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Queen Elizabeth II
The Queen has thanked well-wishers at home and overseas for their “touching messages of kindness” as she becomes Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
Speaking in the Scottish Borders, the 89-year-old monarch said the title was “not one to which I have ever aspired”.
At about 17:30 BST the Queen will have reigned for 23,226 days, 16 hours and approximately 30 minutes – 63 years and seven months.
David Cameron said the service she had given was “truly humbling”.
Dressed in turquoise with her trusty black handbag at her side, the Queen spoke briefly to the gathered crowds on the day she passes the record set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.
In the day’s main events:
- The Queen and Prince Philip travelled by steam train from Edinburgh to Tweedbank, where she formally opened the new £294m Scottish Borders Railway
- They were accompanied by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who praised the Queen’s “dedication, wisdom and exemplary sense of public service”
- In London, a flotilla of historic vessels, leisure cruisers and passenger boats took part in a procession along the Thames and HMS Belfast sounded a four-gun salute
The exact moment the Queen becomes the longest-reigning sovereign is unknown. Her father, George VI, passed away in the early hours of 6 February 1952, but his time of death is not known.
Business in the Commons was postponed for half an hour so that MPs, led by Mr Cameron, could pay tribute to the Queen.
The prime minster said she had been a “rock of stability” in an era when so much had changed, and her reign had been the “golden thread running through three post-war generations”.
He said it was “typical of the Queen’s selfless sense of service” that she thinks today should be a normal day.
Acting Labour leader Harriet Harman said it was “no exaggeration” to say the Queen was “admired by billions of people all around the world”.
Ministers are to present the Queen with a bound copy of cabinet papers from the meeting in 1952 when Sir Winston Churchill’s government approved the content of her first Queen’s Speech.
BBC