London ? The great State Bell of St. Paul’s Cathedral tolled for an hour Sunday in remembrance of the Queen Mother as people across Britain prayed for her at Easter services and admirers lined up at royal palaces to sign books of condolence.

Queen Elizabeth II, who has lost her mother and her only sister, Princess Margaret, within seven weeks, attended a private service at Windsor Castle, grieving a much-loved royal matriarch who died Saturday at 101. Prince Charles and his sons flew home from a ski trip to Switzerland to join the rest of the royal family.

Crowds of admirers gathered outside Windsor Castle’s gates, and some left flowers and notes. More than 50 bright bouquets of spring flowers rested against a St. James’s Palace wall in central London where hundreds of people lined up on a chilly and overcast morning to sign books of condolence.

More than a thousand visitors had signed the books by lunchtime, and the figure had more than doubled by mid-afternoon.

Marion Russell, 59, said she spent the night outside the gates of Buckingham Palace after lighting a candle in memory of the queen mother.

“I saw the queen mother three or four times in my lifetime and she was a beautiful grand old woman who did so much for this country.”

Buckingham Palace announced the Queen Mother would lie in state in the Palace of Westminster, the British Parliament, for three days beginning April 6. On April 9, her coffin will be taken to Westminster Abbey where a royal ceremonial funeral will be held one step down in pomp and pageantry from a state funeral accorded reigning monarchs. The queen mother will be buried in a royal vault at Windsor beside her husband, George VI, who reigned from 1936 to 1952.

Flags flew at half-staff from Buckingham Palace to the Murrayfield rugby stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland, 50 miles south of Glamis Castle, the Queen Mother’s ancestral home.

The royal family will remain in mourning until April 19, after the planned memorial service for Princess Margaret, who died Feb. 9 at age 71.

‘Passing of an age’

The queen mother, who joined the royal family in 1923 when she married the second son of King George V, led an active public life almost until the end. She had an especially close bond with the generation that lived through World War II, when German bombs rained down on London.

Over decades of dramatic social change and upheaval, through the abdication crisis that put her reluctant husband on the throne in 1936, the devastation of World War II and the royal family breakups of the 1990s, the queen mother endured as a symbol of stability and strength.

During his Easter homily at Westminster Cathedral, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, paid tribute to the queen mother’s “courage, dignity, grace, sense of fun and vitality.”

“And with her today goes the passing of a century, the passing of an age,” he said.

Modernity vs. monarchy

As is standard now for monarchial events in a democratic age, the royal family and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government have taken on a delicate balancing act. They are determined to honor the queen mother without disturbing the regular rhythms of Britain in the spring.

As this is the peak season for soccer, rugby, and horse racing, it was announced Sunday that all major sporting events would go on as scheduled during the mourning period but that jockeys, players and referees would wear black armbands.

Theaters and movie houses will operate as usual, with a moment of silence suggested before each performance. Parliament will be recalled from its Easter recess, but only for three hours, for memorial speeches. Flags will fly at half-staff until the funeral, but the day of the funeral will not be a national holiday.

More traditional Britons are already complaining that proper deference is not being shown to the Queen Mother. The BBC reported receiving angry calls Saturday night because the network returned to normal programming 3 1/2 hours after announcing her death. There were critical columns in pro-monarchy newspapers Sunday complaining that the BBC anchor, Peter Sissons, failed to wear a black necktie during the announcement.