FUNERAL CONCLUDES
Following one minute of silence -- which seemed to be palpable throughout the city of London -- the half-muffled bells of Westminster Abbey chimed for the people's princess. Her casket was carried out of the cathedral by the same Welsh Guard who had taken it in, and the crowd both inside and outside the house of worship stood in further silence. The body of Diana, Princess of Wales, was then placed inside the hearse to leave London for the last time, for the 60-mile trip to her family estate, for burial. Her sons, her mother and siblings, her ex-husband and his family followed the casket on the journey. As the cortege proceeded through the streets of the capital, mourners waved and sometimes applauded in signs of deep respect and affection for Diana and those she leaves behind. Some tossed flowers. Nearly all wiped away tears.

WORDS OF LOVE, INSPIRATION
Diana's sisters, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, delivered readings. "For those who love," recited Lady Jane, "time is eternity." Prime Minister Tony Blair read from 1 Corinthians 13: "For now we see through a glass, darkly." Elton John's special version of "Candle in the Wind," piped over loudspeakers to the millions of people outside the cathedral in London's streets, caused listeners to weep and embrace. Those outside applauded at the song's completion.

OPENING THE SERVICE
Tradition and contemporary elements blended in the 70-minute funeral service for Princess Diana. Before it began, Diana's sons William and Harry, their father Prince Charles and his parents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, placed wreaths alongside her coffin. "Diana profoundly influenced this country and the world," said the Very Rev. Dr. Wesley Carr, the Dean of Westminster. "She kept company with kings and queens, princes and presidents. But we especially remember her humane concerns ... Her death has attracted the sympathy of millions."

WESTMINSTER ABBEY GUESTS
The invitation list of 2,500 guests to the Westminster Abbey funeral included royal and commoner alike. Among the celebrity VIPs: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg (who arrived together, at 9:45 for the 11 a.m. service), Sting, director Richard Attenborough, TV host David Frost, Virgin Records mogul Richard Branson (who was greeted with hearty applause from the crowd outside the cathedral), Prime Minister Tony and Cherie Blair, former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath, Luciano Pavarotti, Elton John, George Michael, singer Chris de Burgh, Winston Churchill (grandson of the late prime minister), Henry Kissinger, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mrs. Jacques Chirac (first lady of France), Princess Michael of Kent. The Anglican service opened with the traditional singing of "God Save the Queen."

WILLIAM, HARRY JOIN PROCESSION
At St. James Palace, Prince Charles and Prince Philip escorted Diana and Charles' sons, William and Harry, as they all joined Diana's funeral procession, marching behind the horse-drawn gun-carriage. They were joined by Diana's younger brother, Charles, Earl Spencer. The boys had sent the flowers that adorned their mother's casket, two separate sprays of roses and tulips. The Spencer family sent the lilies. On top of the flowers rested a small white envelope addressed in a child's hand, Harry's. It read, simply, "Mummy."

QUEEN AND FAMILY PAY RESPECTS
The Royal Family, led by Queen Elizabeth, made the unprecedented move of emerging from Buckingham Palace on foot in order to stand and pay respects to Princess Diana's funeral cortege as it passed their residence. They were greeted by a ripple of applause and then dutiful silence from the crowd outside. As they waited, the family stood before a poster on the palace fence left by mourner. It read: DIANA OF LOVE.

THE PROCESSION BEGINS
As Diana's flower- and flag-draped coffin left her Kensington Palace home on the horse-drawn gun carriage bound for her funeral at Westminster Abbey, loud sobbing could initially be heard from the crowd, as if people were shocked by the actual sight. The outbursts quietened down after a few moments and the onlookers became somber. Once the procession passed them by, people tended to linger and stand in place, as if not knowing what to do after catching a glimpse of the cortege. Many hugged one another. Eight members of the Welsh Guard accompanied Diana's body on the one-hour-47-minute ride through the streets of London. Weather cooperated; the Saturday morning was sunny and bright.

LEADING UP TO THE FUNERAL
In anticipation of Saturday's funeral, massive crowds on Friday evening watched in silence as the body of Princess Diana was slowly driven through the rainy streets of London to spend a final night at her home before burial. Her ex-husband Prince Charles and two sons William and Harry followed in a black limousine as the coffin was taken from St. James Palace -- where the body had lain in state for five days -- to Kensington Palace in west London. After an overnight vigil, Diana's body began the slow journey on a horse-drawn gun carriage to Westminster Abbey. Many mourners waited up to 15 hours in the cold and wet weather to insure a proper viewing spot for paying last respects to their beloved princess.

