Thursday September 4 4:05 AM EDT 

Palace Under Pressure as Diana Funeral Nears

By Paul Mylrea 

LONDON (Reuter) - Queen Elizabeth was the target of a wave of
criticism on Thursday as newspapers picked up on public anger at the
royal family's apparent failure to echo the British people's grief at
Princess Diana's death. 

Newspapers united in an unprecedented attack on the Queen's refusal
to bend protocol and publicly express the grief her courtiers say she
and the royal family are feeling. 

"Your people are suffering. Speak to us Ma'am," said The Mirror in a
front page showing a small picture of the Queen between photographs
of a weeping woman and boy. 

Thousands of people, young and old, have carpeted the ground outside
Kensington Palace --- Diana's home -- with flowers. Sporting
events have been called off on Saturday and shops will stay closed
during the funeral. 

Crowds ignored rain to queue through the night at St James's Palace,
where Diana's body lies in the Chapel Royal, to sign one of 43 books of
condolence. 

Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, and Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of
the Duke of York and sister-in-law of the princess, both arrived at St
James's Palace on Wednesday to pay their respects. 

But Buckingham Palace has said Prince Charles, William and Harry
will only fly to London on Friday from their Balmoral estate in
Scotland and go to the Chapel Royal where Diana's body has lain since
early on Monday. 

Queen Elizabeth, her husband Prince Philip and the Queen Mother
will travel by train overnight, arriving in London for the funeral at 11
a.m. (1000 GMT) on Saturday. 

This, and the fact the royal family issued only two brief statements
since Sunday -- neither in person and neither paying tribute to Diana
-- have fanned criticism of a monarchy seen as out of touch with the
public mood. 

Critics have also asked why there is no national flag at half mast over
Buckingham Palace like most other public buildings across the
country -- dismissing arguments that only the royal standard can fly
above the palace and only when the Queen is in residence. 

All this has fanned suggestions the royal family has been unable or
unwilling to respond to the national grief for a woman it stripped of
the title of Royal Highness after her acrimonious divorce from
Charles a year ago. 

The mass-selling Sun newspaper said in its a front page headline:
"Where is the Queen? Where is the flag?" 

Even the Times, usually loyal to the crown, warned: "There are times
in the history of every institution when its rules matter less than its
raison d'etre. For the British monarchy, this is one of those times. 

"Failure to gauge correctly the expectations of the public could turn a
melancholy mood into an ugly one." 

Award-winning columnist Polly Toynbee went even further in The
Independent, calling on Charles to renounce the crown and
recommend that the monarchy end with the death of his mother, the
queen. 

"The royal family are... behaving as if a revolution is taking place
outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. And they may be right," she
wrote. 

The royal family on Wednesday announced that Diana's body would
be moved from the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace on Friday and
stay overnight at Kensington Palace. 

The body will leave there on Saturday morning for Westminster
Abbey. The decision will more than treble the distance of the funeral
procession to around 3 1/2 miles (5.6 km). 

Buckingham Palace denied it had given in to pressure, saying it was
considering safety. But the media were in no doubt the royal family
had bowed to "people power." 

Police expect several million to line the route of the funeral parade in
London on Saturday. 

The crowds, joined around the world by billions of television viewers,
will dwarf the numbers, about 700 million, who watched Lady Diana
Spencer's fairy tale 1981 marriage. 

Many more are expected to line the route the cortege will follow from
Westminster Abbey to Diana's final resting place alongside 20
generations of forebears at the Spencer family estate in central
England. 

The princess was killed with her millionaire companion Dodi Al
Fayed early on Sunday when their limousine crashed at high speed. 

Six photographers and a motorcyclist being investigated for
manslaughter, after allegations they were pursuing the princess and
had hindered emergency services at the scene, angrily deny blame for
her death. 

Some of them said the driver, Henri Paul, racing at high speed despite
being well over France's drunk-driving limit, had shaken off the
pursuers before he crashed. 

One, French photographer Jacques Langevin, told a U.S. television
network he had not been chasing her. 

"I arrived after the police, after the ambulance people. I am charged
now and I cannot accept that," Langevin told CBS.