LON­DON — Peo­ple griev­ed in the crowds out­side Buck­ing­ham Palace when of­fi­cials car­ried a no­tice con­firm­ing the Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s death to the gates of her Lon­don home.

Eliz­a­beth died peace­ful­ly Thurs­day af­ter­noon at Bal­moral Cas­tle in Scot­land. All four of her chil­dren and oth­er mem­bers of her fam­i­ly trav­elled there to be at her side.

Thou­sands gath­ered in the pour­ing rain to mark their re­spects for the late monarch, who died Thurs­day at age 96.

Roy­al su­per­fan John Loughrey, 67, wept out­side the palace as he paid trib­ute to the “in­spi­ra­tional” queen. He com­pared her and the late Prince Philip to swans, which are said to die of bro­ken hearts when they lose their mate. She and Philip were mar­ried for 73 years un­til his death in April of last year.

“She went down­hill af­ter the Duke of Ed­in­burgh died,″ Loughrey said. “They were like two swans.

“God save the Queen.”

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LON­DON — Politi­cians from across the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum in Britain unit­ed in sor­row at the death of Queen Eliz­a­beth II, a pass­ing that brought frac­tious every­day pol­i­tics in the coun­try to a halt.

Prime Min­is­ter Liz Truss said the coun­try was “dev­ast­ed” by the death of the monarch, call­ing her “the rock on which mod­ern Britain was built.”

“We are now a mod­ern, thriv­ing, dy­nam­ic na­tion,” Truss said out­side 10 Down­ing St. in Lon­don. “Through thick and thin, Queen Eliz­a­beth II pro­vid­ed us with the sta­bil­i­ty and the strength that we need­ed.

“She was the very spir­it of Great Britain – and that spir­it will en­dure,” end­ing on words no British leader has said for 70 years: “God save the king.”

Truss was ap­point­ed by the queen just two days ago, be­com­ing the 15th prime min­is­ter to serve dur­ing Eliz­a­beth’s reign.

The Union Jack flag atop the prime min­is­ter’s 10 Down­ing Street res­i­dence was low­ered to half-staff af­ter the monarch’s death was an­nounced.

Truss’ pre­de­ces­sor, Boris John­son, said “this is our coun­try’s sad­dest day.”

He said the death of the on­ly monarch most Britons have ever known would pro­voke “a deep and per­son­al sense of loss – far more in­tense, per­haps, than we ex­pect­ed.”

He said her heir, King Charles III, would “am­ply do jus­tice to her lega­cy.”

Op­po­si­tion Labour Par­ty leader Keir Starmer al­so paid trib­ute.

“Above the clash­es of pol­i­tics, she stood not for what the na­tion fought over, but what it agreed up­on. As Britain changed rapid­ly around her, this ded­i­ca­tion be­came the still point of our turn­ing world,” he said. “So as our great Eliz­a­bethan era comes to an end, we will ho­n­our the late Queen’s mem­o­ry by keep­ing alive the val­ues of pub­lic ser­vice she em­bod­ied.”

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LON­DON — Roy­al of­fi­cials have con­firmed that Britain’s new monarch will be known as King Charles III, end­ing spec­u­la­tion about whether would use an­oth­er name dur­ing his reign.

The for­mer Prince of Wales has been known as Prince Charles since his birth in 1948, but British mon­archs have in the past se­lect­ed new names when they as­cent to the throne.

The late Queen Eliz­a­beth II said ear­li­er this year that she hoped Charles’ wife Camil­la, would be known as queen con­sort.

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Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin was among the sea of world lead­ers who ex­pressed their con­do­lences to the British roy­al fam­i­ly over the death of Queen Eliz­a­beth II on Thurs­day.

De­spite the ten­sions be­tween Rus­sia and Britain over the war in Ukraine, Putin reached out to King Charles III in a telegram. He wrote: “The most im­por­tant events in the re­cent his­to­ry of the Unit­ed King­dom are in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked with the name of Her Majesty. For many decades, Eliz­a­beth II right­ful­ly en­joyed the love and re­spect of her sub­jects, as well as au­thor­i­ty on the world stage.

