LONDON, England (CNN) -- Central London fell silent save for the tolling of Big Ben as the United Kingdom honored the dead of wars past and present on Remembrance Sunday. Queen Elizabeth II then laid a wreath at the Cenotaph, the war memorial on Whitehall near Parliament, after a military band played the "Last Post." Other members of the royal family, including her husband, Prince Philip, and grandchildren Princes Harry and William, followed suit under steel-gray skies as Britain marked a tradition going back to the end of World War I. Harry was representing his father Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, who is in Canada.
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Queen Elizabeth II and Royal family lay wreaths at the Cenotaph, the war memorial near Parliament in London
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Britain honors its war dead each year on the Sunday closest to November 11, the day World War I ended in 1918
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Hours before the ceremony began, the 200th British soldier was been killed in hostile action in Afghanistan
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That was followed by the news that a U.S. soldier and another British soldier died in separate incidents
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