goodbye england’s rose (12. 702)

With two thousand invited guests in attendance in Westminster Abbey, the route through London lined with over a million and two-and-a-half-billion viewers worldwide, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (previously), took place on this day in 1997—although not an official funeral but rather a royal ceremony, organisers relied on the plans, rehearsed for the previous two decades, codenamed Operation Tay Bridge (see also) for the Queen Mother, and was accorded the pageantry and liturgy usually reserved for the royal family. The dean of the cathedral had personally appealed to senior palace aides to secure Elton John’s performance at the service—to include something modern. Diana and John were last together only a few weeks prior, attending the funeral of mutual friend Gianni Versace in Milan, and immediately upon learning of the princess’ death, John reached out to lyricist Bernie Taupin to rework his 1973 tribute to Marilyn Monroe to honour Diana. A quarter of a century later to the day in 2022, Queen Elizabeth the second held an audience with outgoing and incoming prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss respectively, at her residence in Balmoral as her last official acts before her death.