But beyond the estate's imposing wrought-iron gates near the tiny village of Great Brington (pop. 180), 75 miles northwest of London, another kind of preparation was under way. Overnight, mourners, nestled in quilts and sleeping bags, had begun lining up along the narrow, winding road in anticipation of Diana's return. When she married Prince Charles in 1981, they had expected that she would one day lie with England's kings and queens; instead, on Sept. 6, they merely hoped to catch a glimpse of the hearse, arriving from London, that would bring Diana—their Diana—back home.
"We have always thought of her being a local girl," said David O'Neil, a county council member, who with his wife, Sue, and daughter Emma, 3, stood among the crowds. "We are tremendously proud of her—quietly proud." Pete Osborne, 60, who did odd jobs at Althorp as a young man, said, "She left here a girl. She became a princess. She was our princess."
Yet Diana, had she lived, might well have felt a lesser sense of belonging there. She had moved to Althorp at 14 when her father, the eighth Earl Spencer, inherited the 550-acre estate from his father. It was there she endured Raine Spencer, her then-unloved stepmother, and since she was away at boarding school most of the year, Althorp became merely a place to spend vacations. Yet the Spencer family's roots reach deep into Northamptonshire's fertile soil—and it was to that ancient birthright that Diana returned.
While the remains of 20 generations of Spencers, reaching back to 1522, lie in the family vault in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Great Brington, the family—out of concern that the village would be overwhelmed by visitors—decided instead to bury Diana on an island in an ornamental lake on the estate's grounds. There, as her brother Charles said, "Her grave can be properly looked after by the family and visited in privacy by her sons."
Consecrated for Christian burial by the Right Reverend Ian Cundy, Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, the island was designed by 18th-century landscape designer Samuel Lapidge in the center of the lake, known as the Oval. Diana's simple grave lies in the shade of beech, oak and willow trees and is near the graves of Spencer dogs—and one parrot. "The trees had to be cut back, pruned and pinned back so the hearse could get through," says Gwen Girling, wife of Althorp gardener Peter Girling. "The path was upgraded and [the area] tidied up in general."
After the servants prepared the estate for Diana's arrival, eight of them headed to Westminster Abbey for the funeral service. The others waited for the cortege.
Turning off the Ml motorway in Northamptonshire, the Daimler hearse went through the countryside Diana knew as a shy teenager. In Harlestone village, it passed a horse trough dedicated to another Spencer, Charlotte, wife of the fifth earl.
Among the crowd at the main gate was Angela Randall, confined to a wheelchair by rheumatoid arthritis. She, her mother, Irene, 70, and sister Jayne-Erica live six miles away and, after rising at 4 a.m., had come, with Jayne-Erica pushing the wheelchair, to say goodbye. "We wanted to be here," said Irene, "so we kept on walking."
At 3:32 p.m., the hearse moved through Althorp's gates, saluted by the policemen on guard. The crowd watched the cortege pass down the drive before being lost to sight beyond a stand of cedar trees.
Later, in a service performed by the Reverend Victor Malan, a family friend, and with her family and Paul Burrell, her loyal butler, in attendance, Diana was buried facing the sunrise.
That night it rained. "I felt so sad to think that she was there, on her own," says Althorp cleaner Bridget Barford. "It must be lonely." But on Monday, as servants carpeted Diana's island with every flower from the house and from outside the gates, the surroundings seemed brighter. "When it's cloudy and wet," said Anne Shaw, "it can get glum down there. But with all the flowers and the brilliant sun, the island looks really, really lovely."
MICHAEL NEILL
BRYAN ALEXANDER and PETE NORMAN in Northamptonshire
Additional reporting for these stories was provided by Kimberly Chrisman, Sarah Delaney, Laura Sanderson Healy, Liz McNeil, Cathy Nolan, Ellin Stein, Toula Vlahou, Fannie Weinstein. Claire Wilson and Margaret Wright.
- Contributors:
- Bryan Alexander,
- Pete Norman.
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