The small cortege was gone in just seconds as the remains of Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, the coffin covered in white flowers and accompanied only by his wife, Princess Mabel, arrived at his final resting place yesterday in the idyllic woodland village of Lage Vuursche in the Dutch province of Utrecht.
The intimate nature of the family farewell was underlined by the fact that the funeral ceremony was performed by the Rev Carel ter Linden, the clergyman who married the couple in Delft in 2004 – amid a blaze of publicity over the decision of Friso – the brother of the new Dutch king – to gave up his right of succession to the Dutch throne.
They were forced to marry without the consent of parliament after it emerged that Princess Mabel – then Mabel Wisse Smit – had given "incomplete and incorrect information" to the Dutch government about her earlier relationship with drugs baron, Klaas Bruinsma, shot dead in 1991.
After their marriage, the couple moved to London where Prince Friso – known as ‘Prince Brilliant’ during his years as a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and at the prestigious INSEAD business school in France – became a vice-president at Goldman Sachs.
Princess Mabel (45) worked as chief executive of The Elders, a position from which she resigned last year when her husband was left in a coma after being buried by an avalanche during a ski holiday in Austria. Friso (44) had since regained “minimal consciousness”, but died of complications last Monday.
Castle
Shortly before yesterday's funeral service, the royal family and about 80 guests left nearby Drakensteyn Castle – where Friso grew up and his mother, Princess Beatrix, will spend her retirement – and walked together to the modest church.
Prince Friso’s body had been accompaniedfrom Huis ten Bosch palace in The Hague, where he died, by Princess Mabel. Yesterday she led the procession on one side, with Princess Beatrix on the other, holding hands between them with Friso’s daughters, Luana (8) and Zaria (7).
Behind them came Friso’s elder brother, King Willem-Alexander, his wife Queen Maxima, and their three young daughters. All five little girls were dressed in white – a startling contrast to the sombre black of the other mourners.
Among the handful of royal guests was Friso's godfather, King Harald V of Norway, and his wife, Queen Sonja.
However, given the family nature of the gathering, prime minister Mark Rutte was not among the mourners.
The royal household last evening released a series of photographs of Friso and his family during happier days.
