A MAGICAL FAREWELL FOR DIANA.

Byline: Fawn Vrazo Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Past palaces and parks, past royals and commoners, past mourners in black silk and black cotton, Princess Diana made her final journey into history Saturday as six bay horses pulled her coffin and her two young sons walked behind.

It was the incredible end to a searing, incredible week. An estimated 1 million street mourners in London, plus billions more watching on televisions around the world, paid final homage to Diana, Princess of Wales, and the queen of people's hearts, as she was laid to rest in a funeral both grand and bitter.

Even Queen Elizabeth II bowed her head - lowering it deeply as Diana's coffin passed Buckingham Palace on its way to a sweeping memorial at Westminster Abbey. The bow was an unprecedented gesture of respect from the queen, at once acknowledging her former daughter-in-law's glittering life as well as the deep grief of her nation, whose sadness over Diana's death in a Paris car crash a week ago has been immeasurable.

But it was left to Diana's younger brother, the 9th Earl Spencer, to deliver the poignant, powerful and angry words that captured both his sister's triumphs and her tragedies.

In a tribute that will long be remembered as one of the frankest speeches ever delivered at a historic funeral, Spencer praised his 36-year-old sister as ``the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard-bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality, someone with a natural nobility who was classless.''

Then, in a sharp public rebuke to a royal family that had stripped Diana of her title of Her Royal Highness after her acrimonious divorce a year ago from Prince Charles, Spencer noted that she ``proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.''

He castigated a British media he said had ``sneered'' at her many charitable efforts, and he lashed out at paparazzi photographers who ``used regularly to drive (her) to tearful despair.'' They made her the ironic reverse of the ancient Greek hunter-goddess Diana, ``the most hunted person of the modern age,'' he said.

But Diana was not perfect, Spencer reminded Britons who - after closely following nearly every moment of Diana's life in the 16 years since she married Prince Charles - needed no reminding of her bulimia, postpartum depressions, suicide attempts and volatile temper.

``For all the status, the glamour, the applause,'' Spencer said as he stood at the Westminster Abbey pulpit before the princess's flag-draped bier, ``Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness, of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom.''

At the end of Spencer's tribute, which was broadcast on loudspeakers to the many thousands standing outside the abbey and in Hyde Park, there was the spontaneous outbreak of applause - beginning first among mourners on the streets and then rolling through the 1,900 invited guests inside the stately abbey itself.

Unique applause

Westminster officials said later they could not recall a funeral tribute ever being applauded by congregants there.

During the hourlong service, Diana's coffin rested on a catafalque at the heart of the cross-shaped abbey as sunlight beamed down on it from the abbey's massive round stained glass window of many colors. In one of the service's most touching moments, singer Elton John accompanied himself on piano as he serenaded the late princess with a re-written version of ``Candle in the Wind,'' originally written in honor of Marilyn Monroe.

``Goodbye England's rose; may you ever grow in our hearts. You were the grace that placed itself where lives where torn apart,'' John sang - a reference to Diana's many efforts on behalf of a total of 110 charities and volunteer organizations, members of whom made up a large part of the abbey's invited congregation.

Also attending were first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair and the three previous British prime ministers, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Hollywood star couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and opera star Luciano Pavarotti.

The royal family - including the queen, Prince Charles and his and Diana's young sons William, 15, and Harry, 12, plus 39 other royals - sat in the front rows to the coffin's right. Diana's own Spencer family, including her brother, her two sisters, her mother and stepmother, sat to the coffin's left.

Pooled television film crews inside the media had agreed not to show faces of any seated family members during the service itself. But an abbey official who saw Prince William's and Prince Harry's reactions, Canon Donald Gray, said in an interview afterward that ``the two boys were composed but obviously full of grief . . . their eyes full of sadness.''

`Mummy'

Earlier, William had hung his blond head downward as he, his little brother, Harry, their father, grandfather Prince Philip and uncle Spencer walked slowly behind Diana's horse-drawn coffin carriage on its final mile to the abbey. The coffin was covered by an ermine-fringed royal flag and three wreaths - a large one of lilies from Charles and two small white ones from her two sons. Young Prince Harry's wreath carried a card in a white envelope reading simply and heartbreakingly, ``Mummy.''

