Today is the culmination of nation-wide mourning

To get a sense of the scale of the late Queen Elizabeth’s life and reign, set it against the history of this newspaper.

The News Letter, the world’s oldest English language daily paper, turned 285 on Saturday, as we get ever nearer to our 300th birthday.

This is such a long timespan, stretching back to 1737, a time more than a century before the industrial revolution or technologies such as photographs, that we cannot easily grasp it.

Yet the late monarch was alive for 96 years, more than a third of that time, and she was on the throne for 70.5 years, nearly a quarter of it.

Thus, while we reported on Saturday that this newspaper has now reported on 11 monarchs, one sovereign was head of state for a disproportionately long percentage of that history. And Queen Elizabeth II also presided over the greatest period of change.

There are people who think that the mourning for the Queen has been too long and that the media response to it has been too uncritical, with other major news stories ongoing. Below we reproduce a tweet from a distinguished journalist who thinks that. The UK is a free country, and those freedoms of speech and thought have evolved over centuries, forged by newspapers including this one.

But such criticism should be seen in the context of the Queen’s longevity and service.

There is no-one on Earth who could attract this level of international attention and respect, not even a US president, because no other public figure is so well known and admired.

Today the Queen’s funeral in Westminster Abbey will be attended by leaders from around the world.

In Northern Ireland, our love for the late monarch has been clear, particularly since the new King’s visit last week. This is special day, the culmination of the mourning – rightly a public holiday – is a moment of nation-wide reflection.