Cheering crowds greeted King Charles III on Tuesday in Northern Ireland on his tour of the four parts of the United Kingdom, where the visit drew a rare moment of unity from politicians in a region with a contested British and Irish identity that is deeply divided over the monarchy.

Hundreds of people lined the street leading to Hillsborough Castle near Belfast, the royal family's official residence in Northern Ireland, in the latest outpouring of affection following Queen Elizabeth II's death on Sept. 8. The area in front of the gates to the castle was carpeted with hundreds of floral tributes.

Charles and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, got out of their car to meet villagers — waving to the crowd and sometimes using both hands to reach out to people, including schoolchildren in bright blue uniforms.

Charles even petted a corgi — famously his late mother's favorite breed of dog — held up by one person, and some chanted "God save the king!"

"Today means so much to me and my family, just to be present in my home village with my children to witness the arrival of the new king is a truly historic moment for us all," said Hillsborough resident Robin Campbell as he waited for Charles.

But he added: "It is also a day tinged with great sadness as we witness a loving son coming to our village while we are all in mourning for the loss of a truly magnificent queen and his loving mother."

While there was a warm welcome in Hillsborough, the British monarchy draws mixed emotions in Northern Ireland, where there are two main communities: mostly Protestant unionists who consider themselves British and largely Roman Catholic nationalists who see themselves as Irish.

Video above: Queen Elizabeth's hearse arrives in Edinburgh

That split fueled three decades of violence known as "the Troubles" involving paramilitary groups on both sides and U.K. security forces, in which 3,600 people died. The royal family was touched personally by the violence: Lord Louis Mountbatten, a cousin of the queen and a much-loved mentor to Charles, was killed by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1979.

A deep sectarian divide remains, a quarter century after Northern Ireland's 1998 peace agreement.

For some Irish nationalists, the British monarch represents an oppressive foreign power. But others acknowledge the queen's role in forging peace. On a visit to Northern Ireland in 2012, she shook hands with Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander – a once-unthinkable moment of reconciliation.

Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein politician who is speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the queen had "demonstrated how individual acts of positive leadership can help break down barriers and encourage reconciliation."

In a sign of how far Northern Ireland has come on the road to peace, representatives of Sinn Fein are attending commemorative events for the queen and meeting the king on Tuesday.

Maskey expressed condolences to the king at an event in Hillsborough Castle attended by leaders from all the main political parties in Northern Ireland.

Charles responded that his mother "felt deeply, I know, the significance of the role she herself played in bringing together those whom history had separated, and in extending a hand to make possible the healing of long-held hurts."

He said he would draw on his mother's "shining example" and "seek the welfare of all the inhabitants of Northern Ireland."

Still, not everyone was welcoming the new king.

On the Falls Road in Belfast, a nationalist stronghold, several walls are decorated with murals of Bobby Sands, an IRA member who died while on a hunger strike in prison in 1981, and others killed in the Troubles.

"No, he's not our king. Bobby Sands was our king here," said 52-year-old Bobby Jones. "Queen never done nothing for us. Never did. None of the royals do."

Later, Charles and Northern Ireland politicians are to attend a "service of reflection" for the queen at St. Anne's Cathedral in Belfast.

The president and prime minister of the neighboring Republic of Ireland also are due to attend, despite tense relations between Dublin and London over Brexit. Since Britain left the European Union in 2020, the U.K. and the EU have been wrangling over trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with a member of the bloc.

On Monday night, Charles and siblings Anne, Andrew and Edward briefly stood vigil around their mother's flag-draped coffin in St. Giles Cathedral as members of the public filed past.

Video above: King Charles says he feels the 'weight of history'

The following morning, a man wearing a suit adorned with medals stood silently, bowed his head and moved on. A woman dabbed away tears with a handkerchief. Another woman with two young children in school uniforms walked slowly past the coffin.

In the line of mourners outside the cathedral in the historic heart of Edinburgh, Sheila McLeay called the queen "a wonderful ambassador for our country."

"She was such an example for every single one of us. She was dignified. She was just, she was beautiful inside and out. And I have known her all of my life. And I miss her very much," she added.

