By DAN­I­CA KIR­KA, MIKE CORDER and JILL LAW­LESS | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

LON­DON (AP) — Britain and the world are lay­ing Queen Eliz­a­beth II to rest on Mon­day at a state fu­ner­al that is draw­ing pres­i­dents and kings, princes and prime min­is­ters — and up to a mil­lion peo­ple lin­ing the streets of Lon­don to say a fi­nal good­bye to a monarch whose 70-year reign de­fined an age.

A day packed with fu­ner­al events in Lon­don and Wind­sor be­gan ear­ly when the doors of 900-year-old West­min­ster Hall were closed to mourn­ers af­ter hun­dreds of thou­sands had filed in front of her flag-draped cof­fin. Many had wait­ed for hours in line, in­clud­ing through cold nights, to see the ly­ing in state in an out­pour­ing of col­lec­tive grief and re­spect.

“I felt like I had to come and pay my fi­nal re­spects to our ma­jes­tic queen. She has done so much for us and just a lit­tle thank you re­al­ly from the peo­ple,” said Tra­cy Dob­son, who was among the last to join the line.

In a coun­try known for pomp and pageantry, the first state fu­ner­al since Win­ston Churchill’s promised to be a spec­tac­u­lar dis­play: 142 Roy­al Navy sailors are set to pull the gun car­riage car­ry­ing Eliz­a­beth’s cof­fin to West­min­ster Abbey, where 2,000 peo­ple rang­ing from world lead­ers to health care work­ers and vol­un­teers plan to mourn her. Ahead of the cer­e­mo­ny, one of the Abbey’s bells is tolling 96 times — once a minute for each year of her life.

Mon­day has been de­clared a pub­lic hol­i­day in ho­n­our of Eliz­a­beth, who died Sept. 8 — and hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple de­scend­ed on cen­tral Lon­don to par­take in the his­toric mo­ment. Long be­fore the ser­vice was set to be­gin, city au­thor­i­ties said view­ing ar­eas along the route of the fu­ner­al’s pro­ces­sion were full.

Mil­lions more are ex­pect­ed to tune in­to the fu­ner­al live on tele­vi­sion, and crowds are flock­ing to parks and pub­lic spaces across the U.K. to watch it on screens.

Guests arrive inside Westminster Abbey ahead of The State Funeral of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, in London Monday Sept. 19, 2022. The Queen, who died aged 96 on Sept. 8, will be buried at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year. (Danny Lawson/Pool Photo via AP)

On the evening be­fore, King Charles III is­sued a mes­sage of thanks to peo­ple in the U.K. and around the world, say­ing he and his wife Camil­la, the queen con­sort, have been “moved be­yond mea­sure” by the large num­bers of peo­ple who have turned out to pay their re­spects to the queen.

“As we all pre­pare to say our last farewell, I want­ed sim­ply to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to say thank you to all those count­less peo­ple who have been such a sup­port and com­fort to my fam­i­ly and my­self in this time of grief,” he said. Charles and his sons, Princes William and Har­ry, head­ed to West­min­ster Hall just be­fore the fu­ner­al was set to be­gin in or­der to ac­com­pa­ny the queen’s cof­fin.

Fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al in the me­dieval abbey where Eliz­a­beth was mar­ried and crowned, her cof­fin — ringed by units of the armed forces in dress uni­forms and mem­bers of her fam­i­ly — will be brought through the cap­i­tal’s streets to Welling­ton Arch near Hyde Park.

There, it will be placed in a hearse to be dri­ven to Wind­sor Cas­tle — where Eliz­a­beth spent much of her time — for an­oth­er pro­ces­sion be­fore a com­mit­tal ser­vice in St. George’s Chapel. She will be laid to rest with her late hus­band, Prince Philip, at a pri­vate fam­i­ly ser­vice.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden was among lead­ers to pay their re­spects at the queen’s cof­fin on Sun­day as thou­sands of po­lice, hun­dreds of British troops and an army of of­fi­cials made fi­nal prepa­ra­tions for the fu­ner­al.

Biden called Queen Eliz­a­beth II “de­cent” and “ho­n­ourable” and “all about ser­vice” as he signed the con­do­lence book, say­ing his heart went out to the roy­al fam­i­ly.

Mourn­ers start­ed ar­riv­ing to take their seats about three hours ahead of the cer­e­mo­ny.

Peo­ple across Britain paused for a minute of si­lence at 8 p.m. Sun­day in mem­o­ry of the on­ly monarch most have ever known. At West­min­ster Hall, the con­stant stream of mourn­ers paused for 60 sec­onds as peo­ple ob­served the minute of re­flec­tion in deep si­lence.

In Wind­sor, rain be­gan to fall as the crowd fell silent for the mo­ment of re­flec­tion. Some camped overnight out­side the cas­tle in or­der to re­serve the best spots to view the queen’s cof­fin.

Jil­ly Fitzger­ald, who was in Wind­sor, said there was a sense of com­mu­ni­ty among the mourn­ers as they pre­pared to wait hours to see pro­ces­sion car­ry­ing the queen’s cof­fin.

“It’s good to be with all the peo­ple who are all feel­ing the same. It’s like a big fam­i­ly be­cause every­one feels that … the queen was part of their fam­i­ly,” she said.

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As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Sylvia Hui, Samya Kul­lab and David Key­ton con­tributed to this re­port.