QUEEN ELIZABETH: COPING WITH THE GRIEF
Queen Elizabeth gave some solace to the anguish felt by millions of her subjects by paying tribute on Friday and calling Princess Diana an exceptional human being. Looking somber but composed and speaking crisply from inside Buckingham Palace, the Queen said in an unprecedented live broadcast that Diana's death had cut short the life of a gifted person who had made many people happy. "No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her," the monarch said. Although the Queen and Diana were said to have had a strained relationship, the Elizabeth appeared sincere as she lauded her former daughter-in-law, saying: "First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness."

A DOUBLE SHOCK
Friday's subsequent news announcement -- made only minutes after Queen Elizabeth's address about Princess Diana -- that Mother Teresa had died at the age of 87 only added more sadness to an immensely sorrowful day. Diana is said to have turned to the Roman Catholic nun when her marriage crumbled, reports Reuters.

WATCHING THE EVENT
In Britain alone, reports the Times of London, 25 million people are expected to watch Diana's funeral on television, with 6 million people expected to crowd the streets of London. (That's about one-tenth the population of England.) In the days before the funeral, the air of the city was said to be heavy with the scent of lilies that mourners were leaving at Kensington Place. Estimates for a worldwide TV audience for the funeral itself range from several hundred million up to 2.5 billion, considered the largest viewership in the history of the broadcast medium.

NEWS COVERAGE
To accommodate more than 100 TV cameras, special stands have been erected for the service at Westminster Abbey and the funeral procession through the heart of London. The city's Foreign Press Association said it had received more than 500 requests for credentials to cover the event. Two major British news broadcasters, the British Broadcasting Corp. and Independent Television News, forbidden to shoot close-ups of either the Royasl or the Spencer family during the funeral service, except those giving readings. Only three U.S. print media outlets were allotted places in Westminster Abbey for the funeral: Time, Newsweek and the Associated Press.

BURIAL SITE SHIFT
The Spencer family moved Princess Diana's burial site to the private grounds of its estate because of fears that the original site would become a shrine overrun by sightseers, her brother Charles said. Diana was to have been interred in the hamlet of Great Brington at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, along with 20 generations of her ancestors. But fearing the village of 200 people would become another tourist-crammed Graceland, her family decided Diana would be buried privately on an island -- which could be protected -- in the middle of an ornamental lake in nearby Althorp Park, the Spencer's stately home, 60 miles northwest of London.

SPENCERS' CIVIL SUIT
The family of Princess Diana has filed a civil suit in connection with the investigation into her car-crash death in Paris, a French judicial source says. Reuters reports that the Spencer family filed the suit in Paris on Tuesday but made no public announcement. The move allows their lawyers access to the file dealing with six photographers and a photographic agency motorcyclist placed under investigation for manslaughter, and would allow them to seek damages if there were a trial.

THE GIFTED DIANA
Michael Cole, spokesman for the Al Fayed family, disclosed that Dodi and Diana had exchanged precious gifts before they died. Cole also used a packed news conference in London Friday to show a video of the couple's last minutes together at the Ritz hotel in Paris. The video was intended to show that the driver of the car in which Diana and Dodi died was sober and not, as police have said, several times over the blood-alcohol limit. In addition, Cole revealed, Diana gave two sentimental gifts to Dodi sometime before the tragedy: her late father's cufflinks and a gold cigar clipper with a tag inscribed "With love from Diana." Cole confirmed that Dodi gave Diana a $205,000 diamond solitaire friendship ring (now thought to be in possession of her sisters) as well as a poem he wrote for Diana and had inscribed on a silver plaque. The Al Fayeds have given the plaque to the Spencer family, with a request that it be placed in Diana's coffin, said Cole, who did not release the words of the poem.

TRAINING THE HORSE TEAM
Soldiers screamed and hurled newspapers at six gleaming black horses Friday to be sure they could remain calm while taking Princess Diana's coffin to her funeral at Westminster Abbey on Saturday, reports the Associated press. "Obviously, they don't like it, but certainly in training they did not react and kept going," said Maj. Keith Brooks, commander of the King's Troop. "We have been training for all contingencies, such as people jumping over barriers or throwing items such as flowers at the carriage."

ELTON'S SONG FOR DIANA
Elton John's new version of "Candle in the Wind," rewritten to eulogize Princess Diana, could well become the world's biggest-selling single ever, music industry experts have predicted, according to Variety. John said he would record a piano-and-vocal version of the 1973 song, beginning "Good-bye England's rose," immediately after performing it at Diana's funeral. "Candle in the Wind" will likely be released later this month, with all profits going to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund for her favorite causes and charities. "If people let it drop from No. 1 [on the sales charts]," said Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for HMV Records, "they may feel they are failing the memory of Diana."