The queen's coffin was scheduled to leave Scotland later Tuesday to be flown back to London and driven to her official London home, Buckingham Palace. On Wednesday, it will be taken through central London to Parliament, where the queen will lie in state until her funeral in Westminster Abbey on Monday. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to line up to pay their last respects at the coffin.

The Royal Air Force C-17 Globemaster that will carry the coffin has been used to evacuate people from Afghanistan and to take humanitarian aid and weapons to Ukraine following Russia's invasion, U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston said.

Early Tuesday, scores of workers cleaned litter and weeds from the road from the air force base where the plane carrying the coffin will land.

If you watched the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, you might have noticed a handwritten note on top of her coffin.

The note was left by King Charles III for his mother. It read, “In loving and devoted memory. Charles R.”

Elizabeth’s coffin was also topped with the imperial state crown and regalia.

Charles became Great Britain’s first new monarch in over 70 years after Elizabeth’s death earlier this month.

He is the oldest of Elizabeth's four children. He was just 3 years old when his mother became the British monarch.

Charles' two sons, Prince Harry and Prince William, were also on hand at Westminster Abbey for Monday's state funeral.

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has held two virtual audiences after more than a week of suffering cold-like symptoms from COVID-19.

Buckingham Palace said the 95-year-old British monarch held virtual sessions with the ambassadors of Chad and Andorra on Tuesday.

The queen canceled several sessions last week, so the ones held Tuesday suggest she is recovering.

The palace's Feb. 20 announcement that Elizabeth had tested positive test for the coronavirus virus prompted concern and get-well wishes from across Britain's political spectrum.

The Palace said the queen had received three COVID-19 vaccine shots.

British officials were worried due to the queen's age, COVID-19 diagnosis, and a recent health scare.

Prince Charles and her daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, also contracted COVID-19 earlier this month but are on the mend.

The queen is the country's longest-reigning monarch and has a series of engagements coming up as she celebrates her 70 years on the throne.

Her eldest son is heir to the British throne.

And for the first time, the queen said publicly earlier this month that it was her "sincere wish" that upon her death, Camilla takes the title of "Queen Consort."

LOS ANGELES — The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan, has told Oprah Winfrey that she experienced suicidal thoughts and was concerned when the decision was made that her son wouldn't have a royal title.

Meghan, who is biracial, told Winfrey in the interview airing Sunday night in the U.S. that there were discussions among the royal family about how dark her son's skin would be.

Meghan told Winfrey in the interview airing Sunday that she “just didn’t see a solution” to the mental suffering she had experienced and told Harry she “didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

She said she went to a senior royal staffer and said she needed to get help for her mental health, but was told it would be bad for the family if she did.

She described the moment as a breaking point leading to her and Harry stepping aside from their royal duties.

Meghan however refused to criticize Queen Elizabeth II, saying she had “always been wonderful to me.”

Winfrey asked Harry whether he would have stepped down from his royal duties if he had never met Meghan. Harry replied that “I wouldn’t have been able to, because I myself was trapped as well” until ”the moment that I met Meg.”

Prince Harry denied blindsiding the queen with the news that he and Meghan were stepping down from their royal duties, saying it was preceded by several conversations.

He did however say that his father, Prince Charles, has stopped taking his calls.

Harry said his family cut him off financially in early 2020. Harry said “we did everything we did to make it work” and would never have left had the palace been supportive of Meghan.

The couple also revealed their second child, due later this summer, will be a girl. Their first child, son Archie, turns 2 in May.

Harry says “to have a boy and then a girl, what more can you ask for? But now we’ve got our family."

Winfrey's interview with Harry and his wife Meghan opened with the host saying no questions are off limits and that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not being paid for the televised special. Early moments focused on Meghan describing how naive she was about royal life, including that she “didn't fully understand what the job was" and spent nights "googling" because there was no formal training or effort to teach her.

The interview special aired on CBS and will be shown the following day in Britain.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Call 1-800-273-8255 if you are experiencing thoughts of suicide or mental distress.

