THE Queen bowed to public criticism of her response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, yesterday with a series of gestures to show that the Royal Family was not indifferent to the people's overwhelming grief.

She is to broadcast to the nation tonight and has ordered that for the first time the Union Flag should fly at half-mast over Buckingham Palace.

She has also changed her travel plans so that she will fly to London, rather than take an overnight train, in time to record her broadcast this afternoon. She is then expected to pay her respects at the Princess's coffin in St James's Palace and to mingle with the crowds waiting to sign books of condolence, as her younger sons did yesterday.

Last night the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and Princes William and Harry emerged from Balmoral to attend a special church service, pausing on the way back to look at the flowers that had been left outside the castle gate in memory of the Princess.

The change of approach is believed to have been urged very strongly on the Queen by the Prince of Wales, who had been increasingly aware of public irritation at the family's absence from London and the lack of any symbol of royal mourning at Buckingham Palace - where the public grief is evident in a swelling mountain of flowers.

Some of the Queen's staff are believed to have told her of public anger that protocol was being followed too closely and the Prince is said to have become frustrated by the unbending attitude of older Palace officials. A friend of the Prince said that, in the end, he had put his foot down.

He, in turn, is thought to have been influenced by conversations with the Prime Minister suggesting that the Royal Family would benefit by showing the depth of its feelings. It is understood that as early as Monday, Downing Street officials voiced their fears to their Palace counter parts that the absence of a flag flying over Buckingham Palace might spark resentment from people who were in no mood to observe the rules of royal protocol.

Downing Street said last night that the new arrangements were a further sign that the Royal Family was responding positively and imaginatively to the extraordinary outpouring of grief.

Yesterday's burst of public activity was signalled by a rare Palace statement telling of the Royal Family's distress at suggestions that it was untouched by the tragedy.

The Queen's press secretary, Geoffrey Crawford, faced cameras at St James's Palace and said: "The Royal Family have been hurt by suggestions that they are indifferent to the country's sorrow at the tragic death of the Princess of Wales. The Princess was a much-loved national figure, but she was also a mother whose sons miss her deeply."

He said that Prince William and Prince Harry wanted to remain in the "quiet haven of Balmoral" and added that the Queen, as their grandmother, was "helping the princes come to terms with their loss as they prepare themselves for the public ordeal of mourning their mother with the nation on Saturday".

The Queen has now decided to fly to London this afternoon, when she will record a broadcast in which she will tell of her shock and sorrow at the death of her former daughter-in-law. It will be only the second time that she has broadcast to the nation apart from her annual Christmas messages; the first was at the end of the Gulf War.

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