Poignant images of Queen Elizabeth II dominated the entrance pages of Britain’s grieving newspapers Friday, charting her journey from coronation to matriarch of the nation.
An image of the 27-year-old Elizabeth taken at her 1953 coronation, full of regal splendor clasping the Sovereign’s Orb and Scepter within the vaulted partitions of Westminster Abbey, coated the entrance pages of The Times, Guardian, Daily Star and Independent.
The Sun, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Daily Mirror as a substitute selected pictures of the white-haired monarch as she neared the top of her record-breaking 70-year-reign.
The Telegraph carried a quote made by the queen for the victims of the September 11, 2001 assaults. “Grief is the price we pay for love,” it mentioned.
Most tabloids marked the event with subdued black-and-white entrance pages, though the Sun splashed its header in royal purple, above the headline “We loved you Ma’am.”
“Rest in peace, Ma’am. The Sun and our readers loved you. We are proud you were our Queen,” it added.
The Daily Express carried the headline “Our Beloved Queen is Dead,” whereas the Daily Mirror merely wrote “Thank you.”
“Our hearts are broken”, mentioned the Daily Mail headline. “How to find the words? Our grief is a hundred different emotions, all of them hard to grasp,” mentioned its front-page splash.
“As God Save the Queen played on the radio and TV, as we heard that our beloved monarch had died, a nation’s heart broke,” it added.
The story unsurprisingly stuffed the within pages of the memento version papers, with most dedicating at the very least 20 pages to the seismic occasions.