Queen leads memorial on Remembrance Sunday

The Queen led Britain in honouring members of the armed forces killed in conflict as Remembrance Sunday services took place around the country yesterday.

The monarch laid the first wreath at the Cenotaph in London’s Whitehall to commemorate those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the decades since the First World War.

Senior royals, including Second World War veteran the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge joined politicians, military leaders, veterans and serving personnel in laying wreaths of poppies at the monument.

Prime Minister David Cameron described this year’s Remembrance Sunday as particularly poignant as 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the end of Britain’s 13-year conflict in Afghanistan.

Millions across the UK fell silent in tribute to those lost in war, joining the crowds gathered in central London who stood in a moment of quiet contemplation as Big Ben struck 11am.

Amid heightened fears of a terror attack, there was a large police presence at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, with a helicopter above the site before the ceremony.

Scotland Yard said it had an “appropriate and proportionate” policing plan in place for the event, after four men were arrested in connection with an alleged Islamist terror plot on British soil on Thursday.

At the heart of the service was a two-minute silence, marked at the beginning and end by the firing of a round by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.