The Gist
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Princess Diana died on August 31, 1997 in a Paris car crash; she was just 36 years old.
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Her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, were with their father, Prince Charles, at Balmoral in Scotland when she died.
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It was down to Charles to tell his sons—then just 15 and 12, respectively—the devastating news that Diana did not survive her injuries.
There is no easy way to tell a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old that their beloved mother has died, and on August 31, 1997, Prince Charles was faced with that herculean task following the Paris car crash that took Princess Diana’s life at just 36 years old.
Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry were at Balmoral in Scotland—the royal family’s traditional late-summer retreat—when Charles got the devastating call. Speaking at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2022, William said, “I was in Balmoral when I was told that my mother had died. Still in shock, I found sanctuary in the service at Crathie Kirk that very morning. And in the dark days of grief that followed, I found comfort and solace in the Scottish outdoors. As a result, the connection I feel to Scotland will forever run deep.”
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Prince William, Prince Charles, and Prince Harry at Balmoral on August 12, 1997
In the 2017 BBC documentary Diana, 7 Days, William recalled “just feeling completely numb, disoriented, dizzy” upon hearing the news (via People).
“You feel very, very confused,” the Prince of Wales said at the time. “And you keep asking yourself, ‘Why me?’ All the time. ‘Why? What have I done? Why? Why has this happened to us?’”
Charles told William the news first, and Charles then told Harry, which the Duke of Sussex later wrote about in his 2023 memoir Spare. “I remember waiting patiently for Pa to confirm that, indeed, Mummy was all right,” Harry wrote. “And I remember him not doing that.”
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Prince Charles, Prince Harry, and Prince William at Balmoral in August 1997
The former Prince of Wales told his younger son that Diana “didn’t make it”: “These phrases remain in my mind like darts in a board,” Harry added. “He did say it that way, I know that much for sure. She didn’t make it. And then everything seemed to come to a stop.”
In the Diana, 7 Days documentary from 2017, Harry spoke out for the first time about Charles breaking the news of Diana’s death, saying in the program that “One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died. How you deal with that, I don’t know.”
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Prince Charles, Prince Harry, and Prince William in August 1997
Per People, he added that Charles “was there for us—he was the one out of two left, and he tried to do his best and to make sure that we were protected and looked after. But he was going through the same grieving process, as well.”
Harry said his initial reaction to his mother’s death was that of “disbelief” and that he “refused to accept it”: “There was no sudden outpour of grief,” he continued. “I don’t think anybody in that position at that age would be able to understand the concept of what that actually means going forward.”
Controversially at the time, the royal family remained at Balmoral in Scotland rather than returning to London. “At the time, my grandmother [Queen Elizabeth] wanted to protect her two grandsons and my father, as well,” William said in the same documentary. “Our grandmother deliberately removed the newspapers and things like that so there was nothing in the house to read.”
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Queen Elizabeth in 1995
He added, “We didn’t know what was going on. Back then there were no smartphones and things like that, so you couldn’t get your news. Thankfully, we had the privacy to mourn and to try to collect our thoughts and have that space away from everybody. We had no idea the reaction to her death would be quite so huge.”
Queen Elizabeth, William continued, “felt very torn between being the grandmother to William and Harry and her Queen role, and I think everyone was taken aback of what happened and the speed it happened.”
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Princess Diana on June 17, 1997
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Prince William, Prince Charles, and Prince Harry at Balmoral
“All of us were in new territory,” he added. “My grandmother and father believed we were better served in Balmoral, having the walks and space and the peace to be with the family and not be immersed or having to deal with serious decision or worries straightaway.”
Read the original article on InStyle