Just how to handle the tricky politics of the ceremony was no doubt a perplexing problem for the Royal family, which had tried to distance itself from the princess ever since her acrimonious and public divorce from Prince Charles. The family refused comment on the ceremony. "The status is irrelevant," a spokesperson said.
Diana's coffin is at the chapel in Prince Charles's home, St. James's Palace. Her body will not lie in state. Mourners have been invited to St. James's to pay their respects, while thousands have used the internet to post condolences and express outrage at the paparazzi who are seen to have literally driven the 36-year-old princess and her companion, Dodi Fayed, 41, to their deaths in a Paris tunnel at midnight Saturday.