The defiant princess: Margaret, 1930-2002

A few floral tributes, a hundred or so people, a bleak vigil at Kensington Palace

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The comparison was obvious but cruel. "Diana got far more flowers than this," said a tall Englishman with a sneer in his voice as he looked down at the dozen or so floral tributes laid on the grass outside Kensington Palace. They barely filled the grass space that had been marked off for them with crash barriers. "Ah yes," said a man with a French accent. "But Diana was young."

The announcement came from Buckingham Palace yesterday morning. The Queen, "with great sadness", wanted to announce that her beloved sister had "died peacefully in her sleep".

Yesterday afternoon, the scented mounds that gathered after the death of the so-called People's Princess were absent. So were the crowds. Only a hundred or so people stopped at the edge of the park to watch Princess Margaret's coffin pass by, and many of those were journalists. Two police outriders came first, then the hearse with the coffin draped in a royal standard, then another car. The Princess's family were already inside, mourning in private.

"Poor little thing," said a woman with a refined accent, as she watched the procession, clutching a white handkerchief. "I feel glad for her that she's dead. She suffered so much, but I'm sorry for the Queen Mother. This will kill her."

While the trickle to join the crowd outside the palace was slow, broadcasters responded swiftly to Princess Margaret's death, interrupting morning programmes with news flashes and special tributes. In an unprecedented move, the producers of Radio 4's The Archers scripted an extra scene for the soap's weekly omnibus, in which Ambridge shopkeeper Jack Woolley reminisced about the Princess's famous visit to the village 18 years ago.

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace postponed a planned release of two photographs of the Queen from its Golden Jubilee portfolio. The pictures, both of which depict their subject smiling, were deemed inappropriate, given the solemnity of the occasion.

Back at Kensington Palace, after the hearse had passed through the gates of the palace, the small crowd dispersed. A few men began to play football alongside the five broadcast trucks parked on the Broad Walk.

Perhaps if the Princess had died soon after she broke off from Group Captain Townsend in 1955, she might have wrung more tears from the old-fashioned royalists. Margaret was an old-fashioned princess: a great beauty in her youth, with such a strong sense of duty that she gave up the man she loved. There were holidays in Mustique and appearances in gossip columns, but for the last years of her life Margaret, unlike Diana, never gave the impression that she felt she owed the public something.

This time there was never any question about the flag flying at half-mast over Buckingham Palace – but even on the day of her passing, among those few who stopped in the street, Margaret was eclipsed by Diana.

Once again the Family will be asking itself why.