The gravediggers' express resentment at what appears to them to be the privilege of the upper classes to obtain concessions from the law which are not available to the common people. While the over-all statistics from the period do not support this suspicion, there does appear to be evidence that the "great folk" have obtained special intervention in this particular case. Ophelia is allowed a Christian burial, but her rites are "maimèd." Much to the objection of Laertes, the ceremony has been shortened.

LAERTES: What ceremony else? DOCTOR: Her obsequies have been as far enlarged      As we have warrenty. Her death was doubtful,      And, but that great command o'ersways the order,      She should in ground unsanctified been lodged      Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,      Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.      Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,      Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home      Of bell and burial. LAERTES: Must there no more be done? DOCTOR: No more be done.      We should profane the service of the dead      To sing a requiem and such rest to her      As to peace-parted souls. LAERTES: Lay her i' th' earth,      And from her fair and unpolluted flesh      May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,      A minist'ring angel shall my sister be      When thou liest howling!  (V.i.227-244)

There is little question from the Priest/Doctor's speech that Ophelia has received special considerations that stretch the rules that govern church burials. The common understanding is that either the coroner or the coroner's inquest has come up with a lenient judgment. However, the priest's allusion to "that great command" which "o'ersways the order" suggests another alternative which is supported by Lee Anne Rappold in Hamlet and the Elizabethan Common Law. She argues that the coroner's inquest delivered a probable verdict of felo de se but that a special order from on high served to override that finding. While the "great command" is normally taken to refer to the coroner's order which is delivered to the ministers and church wardens of a parish concerning the burial, Ms. Rappold believes that it refers to a "warrantie" which serves to inlarge her "obsequies." She points out that the First Quarto text, Claudius and Laertes directly indicated as the source of that special consideration.

Priest: [to Laertes]      And but for favour to the king, and you,      She had beene buried in the open fieldes,      Where now she is allowed christian buriall.  - (First Quarto, 1603)