate stage to making Newman, possibly the greatest religious figure of the last 200 years of British history, a saint.

Benedict's two days in London will begin tomorrow when he addresses 3,500 students and schoolchildren at St Mary's University College in Twickenham. They end with a prayer vigil on Saturday evening in Hyde Park.