And for the first time the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, had enough MPs in Parliament to qualify to lay a wreath, alongside other party leaders.
The Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal were among the royals in attendance, along with military chiefs, senior politicians, diplomats and faith leaders, watched by big crowds squeezed behind railings along Whitehall.
Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales watched from a balcony above the Cenotaph in the Foreign Office building.
Among the flags on the roof of that Whitehall building is the Ukrainian blue and yellow. It went up when Russia invaded and four years later it is now visibly frayed – a reminder of the length of that war and of current threats.
At 11:00 GMT, as the first strike of Big Ben echoed from the nearby Houses of Parliament, the big two-minute silence filled the usually frenetic streets, before the playing of the Last Post.
The King had his eyes closed, the crowds in Whitehall stopped for their own thoughts, in a rare moment of calm in the capital.