Poignant photographs of Queen Elizabeth II dominated the front pages of Britain’s grieving newspapers Friday, charting her journey from coronation to matriarch of the nation.
A picture of the 27-year-old Elizabeth taken at her 1953 coronation, full of regal splendor clasping the Sovereign’s Orb and Scepter in the vaulted walls of Westminster Abbey, covered the front pages of The Times, Guardian, Daily Star and Independent.
The Sun, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Daily Mirror instead chose images of the white-haired monarch as she neared the end of her record-breaking 70-year-reign.
The Telegraph carried a quote made by the queen for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. “Grief is the price we pay for love,” it said.
Most tabloids marked the occasion with subdued black-and-white front pages, although 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,” while the Daily Mirror simply wrote “Thank you.”
“Our hearts are broken”, said the Daily Mail headline. “How to find the words? Our grief is a hundred different emotions, all of them hard to grasp,” said 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 filled the inside pages of the souvenir edition papers, with most dedicating at least 20 pages to the seismic events.
