Princess Diana’s Death: 6 of Prince Harry’s Most Heartbreaking Memories About the Aftermath From ‘Spare’
Princess Diana died on Aug. 31, 1997. In the decades since her death, Prince Harry has opened up about losing his mother at the age of 12. Perhaps most candidly in his 2023 memoir, Spare. Ahead are some of the Duke of Sussex’s most heartbreaking Spare passages about the aftermath of Diana’s death.
1. Harry sat silently in his bedroom for hours after learning of Diana’s death
“After decades of working to reconstruct that morning,” the early hours of Aug. 31, 1997, Harry came to an “inescapable conclusion” regarding what he did after his father, King Charles III, told him Diana had died in a car accident in Paris, France.
“I lay there, or sat there. I didn’t get up. I didn’t bathe, didn’t pee. Didn’t get dressed. Didn’t call out to Willy [Prince William] or [nanny] Mabel,” Harry recalled in Spare. “After decades of working to reconstruct that morning I’ve come to one inescapable conclusion: I must’ve remained in that room, saying nothing, seeing no one, until nine A.M. sharp, when the piper began to play outside.”
At the time of Diana’s death, Harry had been at Balmoral Castle, the royal family’s home in Scotland, and the setting for an annual summer visit.
2. Harry ‘cursed’ himself for holding his father’s hand during their first public appearance after Diana’s death
Aug. 31, 1997, continued as usual for Harry and the royal family. They went to church, as they always did every Sunday. Except, this time, on the two-minute drive back to the castle, the royals stopped to see well-wishers’ tributes. Upon hearing a “rhythmic clicking from across the road” from the gathered “press,” Harry grabbed King Charles’s hand “for comfort.”
Not a moment later Harry “cursed” himself “because that gesture set off an explosion of clicks. I’d given them exactly what they wanted. Emotion. Drama. Pain.”
3. Harry thought Diana was in hiding, not dead
In the aftermath of Diana’s death, Harry had the “sudden insight” that his mother wasn’t dead. “A suspicion took hold, which then became a firm belief,” he recalled, saying it came to mind while wandering Balmoral. “This was all a trick. And for once the trick wasn’t being played by the people around me, or the press, but by Mummy.”
“The realization took my breath away, made me gasp with relief,” Harry added, noting from thereafter he’d often go back and forth between doubt and relief.
4. Harry won’t forget the sounds of walking behind Diana’s coffin
One of the most memorable images from Diana’s funeral, the now-Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex walking behind her coffin, is also seared into Harry’s brain. Not necessarily the view of walking through the streets of London, England, but rather the sounds.
Harry, who recalled “feeling numb,” “clenching” his fists, and getting “loads of strength” from William, remembered the sounds — “the clinking bridles and clopping hooves of the six sweaty brown horses, the squeaking wheels of the gun carriage they were hauling” — “most of all.”
“I believe I’ll remember those sounds for the rest of my life,” Harry said. “Because they were such a sharp contrast to the otherwise all-encompassing silence” as two million people lined the procession route.
5. Harry felt ‘ashamed’ when he cried at Althorp after Diana’s death
After not being able to cry in public, Harry finally spilled tears at Diana’s family home, Althorp, during her burial. Saying a report his mother was buried holding a photo of him and William might’ve “finally broke” him, Harry recalled how his “body convulsed and my chin fell and I began to sob uncontrollably into my hands.”
At the same time Harry “felt ashamed of violating the family ethos” despite not being able to “hold it in any longer.”
“It’s OK, I reassured myself, it’s OK,” Harry recalled, “There aren’t any cameras around.” Besides, he added,” he was “crying at the mere idea” of Diana’s death. “It would just be so unbearably tragic, I thought, if it was actually true.”
6. Harry regretted not taking writing a ‘final’ letter to Diana after her death ‘more seriously’
When Harry returned to school following Diana’s death, he was tasked with writing a “final” letter to his late mother as part of letter-writing day. He “dashed off” a quick note, however, “immediately” after handing it in, he regretted not taking it “more seriously.”
“I wished I’d dug deep, told my mother all the things weighing on my heart, especially my regret over the last time we’d spoken on the phone,” Harry said, sharing he’d “rushed” her off the phone. “I wished I’d apologized for it. I wished I’d searched for the words to describe how much I loved her,” unaware the “search would take decades.”
