In a revealing disclosure in his memoir, Prince Harry spoke in detail about the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, describing how he experienced it as a 12-year-old child. Princess Diana lost her life on August 31, 1997, in a car accident in Paris, and her funeral took place a week later, on September 6. Prince Harry and his brother, Prince William, 15, walked behind their mother’s coffin in the official funeral procession, an image that remained indelible in the memory of millions of viewers.
Read: How Princess Diana would look at 64 if she were alive today (Video)
In his book “Spare,” Prince Harry writes that he nearly broke down when Elton John performed the moving version of “Candle in the Wind” during the ceremony at Westminster Abbey. “I’m not sure if the notes I hear in my mind are from that moment or from clips I saw later. Perhaps they’re remnants from recurring nightmares. But I have one clear memory: the song climaxed, my eyes began to sting, and tears nearly fell,” he recalls. However, he didn’t cry at that moment. The tears came later, when his mother was buried in the gardens of Althorp, at their family estate in West Northamptonshire, England.
“When we arrived at Althorp, the coffin was carried over the lake via a bridge. The coffin was led to a small island, where it was placed on a platform. William and I crossed the same bridge to go to the island,” he writes characteristically.
Prince Harry: My body began to shake, my jaw dropped and I began sobbing
“It was mentioned that mom’s hands were folded on her chest and between them was placed a photograph of me and my brother – perhaps the only two men who truly loved her. Certainly, the two who loved her most. For all eternity we would smile at her in the darkness,” he continued, explaining that this thought, at the moment when the flag was removed from the coffin and it descended into the earth, was what truly broke him.
“My body began to shake, my jaw dropped and I began sobbing into my hands. I felt ashamed for violating the family’s ‘behavior,’ but I couldn’t hold it inside anymore,” he concludes.
