The Queen has sent her "deepest sympathies" to the families of the London Bridge terror attack victims and hailed the brave heroes who confronted the knifeman.
She also saluted the police - who shot and killed terrorist Usman Khan after he killed two and wounded three others - and the emergency services for their involvement.
The heroes include a convicted murderer, a Polish chef who was armed with a 5-ft long narwhal tusk, a man who sprayed Khan in the face with a fire extinguisher, two tour guides and an off-duty police officer.
The Queen said: "Prince Philip and I have been saddened to hear of the terror attacks at London Bridge.
"We send our thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones and who have been affected by yesterday's terrible violence.
Have you been affected by the London Bridge terror attack? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk.
"I express my enduring thanks to the police and emergency services, as well as the brave individuals who put their own lives at risk to selflessly help and protect others."
Buckingham Palace issued her statement as Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the scene of the attack on Saturday.
He was joined by Home Secretary Priti Patel during a break in general election campaigning as they were given a tour of the site by Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick and City of London Police Commissioner Ian Dyson.
Mr Johnson chaired an emergency Cobra meeting on Friday night to discuss the attack, which unfolded just before 2pm.
Khan, 28, was armed with two kitchen knives and wearing a fake suicide vest when he launched his rampage inside Fishmongers' Hall, where he and other convicts, including at least one murderer, were attending a University of Cambridge conference on prisoner rehabilitation.
Khan stabbed five people before he was tackled, disarmed and pinned down by around half a dozen heroes, including convicted murderer James Ford, who was on day release as he attended the Learning Together conference.
Ford, 42, was jailed for life in 2004 for the murder of 21-year-old Amanda Champion, who was found strangled with her throat cut in Ashford, Kent, in July 2003.
Tour guides Thomas Gray, 24, and Stevie Hurst, 32, and an off-duty plainclothes police officer also helped to take down the attacker as armed police raced to the scene.
The man wielding the narwhal tusk was a Polish chef named Lukasz, who was working in the kitchen at Fishmongers' Hall.
The heroes didn't know at the time that the suicide vest was fake.
Khan was shot dead at point-blank range as traffic came to a halt on the bridge over the River Thames.
He had been invited to a conference and but started "lashing out" and had reportedly threatened to blow up the building.
He had previously participated in the programme but had showed "no cause for concern," a source told PA.
It is understood that Khan started "lashing out" in a downstairs room of the hall but was grabbed by the conference-goers and bundled out of the front door as he tried to go upstairs.
He was shot dead within minutes of fatally stabbing a man and a woman just three weeks after the UK's terror threat was downgraded.
Khan was born in Britain and once lived in Stoke. At the time of the rampage, he was living in a flat in Stafford, which was being searched by police.
He was previously convicted of terror offences for his involvement in a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange, attack other sites and kill religious or political figures, including then-mayor Mr Johnson.
Khan posed such a danger to the public that he was given an indeterminate sentence with a minimum term of eight years in February 2012.
But in April 2013 the Court of Appeal quashed that sentence and replaced it with a determinate 16-year term.
After serving less than seven years, the terrorist was automatically released on licence in December last year without any Parole Board involvement.
Neighbours in Stafford said Khan had been living in a block of flats for at least a few weeks, but they had never noticed anything unusual about him.
