Clad in black, Queen Elizabeth faced her most unblinking subject Friday: the TV camera.
The three-minute, "from the heart" address--the first-ever of its kind in her 45-year reign--resulted from the crown's coming increasingly under fire for its seemingly cool reaction to Princess Diana's death.
"...Disbelief, incomprehension, anger and concern for those who remain. We have all felt these emotions in the last few days," the Queen said.
The chief royal, often rumored to have had an icy relationship with the so-called "people's princess," called Diana an "exceptionally gifted human being" whom she "admired and respected."
While coolly composed for her address, carried live on TV even here in her former colonies, the Queen was said to have had a tear in her eye as she visited Diana's coffin for the first time Friday in London.
The royals, including Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry, had spent the week leading up to Saturday's funeral in Scotland, fueling public and press criticism. But on Friday, the veil was lifted. Di's teenage boys, with their father Prince Charles, met well-wishers and mourners outside Kensington Palace, where tomorrow's funeral procession to Westminster Abbey will begin. Said one onlooker: "Prince Charles seemed overwhelmed and somehow a lot more human than he ever seemed to be before."
In other Diana developments:
The family of Dodi Fayed released security-camera footage from Paris' Ritz hotel, capturing the couple's last moments together before their fatal one-car crash in a tunnel along the River Seine early Sunday.
The pictures show Diana, clad in a dark blazer and white pants, entering and exiting the posh resort in the company of Fayed. (Fayed's father, Mohammed, owns the Ritz.) They also reveal Diana and Dodi debating their travel options after getting word that paparazzi lay in wait for them outside the hotel. (The couple opted to escape through a back exit.)
The video also features glimpses of Henri Paul, the driver accused of being four times drunker than the legal limit in France as he chauffeured Dodi and Di that deadly night in Paris. (Paul also died in the accident). And, according to a hotel security expert, the footage showed "this man was sober." Said Paul Handley-Greaves: "He was not acting like a drunk."
The meaning of that $205,000 diamond ring Dodi Fayed presented to Diana the night they died? Fayed's family, for one, won't speculate. "If the planet lasts for another 1,000 years, people will still wonder about its significance," spokesman Michael Cole said. The family, however, did reveal that Diana had, in recent days, given Dodi her late father's cufflinks and gold cigar clipper.
Diana's last words, and a final wish, were imparted to a hospital worker in Paris, according to the Fayed family. The worker passed the message along to the Fayeds. Patriarch Mohammed Al Fayed then relayed the words (no comment on what they were) to unspecified parties in London.
Princess Diana's burial site at the Spencer family's estate in central London will be opened to the public several weeks each year, it was announced Friday. Di will be laid to rest there in a private ceremony, following the Westminster Abbey memorial.