After unprecedented media criticism and near-open public revolt, the House of Windsor yesterday bowed to popular demand, announcing a wholesale change in its approach to and preparation for tomorrow's funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Reports say the volte-face by Buckingham Palace followed a "battle of wills" between the Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phi lip, and Prince Charles - with Charles prevailing. If true, his hand will have been immeasurably strengthened by the Prime Minister, Mr Blair.
Mr Blair has been careful throughout the week not to play a party political hand, but from the moment of Diana's death, the royal household has been left in absolutely no doubt the prime minister knew what it meant for the British people - and what he, and they, would expect.
He has played his hand with all the diplomacy required of his office and of his constitutional relationship with the monarch but, by their contrasting demeanour, small failures and assorted misjudgments, the royals have bolstered the impression that Mr Blair has forced upon them the national commemoration demanded by public sentiment.
From the outset, Mr Blair has shown a keen sense of the national mood. Where others struggled, he found the right words last Sunday morning, as he took his family to church, to articulate the grief of a nation at the loss of "the People's Princess".
His voice cracking with emotion, Mr Blair paid tribute to "a wonderful and warm human be ing" whose life was so often touched by tragedy yet who touched the lives of millions across the world "with joy and with comfort". In what ways would we remember her?
"With the sick, the dying, with children, with the needy. With just a look or gesture that spoke so much more than words, she would reveal to us the depth of her compassion and her humanity," he said. "We knew how difficult things had been for her from time to time, but the people everywhere kept faith with Princess Diana.
"They liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was the `People's Princess' and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories forever."
In so declaring, Mr Blair showed himself to be no toady of the House of Windsor. That title - "the People's Princess" - must have stuck in the craw of the establishment advisers who had Diana stripped of her HRH after her divorce a year before. He reminded us too, why he swept Labour to power last May. Tories can only have watched the contrasting performance of Mr William Hague - feeble and without obvious personal feeling - and winced.
The amazing demonstration of public feeling since has confirmed the prime minister's judgment and finally forced the royals to discard the protocol by which they have too long lived and breathed.
Not all the criticisms were justified, and we can hardly be surprised at yesterday's palace statement informing us that members of the royal family "have been hurt by suggestions that they are indifferent to the country's sorrow". The statement said:
"The princess was a much loved national figure, but she was also a mother whose sons miss her deeply. Prince William and Prince Harry themselves want to be with their father and their grandparents at this time in the quiet haven of Balmoral. As their grandmother, the queen is helping the princes to come to terms with their loss as they prepare themselves for the public ordeal of mourning their mother with the nation on Saturday."
People will readily understand this and there may be some feelings of guilt as the queen now prepares to address the nation.
Yet for all that, the feeling also persists that the queen does not understand her people and that she and other royals are governed by a code of behaviour with which they simply no longer identify.
Senior royals may well find the new public code, with its shrines and emotionalism, distasteful, but their function - and hers most of all - is to provide the emblem, the symbolism around which the people can rally in times of triumph and tragedy.
The royal reluctance to adapt has never been more cruelly exposed than in the past few days. People understand that Charles and his sons would wish to take time and space in the privacy of Balmoral. They will be delighted to know that the queen - as they knew she would - has been comforting and sustaining her shattered grandchildren, but they can't understand why the palace could not confide in them something of the feelings of the royals in the aftermath of Diana's death.
Why no member of the royal household, until yesterday, had been to sign the book of condolence; why, until now, no tribute has been paid to Diana's life and work; why no lesser royals were on hand earlier in the week to mingle with members of the public who queued for up to 12 hours outside St James's Palace.
People find it inexplicable that Princes William and Harry were taken to a church service hours after their mother's death at which her name was never mentioned.
Understand as they might why the sovereign's personal standard never flies at half mast, they have been exasperated beyond belief to find Buckingham Palace, alone of all official buildings in the capital, without a lowered Union Jack.
Many pro-monarchists will be to the fore in feeling dismayed and frustrated that the fusty ways of faceless courtiers are only discarded after headlines demanding, "Where is Our Queen?" and "Speak to us Ma'am". The prayer will be that when she does so this evening, Queen Elizabeth will do so well . . . and with feeling.
French police held three more photographers for questioning yesterday over Princess Diana's death and questioned employees of the Ritz Hotel, which gave her a driver over the legal drinking limit. Three freelance photographers, aware they were sought in a manslaughter investigation into whether paparazzi on motorcycles caused the crash, turned themselves in to police.