“I wish you courage and per­se­ver­ance in the face of this heavy, ir­repara­ble loss. I ask you to con­vey the words of sin­cere sym­pa­thy and sup­port to the mem­bers of the roy­al fam­i­ly and all the peo­ple of Great Britain.”

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U.S. pres­i­dents past and present ex­pressed their con­do­lences over the death of Queen Eliz­a­beth II on Thurs­day.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and first la­dy Jill Biden said in a state­ment that Eliz­a­beth was “more than a monarch” and that “she de­fined an era.”

“Queen Eliz­a­beth II was a stateswoman of un­matched dig­ni­ty and con­stan­cy who deep­ened the bedrock Al­liance be­tween the Unit­ed King­dom and the Unit­ed States,” the Bidens said. “She helped make our re­la­tion­ship spe­cial.”

Biden’s pre­de­ces­sor in the White House, Don­ald Trump, said in a state­ment that Eliz­a­beth “will al­ways be re­mem­bered for her faith­ful­ness to her coun­try and her un­wa­ver­ing de­vo­tion to her fel­low coun­try­men and women.

“Mela­nia and I will al­ways cher­ish our time to­geth­er with the Queen, and nev­er for­get Her Majesty’s gen­er­ous friend­ship, great wis­dom, and won­der­ful sense of hu­mor. What a grand and beau­ti­ful la­dy she was — there was no­body like her!”

For­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and his wife, Michelle Oba­ma, al­so re­called the queen fond­ly.

“Back when we were just be­gin­ning to nav­i­gate life as Pres­i­dent and First La­dy, she wel­comed us to the world stage with open arms and ex­tra­or­di­nary gen­eros­i­ty,” the Oba­ma’s said in a state­ment. “Time and again, we were struck by her warmth, the way she put peo­ple at ease, and how she brought her con­sid­er­able hu­mor and charm to mo­ments of great pomp and cir­cum­stance.

For­mer pres­i­dents Bill Clin­ton, George W. Bush and Jim­my Carter al­so is­sued state­ments ex­press­ing their con­do­lences.

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UNIT­ED NA­TIONS — The U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil stood in silent trib­ute to Queen Eliz­a­beth II at the start of a meet­ing on Ukraine on Thurs­day af­ter France’s U.N. am­bas­sador, Nico­las De Riv­iere, the cur­rent coun­cil pres­i­dent, sent con­do­lences on be­half of its 15 mem­bers to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of the Unit­ed King­dom, her fam­i­ly and friends.

As Britain’s longest-serv­ing monarch, De Riv­iere said Eliz­a­beth presided “over a pe­ri­od of his­toric changes both for her coun­try and the world,” and that “her life was de­vot­ed to the ser­vice of her coun­try.”

Britain’s U.N. am­bas­sador, Bar­bara Wood­ward, thanked the coun­cil for the silent trib­ute and said the queen will be re­mem­bered “for her ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice at home, across the Com­mon­wealth and around the globe” that “fos­tered peace and friend­ship world­wide.”

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ROME — Pope Fran­cis told King Charles III in a telegram that he is pray­ing for “eter­nal rest” for Charles’ late moth­er, Queen Eliz­a­beth II.

The pon­tiff said he was deeply sad­dened to learn of the queen’s death on Thurs­day at her Scot­land es­tate, Bal­moral Cas­tle. He of­fered “heart­felt con­do­lences to Your Majesty, the Mem­bers of the Roy­al Fam­i­ly, the Peo­ple of the Unit­ed King­dom and the Com­mon­wealth.”

Fran­cis, who met with the queen in 2014, said, “I will­ing­ly join all who mourn her loss in pray­ing for the late Queen’s eter­nal rest, and in pay­ing trib­ute to her un­stint­ing ser­vice to the good of the Na­tion and the Com­mon­wealth, her ex­am­ple of de­vo­tion to du­ty, her stead­fast wit­ness of faith in Je­sus Christ and her firm hope in his promis­es.”

Eliz­a­beth, who as queen was head of the Church of Eng­land, first vis­it­ed the Vat­i­can while a princess in 1951. The first pon­tiff she met at the Vat­i­can as queen was John XXI­II, in 1961.