Good evening. It has been a momentous day looking at live video from outside Buckingham

Palace and the crowds that are still there at 1 a.m. local time are to overstate the

magnitude of this moment. In the entire history of the British monarchy, Elizabeth II, who died

today at age 96 after 70 years on the throne, was the longest reigning queen or king ever.

It is also impossible to overstate the void that people in Britain are feeling tonight at

the loss the only monarch most have ever known. Her reign spanned 15 British Prime Ministers,

14 American presidents, seven popes, the end of the Soviet Empire, the decline of her

own and its rebirth as modern Britain. The people you see there outside Buckingham Palace

and gathering elsewhere as well, Winter Castle have been gathering since this afternoon

in the reign on word that the queen at Balmoral Castle in Scotland had been put under medical

supervision. The arrival, a short time later, of royal family members of Balmoral only

underscored the gravity of the hour and the family's single-minded response to it. The

image of two of the queen's sons, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, Edward's wife Sophie

and Prince William at the wheel, all together in the same vehicle. From a sometimes contentious

but always message conscious, family, the message this image sent was clear. Then the

clouds began lifting, rainbows formed outside Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. They

signaled hope but delivered only sadness just a short time later. The news coming in a

simple message behind a humble frame and keeping with the quiet power the note conveyed.

It read, the queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The king and the queen consort

will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow. People grew

quiet at the news until a refrain was heard that had not been sung since the time of Elizabeth's

father George VI.

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