Diana's funeral echoes legacy of grand goodbyes
In this story:
- Mourning for Churchill on world scale
- Ostracized ex-king wins royal treatment in death
- Outpourings of emotion worldwide
(CNN) -- The funeral of Princess Diana may have no direct precedent in modern history. The event was to be, in the words of Buckingham Palace, "a unique funeral for a unique person."
In light of Diana's singular role, the divorced mother of a future monarch, her funeral was expected to fall short of traditional royal pageantry. But as a beloved world figure, her death has prompted an emotional outpouring equal to the likes of Sir Winston Churchill and Argentina's Eva Peron.
In Britain, the last national funeral was that for Earl Mountbatten, a great-grandson of Queen Victoria and the last Viceroy of India, who was killed by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1979.
His funeral service at Westminster Abbey was attended by 1,400 dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II and her family. It was the largest gathering of royalty since the funeral of the queen's father, King George VI, in 1952.
The service followed a full military processional from St. James's Palace during which his coffin, draped in the Union Jack, was escorted by 2,500 servicemen.
Mourning for Churchill on world scale
Sir Winston Churchill, the World War II prime minister who died in 1965 at age 90, was one of only three British citizens accorded a state funeral who were not members of the royal family. His death prompted a massive release of grief, as an estimated 300,000 people filed past his coffin as it lay in state in the ancient Westminster Hall.
Churchill's funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral was attended by more than 3,000 people, including Queen Elizabeth II and leaders from about 100 countries. Some 350 million people in Europe alone watched the service on television, then a record.
His coffin was taken by barge through London on the River Thames to Waterloo Station, then sent by train to Oxfordshire. He was buried privately at Bladon church, near his birthplace and ancestral home, Blenheim Palace.
The death of Elizabeth's father, George VI, also was marked by great national mourning. She was on holiday in Kenya when she heard the news, and returned immediately to London.
More than 300,000 people paid respects as the body lay at Westminster Hall. Big Ben, the bell in Parliament's clock tower, rang one beat a minute for each of the king's 56 years, as the body left Westminster on a gun carriage, bound for burial at Windsor.
Ostracized ex-king wins royal treatment in death
In 1986, Buckingham Palace put on a low-key ceremony for the Duchess of Windsor, the former Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee for whom King Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry in 1937.
While she had been ostracized by the royal family in life, after her death the duchess' body was brought back to England by the Royal Air Force for interment beside her husband at Windsor Castle. The funeral was marked by a period of formal royal mourning.
Fourteen years earlier, her husband the ex-king was given a toned-down state funeral. The Royal Air Force brought home his remains from France, and some 60,000 people filed past his coffin at St. George's Chapel at Windsor over two days.
He was buried at Frogmore, the private family cemetery at Windsor, but some of the trappings were absent. For example, there was no gun carriage processional, as is planned for Diana funeral.
Outpourings of emotion worldwide
The strongest recent parallel outside Britain may be the funeral of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners filed past Kennedy's closed coffin, which lay in state at the U.S. Capitol. Nearly 100 world leaders attended his funeral service at Arlington National Cemetery.
The world would not see another state funeral as grand until the 1989 death of Japan's longest-reigning Emperor Hirohito. His ceremonies, a combination of state formality and Shinto religious rites, drew leaders from more than 160 nations.
In 1982, some 800 mourners, including Princess Diana and U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan, attended the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco, who was killed in a car accident.
Millions worldwide watched the televised service in which her husband, Prince Ranier, grieved openly. Later, the prince led a second public funeral Mass for the citizens of the tiny European principality.
Diana's death, in some ways, may find a kind of emotional precedent with that of Eva Peron, Argentina's former first lady who died of cancer at age 33. In the book "Santa Evita," Tomas Eloy Martinez described the 1952 funeral:
"Evita died, and her body lay in state for 12 days ... Half a million people kissed the coffin ... (The morning of the funeral) 17,000 soldiers were deployed to render her military honors.
"A million and a half yellow roses, stocks from the Andes, white carnations, orchids from the Amazon, sweet peas from Lake Naheul Huapi, and chrysanthemums sent by the emperor of Japan ... were thrown from the balconies."
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