On the streets of Sydney and Kyiv, they laid flowers. In California they lit candles; in Honolulu, flags flew at half-mast, and, in Paris, the Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights. In London, two rainbows emerged in the skies above Buckingham palace.
The remarkably broad sweep of Queen Elizabeth II’s life spanned the great to the inglorious, Churchill to Ceaușescu, Mandela to Mugabe. But much of her lasting legacy will lie in the tens of thousands of quieter lives she touched during her reign.
As news of her death spread, personal tributes were paid across the world.
On the Mall in London, a phalanx of black cabs formed an impromptu honour guard. “Liz is a London girl,” Michael Ackerman, a cab driver of 26 years said. “She’s one of your own, she’s one of ours.”
The late monarch was born 96 years earlier less than a mile away, at the Mayfair home of her grandparents.
By Friday afternoon, the crowds that had gathered outside Buckingham Palace to say goodbye to one monarch found themselves welcoming another. King Charles III emerged from his state Bentley to a rapturous reception, chatting to wellwishers, shaking hands and receiving a kiss on the cheek from one woman.
Thousands of miles away – and despite the terrors, pressures and privations brought by Russia’s invasion – some Ukrainians travelled to the British embassy in Kyiv with bunches of flowers.
Anatolii Zakletskyi, a 75-year-old resident of the capital, said he wanted to offer his condolences to the UK and express his admiration for the monarch: “First, as a symbol of devotion to the motherland. Secondly, [for] an absolute sense of duty before – as she herself said – God and the people. And thirdly, to all of Britain for being true friends of Ukraine.”
The news spread too, to the more distant corners of the monarch’s realm.
Eleven thousand miles away, the prime minister of Aotearoa-New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, was woken by a police officer’s torchlight in her bedroom before 5am.
Having gone to bed reading of the Queen’s ill-health, “when that torchlight came into my room I knew immediately what it meant”, Ardern said. “I am profoundly sad.”
In the country’s official condolence book, Ardern thanked the Queen for her “life of service”. She followed the words with the Māori proverb “he kotuku rerenga tahi”, which translates to “a white heron’s flight is seen but once”. It refers to a rare event, and the comparison is intended as an honour.
New Zealand radio host Mike Hosking broke down in tears on-air, discussing the Queen’s death. He’d earlier professed his love for the Queen: “She might be the greatest representative of most of our lifetimes in terms of dedication, consistency and loyalty”.
In Sydney, the sails of the city’s harbour-side Opera House will be illuminated for two nights in the Queen’s honour. Paying tribute at the Sydney’s Government House nearby, Ross Harris said his earliest memory of the Queen was when she and Prince Philip visited his primary school in Tasmania in 1977.
“When they visited, Prince Philip remarked: ‘What a jolly cold place you live in.’
“Whether you like the monarchy or loathe the monarchy, you can’t take away the fact that all these are people that are born into that situation. They make the most of that situation; they set the example for others in terms of work and giving to others.”
In India, MP and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor – who wrote the anti-Imperial polemic Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India – paid tribute to the Queen’s personal devotion to duty.
“An era in history has ended today. It had to happen one day but it is still hard to escape a sense of disbelief. RIP Queen Elizabeth.”
In Hong Kong, some used social media on Friday to mourn the woman affectionately nicknamed “boss lady” among older residents of a city that was one of Britain’s last colonies.
Elizabeth II visited Hong Kong twice during her reign, while her son – now King Charles III – was present for its handover to China in 1997.
“My grandmother who raised me always spoke of the ‘boss lady’, I heard about her so much she felt like family … today it’s like a family member passed away,” Facebook user Vincent Lam wrote.
Nathan Law, a prominent pro-democracy politician who now lives in Britain and is wanted by Hong Kong police under the sweeping, Beijing-imposed national security law, said the Queen had held a special place in many Hong Kongers’ hearts.
“The Queen is loved by millions of Hong Kong people,” he wrote on Twitter.
When the Queen first set foot in Solomon Islands, she was given the appellation Fau Ni Qweraasi, meaning “a people’s protector” by a former chief. Flags across Solomon Islands, where the Queen was head of state, were flying at half-mast on Friday, and many on Facebook changed their profile picture to images of the Queen.
Outside Ye Olde King’s Head pub in Santa Monica, California, Gregg Donovan set up a small shrine to the monarch, replete with candles, roses and a framed official portrait.
Donovan, who met the Queen, told PA Media: “She was so kind and gracious, and it’s a sad day around the world”.
“America loves the Queen … and where I work in Hollywood people were shocked, the British tourists were crying on the streets.”
At the Rose Tree Cottage English Tea Room in Pasadena, California, Brecken Armstrong was moved to tears among the memorabilia for Her Majesty. Armstrong and her husband Martin said they admired the Queen’s strong, positive feminine role. “The world just got more masculine,” Martin said.
On the other side of the American continent, New York’s Times Square projected an image of a smiling queen, while the Empire State Building was illuminated after sunset in purple and silver to honour her life and legacy.
Tel Aviv’s Municipality Building was lit up with a union flag in tribute.
In Berlin, flowers and candles were laid outside the British embassy, while in Venice, God Save the Queen was played outside the Italian city’s Festival Buildings.
Six years after the Brexit referendum that triggered a late period of tumult and bitter division in the Queen’s long reign, EU flags in Brussels flew at half-mast as a sign of respect.
The statue of Christ the Redeemer, overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, was lit up in red, white and blue.
In Kenya, where Elizabeth – then still a princess – received news of her father’s death in 1952, many reflected on the country’s colonial links to the UK and its monarchy.
“It’s a sad day because Kenya was colonised by the British, so Kenyans are part and parcel of the British system,” Vincent Kamondi, a 51-year-old taxi driver, told Agence-France-Presse.
Although Kenya’s Mau Mau freedom fighters suffered horrific abuses under the colonial regime for taking part in one of the British empire’s bloodiest insurgencies, independent Kenya has maintained strong ties with its former rulers.
“The education we have, the religion we have, it came from the British, so it gave us a path of where we are heading to,” said businessman Jacob Midam, 38.
The Queen’s death, he added, “matters a lot”.
But beyond formal and official acknowledgements, in many other parts of the former British empire – India, the Pacific, Africa, and the Caribbean – public outpourings have been muted.
In Jamaica, Leslie Henriques said the Queen’s death “doesn’t really mean anything to me”.
“Let’s hope he [King Charles III] is done with the monarchy. We don’t need kings and queens anymore. She visited Canada 22 times, Australia 16, New Zealand 10 and Jamaica six.”
With AFP, PA. Additional reporting by Natasha May, Stephanie Convery, Georgina Maka’a and Charlotte Graham-McLay
