Thou­sands of peo­ple spent Lon­don’s cold­est night in months hud­dled in line to view the cof­fin of Queen Eliz­a­beth II, and au­thor­i­ties warned Sat­ur­day that ar­riv­ing mourn­ers face a 16-hour wait.

Po­lice ar­rest­ed a man af­ter what the force de­scribed as a “dis­tur­bance” Fri­day night in Par­lia­ment’s West­min­ster Hall, where the queen’s cof­fin is ly­ing in state, draped in her Roy­al Stan­dard and capped with a di­a­mond-stud­ded crown.

Par­lia­men­tary au­thor­i­ties said some­one got out of the queue and tried to ap­proach the cof­fin on its plat­form. The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice force said a man was de­tained for a sus­pect­ed pub­lic-or­der of­fense.

The tide of peo­ple want­i­ng to say good­bye to the queen has grown steadi­ly since the pub­lic was first ad­mit­ted to the hall on Wednes­day. On Fri­day, au­thor­i­ties tem­po­rary halt­ed let­ting more vis­i­tors join the end of the line, which snakes around South­wark Park some 5 miles (8 kilo­me­ters) from Par­lia­ment.

Overnight, vol­un­teers dis­trib­uted blan­kets and cups of tea to peo­ple in line as the tem­per­a­ture fell to 6 de­grees Cel­sius (43 de­grees Fahren­heit). De­spite the weath­er, mourn­ers de­scribed the warmth of a shared ex­pe­ri­ence.

“It was cold overnight, but we had won­der­ful com­pan­ions, met new friends. The ca­ma­raderie was won­der­ful,″ Chris Har­man of Lon­don said. “It was worth it. I would do it again and again and again. I would walk to the end of the earth for my queen.”

Peo­ple had myr­i­ad rea­sons for com­ing, from af­fec­tion for the queen to a de­sire to be part of a his­toric mo­ment. Si­mon Hop­kins, who trav­eled from his home in cen­tral Eng­land, likened it to “a pil­grim­age.”

“(It) is a bit strange, be­cause that kind of goes against my grain,” he said. “I’ve been kind of drawn in­to it.”

Hon­or­ing their pa­tience, King Charles III and Prince William made an unan­nounced vis­it to greet peo­ple wait­ing to file past Eliz­a­beth’s cof­fin. The two se­nior roy­als shook hands and thanked the mourn­ers in the miles-long queue near Lam­beth Bridge.

Charles has made sev­er­al im­promp­tu walk­a­bouts since he be­came king on Sept. 8, in an at­tempt to meet as many of his sub­jects as pos­si­ble.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic kept silent­ly stream­ing in­to West­min­ster Hall even as the queen’s four chil­dren — Charles, Princess Anne, Prince An­drew and Prince Ed­ward — stood vig­il around the flag-draped cof­fin for 15 min­utes on Fri­day evening. A ba­by’s cry was the on­ly sound.

Be­fore the vig­il, Ed­ward said the roy­al fam­i­ly was “over­whelmed by the tide of emo­tion that has en­gulfed us and the sheer num­ber of peo­ple who have gone out of their way to ex­press their own love, ad­mi­ra­tion and re­spect (for) our dear ma­ma.”

All eight of Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s grand­chil­dren are due to stand vig­il be­side her cof­fin on Sat­ur­day. Charles’ sons, Prince William and Prince Har­ry, will at­tend along with Princess Anne’s chil­dren, Zara Tin­dall and Pe­ter Philips; Prince An­drew’s daugh­ters, Princess Beat­rice and Princess Eu­ge­nie; and the two chil­dren of Prince Ed­ward – La­dy Louise Wind­sor and James, Vis­count Sev­ern.

William, who af­ter his grand­moth­er’s death is now the heir to the throne, will stand at the head of the cof­fin and Har­ry at the foot. Both princes, who are mil­i­tary vet­er­ans, will be in uni­form.

Most se­nior roy­als hold hon­orary mil­i­tary roles and have worn uni­forms to com­mem­o­rate the queen. Har­ry, who served in Afghanistan as a British army of­fi­cer, wore civil­ian clothes dur­ing the pro­ces­sion of the queen’s cof­fin from Buck­ing­ham Palace be­cause he is no longer a work­ing mem­ber of the roy­al fam­i­ly. He and his wife Meghan quit roy­al du­ties and moved to the Unit­ed States in 2020.

The king, how­ev­er, has re­quest­ed that both William and Har­ry wear their mil­i­tary uni­forms at the West­min­ster Hall vig­il.

Peo­ple queu­ing to see the queen have been of all ages and come from all walks of life. Many bowed be­fore the cof­fin or made a sign of the cross. Sev­er­al vet­er­ans, their medals shin­ing in the spot­lights, of­fered sharp salutes. Some peo­ple wept. Oth­ers blew kiss­es. Many hugged one an­oth­er as they stepped away, proud to have spent hours in line to of­fer a trib­ute, even if it last­ed on­ly a few mo­ments.

On Fri­day, the wait­ing time swelled to as long as 24 hours. The mourn­ers in­clud­ed for­mer Eng­land soc­cer cap­tain David Beck­ham, who lined up for al­most 12 hours to pay his re­spects. Wear­ing a white shirt and black tie, he bowed briefly to the cof­fin be­fore mov­ing out of West­min­ster Hall.

“We have been lucky as a na­tion to have had some­one who has led us the way her majesty has led us, for the amount of time, with kind­ness, with car­ing and al­ways re­as­sur­ance,” Beck­ham told re­porters af­ter­wards.

The ly­ing-in-state is due to con­tin­ue un­til Mon­day morn­ing, when the queen’s cof­fin will be borne to near­by West­min­ster Abbey for a state fu­ner­al, the fi­nale to 10 days of na­tion­al mourn­ing for Britain’s longest-reign­ing monarch. Eliz­a­beth, 96, died at her Bal­moral Es­tate in Scot­land on Sept. 8 af­ter 70 years on the throne.

Hun­dreds of heads of state, roy­als and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers from around the world are fly­ing to Lon­don to at­tend the fu­ner­al, in­clud­ing U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Japan­ese Em­per­or Naruhi­to and Em­press Masako. Charles is set to hold au­di­ences Sat­ur­day with in­com­ing prime min­is­ters, gov­er­nor gen­er­als of the realms and mil­i­tary lead­ers.

Af­ter the ser­vice at the abbey, the late queen’s cof­fin will be trans­port­ed through the his­toric heart of Lon­don on a horse-drawn gun car­riage. It will then be tak­en in a hearse to Wind­sor, where the queen will be in­terred along­side her late hus­band, Prince Philip, who died last year.

Hun­dreds of troops from the British army, air force and navy took part in an ear­ly-morn­ing re­hearsal on Sat­ur­day for the fi­nal pro­ces­sion. As troops lined The Long Walk, a pic­turesque path lead­ing to Wind­sor Cas­tle, the thump­ing of drums echoed in­to the night as march­ing bands walked ahead of a hearse.

Lon­don po­lice said the fu­ner­al will be the largest sin­gle polic­ing event the force has ever han­dled, sur­pass­ing even the 2012 Sum­mer Olympics and the Plat­inum Ju­bilee in June cel­e­brat­ing the queen’s 70-year reign.

“The range of of­fi­cers, po­lice staff and all those sup­port­ing the op­er­a­tion is tru­ly im­mense,” said Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice Deputy As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Stu­art Cundy.