Queen's visit here to go ahead, despite Margaret's death

11.30 am

The Queen is still coming to New Zealand.

There were fears the Queen's planned visit to New Zealand later this month could be affected by the death of her sister, Princess Margaret, yesterday.

The funeral for Princess Margaret is planned for next weekend. It will not be a State occasion, however, a Buckingham Palace spokeman said.

A Palace official said today the Queen's planned royal visit to Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica over the next month will still go ahead, as will all the monarch's scheduled arrangements.

Aged 71, the fun-loving, hard-playing sister of the Queen died at dawn (local time) after the latest in a series of strokes.

The Queen announced the death "with great sadness" in a statement pinned up for all to see at Buckingham Palace, where the Union Jack fluttered at half mast.

Curious tourists congregated outside the gates in muted sadness and respect - a far cry from the spontaneous outpouring when that other royal misfit, Princess Diana, died in 1997.

Margaret died in the week her older sister celebrated 50 years on the throne. Ever more vivacious than the dutiful Elizabeth, Margaret's exotic lifestyle had in the end reduced the glamorous princess to a frail, wheelchair-bound figure.

The palace said Margaret suffered her most recent stroke on Friday afternoon, developed heart problems overnight and was taken from her Kensington Palace home to hospital.

"Her beloved sister, Princess Margaret, died peacefully in her sleep this morning at 6.30 a.m. in the King Edward VII Hospital. Her children, Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, were at her side," the queen's statement said.

A heavy smoker and drinker, Margaret will best be remembered for relinquishing true love in her youth, turning her back on a dashing air force officer when protocol dictated that a princess could not marry a divorced man.

Instead she turned her attentions to the high arts, beaux and parties, in striking contrast to the outdoor sporting pursuits preferred by other royals.

"She gave a great deal of service to the country," Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters during a trip to Africa. "The whole country will be deeply saddened. She will be remembered with a lot of affection."

The palace said Margaret's coffin was being taken to her home at Kensington Palace - where Diana once lived - "to enable friends and family to pay their respects in private".

The Princess will be buried next week in what is expected to be a private affair at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.

The death comes as the royal family embarks on a year of jubilee celebrations for the Queen's 50-year reign. Plans have got off to a bad start, with widespread apathy about the festivities and fresh scandal surrounding the younger royals.

The death will be a bitter blow to the family matriarch, the Queen Mother, who at 101 has now outlived her younger child.

Right to the end, the "Queen Mum", Elizabeth and Margaret had formed a fierce female trio at the heart of the monarchy, while younger royals dabbled in divorce, adultery and drugs.

"The Queen will miss her very much," he said.

Always the more striking sister, Margaret barely appeared in public at the end and final outings revealed a woman destroyed.

Unable to walk, a formless figure bundled in blankets and wraparound dark glasses, this was not the wild child who had broken so many hearts or cavorted with so many stars.

A series of strokes had damaged her eyes and affected one arm. Her wheelchair became Margaret's lifeline.

Surgeons removed a section of the princess's left lung in 1985 and there was speculation that her condition had been brought on by smoking up to 60 cigarettes a day. In 1999, she was ill for weeks after scalding her feet while taking a bath.

A friend of celebrities and lover of night clubs, the sharp-tongued princess was the first in a line of modern royals who struggled against the stuffy strictures of regal convention.

She loved ballet, art and jazz - Louis Armstrong dubbed her "one hip chick" - but it was her zeal for the Caribbean island of Mustique, men and partying that captured the imagination.

Yet for all her bohemian instincts, Margaret gave up her one true love in 1955 when she yielded to pressure by renouncing her love for the handsome but divorced Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Constitutional crisis averted, the distraught Princess turned to a flamboyant life in high society for consolation.

She wed photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones - who took the title Lord Snowdon - in 1960. Their marriage produced two children and ended in 1978. It was the first divorce in the inner circle of the royals since the days of King Henry VIII, and presaged the royal discord of recent years.

Margaret was 11th in line to the throne.

The Queen and Prince Philip's itinerary for their New Zealand visit includes stopovers in Wellington, Taupo, Christchurch and Auckland.

- HERALD STAFF and REUTERS

Programme for the Royal visit