On August 31, 1997, the former Lady Diana Spencer died in a car accident. Her fairytale marriage to Prince Charles enthralled the world until it openly unraveled with infidelity and divorce. Her sons spoke at a series of public commemorations of her life five years ago about the lasting impact of her death on them. The brothers will not participate in any formal commemorations this year, choosing to honour the occasion privately with their own families.
William, who is 40 years old, recently said that his wife Catherine and their three young children will be moving from London to the Windsor estate, which is west of London. After leaving the royal family in early 2020, Harry, 37, now lives in California with his wife, Meghan, and their two children. According to the Daily Telegraph, the brothers “decided to put a line under their public commemorations” at the 20th anniversary.
Both couples’ representatives acknowledged that they would spend the day alone. After Diana’s untimely death at the age of 36, flowers were left at the gates of Kensington Palace, where she used to live in London. Flowers will be laid at the palace and near the entrance to the Paris motorway tunnel where the high-speed crash occurred.
Legacy
Diana is still seen as a fashion icon and as someone who broke with old-fashioned royal rules, especially after her divorce became public. She was also praised for her charity work, which brought attention to the problem of landmines and helped people change how they thought about people with HIV/AIDS. A fast Ford Escort she formerly owned was auctioned off last weekend for 737,000 pounds ($864,000), demonstrating the public’s continued interest in the queen.
The next season of the hit Netflix show “The Crown” will also show her problems with her marriage. Joe Little, who is the managing editor of Majesty Magazine, thinks that Diana pushed her boys to be less formal than most royals. “They’re far more ‘touchy-feely’ than they would have been,” he remarked, referring to William’s hugs for England’s female footballers after their Euro 2022 victory earlier this month.
“William can understand that there is no need for much of the formality in royal life that existed when his father was of a comparable age,” he continued. Last week, Harry, who has admitted to having mental health issues as a result of his mother’s death, stated that he would “share the spirit of my mum with my family, with my children, who I wish could have met her.”
“Every day, I aim to do her proud,” he said last week at a fundraising dinner in the United States for his Sentebale charity, which helps young people with HIV. “I want it to be a day filled with recollections of her tremendous job and appreciation for how she achieved it,” he added. William and Harry were only 15 and 12 years old when Diana died, and the image of them walking with their heads bowed behind her coffin has stayed with people ever since.
On what would have been her 60th birthday, the brothers unveiled a statue of her at Kensington Palace last year. They described her as “a force for good around the world, transforming countless lives for the better.” But there was a split, which rumours said began soon after Harry started dating Meghan. They were briefly spotted together at their grandmother Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021.
They were also separated at the recent public commemorations of the queen’s 70 years on the throne. In a television appearance, William reacted strongly to the couple’s charges of racism in the royal family in a television appearance. Harry, who plans to write a memoir with more details, has also said that William, their father, and their grandfather were locked up in a dungeon.
The pair will be staying on the huge Windsor estate near William and Kate for a series of charity events next week. There are no preparations for the brothers to meet, nor for Harry to pay a visit to his sick 96-year-old grandmother at her Scottish home, Balmoral.