CNN —

Related video above: Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Joe and Jill Biden

When Joe Biden was preparing for his first audience with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as a young senator, his mother -- an Irish American born with the surname Finnegan -- had a piece of advice.

"Don't you bow down to her," she told him in 1982, according to a memoir Biden published several years ago.

Little is known about the meeting itself, or how the 40- or 41-year-old Biden reacted to the British monarch, who at that point was already 30 years into her reign. The visit was a part of a meeting of the British-American Parliamentary Group.

On Sunday, Biden became the 12th sitting president to meet the queen during her reign, joining a legacy of American leaders paying their respects to a global icon and living piece of history.

He and First Lady Jill Biden had a formal audience with her at Windsor Castle, her home outside London. It was her first one-on-one engagement with a world leader since the coronavirus pandemic began. And it's among her first public engagements since her husband, Prince Philip, died at 99 earlier this year.

The queen welcomed the president and first lady at the dais in the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle. Upon the Bidens' arrival, an honor guard formed of The Queen's Company First Battalion Grenadier Guards gave a Royal Salute, and the U.S. National Anthem was played.

Biden then accompanied the officer commanding the honor guard, Major James Taylor, and Major General Christopher Ghika, to inspect troops in the quadrangle before returning to the dais to watch the military march past.

The meeting followed the end of Biden's first G7 summit, held on England's southwestern coast, which wrapped up Sunday afternoon. Biden has spent his first international trip aiming to revive American alliances with the world's richest democracies. After meeting the queen, he'll head to Brussels where he will spend two days meeting with more U.S. allies at NATO headquarters and the European Union, before heading to Geneva to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We've just wrapped up what has been an extraordinary and collaborative and productive meeting at the G7," Biden said at a news conference following the G7 and ahead of his meeting with the Queen. "Everyone at the table understood and understands the seriousness of the challenges we are up against and the responsibility of our proud democracies to stand up and deliver for the rest of the world."

His first encounter with the British monarch this week came Friday evening when she joined world leaders at a reception held at a biosphere in Cornwall. After posing for a photo, she took a light jab at the staged camaraderie.

"Are you supposed to be looking as if you're enjoying yourself?" she said.

Later she was pictured in friendly conversation with Biden and his wife outside the futuristic domes, her son Prince Charles and his wife Camilla clutching drinks in the background.

Sunday's occasion was more personal, with only Biden and his wife meeting the queen in her home.

For Biden, the moment places him within a long roster of predecessors who also came to visit one of the world's most famous women. A student of history who has consumed biographies of past presidents, the moment provides a living link to the office he now holds.

The queen also helps further Biden's efforts to inject wartime urgency into this week's G7 and NATO summits, including by renewing the Atlantic Charter signed by former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II. The Queen served as an Army mechanic in the war.

American presidents often find themselves charmed by the queen after meeting her.

"The queen has been a source of inspiration for me, like so many people around the world," President Barack Obama said during a visit to London in 2016, when Prince Philip drove him in a Range Rover from Marine One to the doors of Windsor Castle. "She is truly one of my favorite people."

President Donald Trump also held a special affection for Queen Elizabeth, having watched his own mother -- born in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland -- rapt with attention viewing her coronation on television.

Unlike Trump or Obama, Biden is not an Anglophile. He's a proud Irish American who has (sometimes jokingly) made references to the long British rule over his ancestors' island. This week, he confronted Prime Minister Boris Johnson over issues related to Northern Ireland, concerned that Britain's exit from the European Union is jeopardizing the hard-won peace there.

And among the first things he did upon landing in the United Kingdom on Wednesday was to quote William Butler Yeats, the most famous 20th-century Irish poet, from his poem about the Easter 1916 uprising against British rule. He also quoted the American Declaration of Independence.

The Irish allegiances aside, Biden was unlikely to air his grievances when he sat down with the British monarch on Sunday afternoon.

"Joe and I are both looking forward to meeting the Queen. That's an exciting part of the visit for us," Jill Biden told reporters this week. "We've looked forward to this for weeks and now it's finally here. It's a beautiful beginning."