Princes' candlelit vigil

It was the supreme expression of homage. At three corners of the catafalque stood princes, at the fourth a royal viscount. Nearby were the princes of a younger generation and, among many, many others, there was Beverley Green, her 11-year-old daughter Louisa and seven-year-old son Mark from Camberwell.

This is what the Queen Mother hoped for - indeed, lived for. This was the moment when that extraordinary bond between her beloved family and her beloved people crystallised into a single, symbolic moment. They were all gathered around her coffin in Westminster Hall a couple of hours before nightfall, before today's funeral.

The flowing stream of people who had come to be near the Mother- Queen was brought to a gentle halt.

Prince William, Prince Harry, the Princess Royal, her son Peter Phillips and her husband Cdr Timothy Laurence took up positions on a raised platform on the east side of Westminster Hall, where the coffin had lain since Friday.

In the great hush of the place there was the creak of a door and, from the west, Prince Andrew, in his naval uniform, entered at slow march followed by his brothers Prince Charles and Prince Edward, and Lord Linley, son of the late Princess Margaret.

On the stone staircase by the great stained glass window that commemorates the Palace of Westminster's war dead, the crowd was stilled. Mrs Green from Camberwell stood motionless. Her children were silent, attentive. Eleven police constables marched slowly to the staircase and took up positions among the two or three hundred who waited and watched. Prince Charles took the south-west corner of the catafalque. Intriguingly he was beyond sight of most of the cameras. He stood, head bowed and motionless. Prince Andrew stood at the southeast corner; Edward opposite him in the north-west, and the princes' cousin, David Linley, at the north-east.

The scene echoed that of midnight on 27 January, 1936, when the new king Edward VIII and his three brothers stood silent vigil over the coffin of their father George V.

Then, as now, the coffin lay in state in Westminster Hall. There was another vigil, less celebrated but equally significant on the death of George VI in 1952. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, slipped into this place alone late at night, dressed in black, wearing a brooch her Bertie, the late king, had given her. She stood for almost two hours.

From then until just a matter of days ago she devoted herself to the ideals of her husband and, before him his father. George V and his son - known even in his lifetime as the Good King - embraced the idea of a royal family that served the people.

It was the Queen Mother who kept this tradition alive, even through a recent decade and a half of turmoil that saw scorn heaped upon those she loved most dearly.

There was no scorn last night, only sorrow. As the princes stood in reverent silence, people of all ages, all colours, some in wheelchairs, some in their mother's arms, trickled past.

There was former Labour prime minister Lord Callaghan, bowed over his stick, shuffling but determined. It was said the Queen Mother preferred him to all other Downing Street incumbents. A number of MPs, backbenchers and former ministers came to nod at the coffin which is covered in her standard and topped by the incomparable crown of the last Empress of India.

Mrs Green and her children had joined the queue at Southwark Bridge. It took them five hours to reach the coffin and the unexpected, but unforgettable spectacle of the Queen Mother's grandsons and great-grandsons sharing with them and everyone else that last act of respect.

"We had to come," she said. "I felt it was right to come."

Pictures: The royal mourners
Pictures: The ceremony