LONDON, Feb 15: Members of the British royal family have paid their last respects to Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth, who died last Saturday at the age of 71.

The private service was held at St George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle, near London and attended by about 400 of the princess’s friends, family and staff.

The Queen Mother, who is 101 years old and very frail, also attended her daughter’s funeral exactly 50 years to the day after her husband, King George XI, was buried in the same chapel.

The principal mourners were Princess Margaret’s children, Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, along with the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the Queen Mother who travelled by helicopter from her home. The Queen Mother had been determined to attend her daughter’s funeral despite suffering a fall on Wednesday. More than 30 other members of the Royal Family were present on the occasion.

After the ceremony her coffin, shrouded in her red, blue and gold-coloured personal standard, was slowly driven to Slough, a nearby town for cremation and no member of her family or friends were present during the cremation. The princess had said she wanted to be cremated in a simple, private service, at which no friends or family would be present. Her remains will be entombed in the royal vault at Windsor beside her father, King George VI.

Agencies add: Ten sovereigns are buried in the glorious Gothic chapel within the castle precincts, among them King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649 after his defeat in the Civil War.

Henry VIII also rests there with his third wife Jane Seymour, the only one of six to bear him a son. The bodies of his two beheaded spouses are buried in the Tower of London where they were executed.

Other monarchs buried there are Edward IV, Henry VI, George III, George IV, William IV, Edward VII, George V and George VI.

More recently, the 14th-century chapel saw the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999.