Princess Diana died in Paris on 31 August 1997. Six days later, on 6 September, her funeral took place at Westminster Abbey. Around a million people lined the streets of London, and an estimated two billion watched on television around the world.
Her coffin, draped in the royal standard, was carried on a gun carriage from Kensington Palace. For the final part of the journey, from St James’s Palace to the Abbey, five men walked behind it: Prince Charles, Prince Philip, Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, and her two sons, Prince William, aged 15, and Prince Harry, aged 12.
On top of the coffin lay white flowers. Among them was a small white card with one word written in a child’s hand: Mummy. It was from Harry.
The crowds along the route fell silent as the boys passed. Many people wept. The image of the two young princes, walking with their heads bowed behind their mother’s coffin, became one of the most heartbreaking pictures of the century.
According to later accounts, William had at first been reluctant to walk. Prince Philip is reported to have encouraged him, saying that if he did not walk he might regret it, and offering to walk with him.
For twenty years, the brothers said little publicly about that day. Then, in 2017, around the twentieth anniversary of her death, they spoke.
Harry told an interviewer that his mother had just died and he had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching him while millions more watched on television. He said he did not think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances.
Earl Spencer revealed his own regret. In a radio interview, he said he had not wanted the boys to walk, and that he had been told they wanted to do it, which he later came to believe was not true. He described the walk as a very bizarre and cruel thing for the boys to be asked to do.
William said that walking behind the coffin was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Today, the image of those two boys remains one of the most powerful reminders of what Diana’s death meant to the people who loved her most.