A world in mourning turned its gaze on Westminster Abbey on Saturday morning as the family and friends of Diana, Princess of Wales, came together to bid a final and emotional farewell.
There, on top of a wreath of white roses at the foot of the princess's coffin, was a simple white envelope, bearing the word "Mummy". The princess's younger son, Prince Harry, had placed it there and it reminded the world that apart from being a glamorous, public woman, she was also a mother.
"A unique service for a unique person" began at 11 a.m. precisely as the princess's coffin, draped in the royal standard, was carried into Westminster Abbey by eight red-jacketed pallbearers of the Welsh Guards.
Silently at the Great West Door of the Abbey, Prince Charles, Princes William and Harry, Earl Spencer and Prince Philip stood as God Save The Queen echoed through the great expanse of the abbey. It was one of the few reminders of protocol on a day when protocol mattered little.
Then the princess's coffin was carried in, past 2,000 people whose lives had been touched by her. Statesmen, pop stars, girlfriends and al-Fayed family members all fixed their eyes on the princess's coffin as it passed.
Behind the coffin, Prince Charles walked slowly; he looked wretched but kept his gaze fixed throughout. As abbey choirboys sang and his mother was borne towards the Sacrarium, Prince William hung his head.
At times on that slow and painful journey, Earl Spencer put out a comforting hand to his nephew, Prince Harry, while the others clasped their hands in front of them and stared ahead.
It took nine minutes for the procession to reach the Sacrarium and, with the royal family on one side and the Spencers on the other, the princess's coffin was placed on a catafalque draped in blue. One unbleached candle was lit at each corner of the coffin.
Facing each other below the altar, the princess's family and the royal family listened as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, gave thanks for Diana's "vulnerability, for her radiant and vibrant personality" and, above all, "her readiness to identify with those less fortunate".
The abbey was filled with the music of one of the princess's favourite hymns, I Vow To Thee My Country, which was included in the service at the request of Prince William.
Then came the less formal segments of the ceremony as the princess's two sisters, Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, read their favourite poems.
Lady Fellowes, sounding uncannily like the princess, read a poem entitled Time. Its sad, short lines combining themes of healing and love, spoke of time "too slow for those who wait . . . too long for those who grieve" and "for those who love, time is eternity".
Significantly, it was a people's funeral for "the people's princess" as Mr Blair had reminded us, and it fell to Elton John to show that trumpets and fanfares were not needed to pay tribute to the "loveliness we've lost".
But after he sang: "Goodbye England's rose, from a country lost without your soul," clapping could be heard from the throngs outside the abbey. As Earl Spencer walked across the altar to pay his tribute to his sister, the crowds fell silent. He remembered a "very British girl who transcended nationality", whose "greatest gift was her intuition". Referring to the title HRH, which the royal family had taken away after her divorce, he said: "She needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic."
Then in candid, direct words he promised the royal family that the princess's "blood family" would ensure these "two exceptional young men" would not be immersed in duty. Instead, their souls would "sing openly as you planned".
The applause outside was heard again. At the end of his speech, in an extraordinary and unprecedented gesture, this applause swept into and through the abbey, subsiding only as he took his seat.
As the service came to an end, the coffin was raised on the shoulders of Welsh Guardsmen once more and carried to the Great West Door. The choir sang the haunting words of John Taverner's Athene: May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, and then the princess's coffin came to a halt once more.
Far and beyond, the kingdom and the world observed a one-minute silence, and then the final, flower-strewn journey home to Althorp.