Britons bid farewell to 'Queen Mum'

LONDON (AP) -- Kings, queens and royalty from around the world mourned the Queen Mother Elizabeth at her funeral Tuesday in Westminster Abbey as huge crowds stood outside, honoring a woman beloved for her kindness and dedication to duty.

Up to 1 million people lined the 20-mile route taken by the funeral cortege from central London to Windsor Castle, police said. Tens of thousands of people stood outside the abbey during the service, many singing hymns as the service was broadcast over loudspeakers.

In a display of pageantry, 192 bagpipers and drummers of royal regiments escorted the royal matriarch's coffin to the abbey as the world mourned her death March 30 at age 101. The shrill lament of the bagpipes was punctuated by the staccato beat of the drums.

In the centuries-old burial service, bishops and priests gave thanks for the life of the queen mother, saying that she gave royalty a smiling face even in the darkest days of World War II.

Massed choirs in red and white chanted prayers as the congregation of 2,100 mourners led by Queen Elizabeth II and her family prayed for the queen mother in the darkened abbey.

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey told the congregation in the abbey that the queen mother had enriched the lives of many people through decades of service.

The queen mother's coffin was carried to the Abbey on a gun carriage pulled by six black horses of the Royal Horse Artillery. The same carriage carried the coffin of her husband King George VI at his funeral in 1952.