As the funeral cortege approached the abbey, an estimated crowd of 1 million - far lower than the potential crowd of 6 million estimated earlier by British police - fell silent.

All that could be heard were the clip-clop of the hooves of the horses drawing the coffin, the occasional barking of pet dogs and the cries of babies. Nearer to the abbey, mourners could hear the solemn chiming of a single Westminster Abbey bell, ringing every 60 seconds without fail, as if marking the inexorable passage of human life itself.

The procession itself was so silent that it was hardly distinguishable from a formal minute of silence observed throughout Great Britain at the service's end at about noon.

At the start of the unique service, a combination of traditional Anglican ceremonies and prayers with modern elements such as the Elton John song, mourners both inside and outside Westminster rose to sing a somber rendition of ``God Save the Queen,'' Great Britain's national anthem, as Diana's coffin was moved into the abbey. It had arrived atop a big-wheeled gun carriage with a cannon gun beneath it - the favored coffin conveyance of Great Britain's most notable since it was used at Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901.

Other music at the service included an extract of Libera me from Verdi's ``The Requiem,'' one of Diana's favorite works, and also one of her favorite hymns, ``I Vow to Thee My Country,'' which was sung at the funeral of her father, the 8th Earl Spencer.

No one from the royal family spoke during the service, something that had been decided during private consultations this week between the two families. Aside from Spencer, the only other members of Diana's family to speak were her two sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, who read two poems.

Prime Minister Blair recited the famous chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, which ends with the words, ``and now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.''

The service's chief prayers were delivered by the Rev. George Carey, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who also asked mourners to remember ``Dodi al-Fayed and his family; Henri Paul, and all for whom today's service rekindles memories of grief untimely borne.''

Millionaire al-Fayed, Diana's new love of less than a year, had died instantly Aug. 31 in the crash that killed the princess as the couple's Mercedes was pursued by paparazzi photographers. Their driver was Paul, whom French authorities said later had a blood-alcohol level several times above the legal limit.

Al-Fayed at service

Al-Fayed's father, Harrod's owner Mohamed al-Fayed, attended the service with his wife. Over the last week, he had made many donations of food to thousands upon thousands standing in line for up to 11 hours, waiting to sign several official Books of Condolence at St. James's Palace. Food from Harrods, from British grocery chains and from restaurants was handed throughout the night Friday to the thousands who gathered there as early as Thursday afternoon in order to see Diana's procession from the front row of the police barricades outside Westminster.

As stately as the abbey service was, the scene outside the abbey was informal. The fronts of barricades were heaped with sleeping bags, backpacks and bedrolls brought by mourners who spent the night huddling under blankets and paying visits to ``rentaloos.'' While many of the mourners inside the abbey wore expensive black suits, dresses and hats, those outside showed their respect wearing black jeans, T-shirts and sweat shirts.

Samantha Andrews, a Hotpoint production line worker, drove all night to the funeral in a rented car from North Wales, leaving as soon as she finished her factory shift at midnight. Standing outside the abbey, she wore a black army squadron knit shirt borrowed from her brother. She came, she said, ``to give respect for everything she did. Let's hope she's at peace now, that both of them (Diana and Dodi) are happy.''

Only one thing upset the 25-year-old Andrews during the service. As Diana's funeral cortege arrived at the abbey's west door, the cameras of hundreds of news photographers began clicking and whirring noisily. ``They wouldn't even leave her alone when she died,'' Andrews said.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

PHOTO (1 -- color) Earl Spencer, Prince William, Prince Harry and Prince Charles stand solemnly, left to right, watching as the hearse bearing Princess Diana's coffin leaves Westminster Abbey.

(2 -- color) Mourners in London weep as they listen to Elton John sing Saturday in a radio broadcast of Princess Diana's funeral.

(3) Queen Elizabeth II, center left, and other members of the House of Windsor bow their heads as Diana's coffin passes by Buckingham Palace.

(4) Queen Mother Elizabeth arrives in Westminster Abbey on Saturday.

(5 -- color) no caption (Prince Harry's flowers, card that reads `Mummy')

Associated Press

Box: ``Candle in the Wind'' performed by Elton John with new lyrics