The sight of Princes William and Harry trailing their mother’s coffin remains an enduring, heartbreaking symbol of Princess Diana‘s 1997 funeral. But according to Earl Spencer, the devastating walk was calculated less around tradition and more around shielding Prince Charles from public backlash.
“A Tiny Dot of a Boy” – Prince Harry’s Procession Breaks Spencer’s Heart
Speaking about the tense behind-the-scenes negotiations leading up to the historic broadcast, Earl Spencer revealed that he vehemently objected when Buckingham Palace first notified him that Prince William and Prince Harry would participate in the public walk.
Acting as his family’s primary liaison and knowing Diana had named him guardian, Spencer argued that subjecting two grieving boys to such a spectacle was “monstrous” and insisted Diana would never have permitted it. That pushback sparked an explosive private phone call from the then-Prince of Wales, who adamantly defended his decision.
“He said, ‘Well, I walked behind Lord Mountbatten’s coffin,'” Spencer told Peole. “And I said, ‘Yes, but you were 30, and he wasn’t your mother’. Well, then he went nuts really and sort of had a good rant. And I just sort of held the phone like that and let it go on.”
According to Spencer, Charles ended the tirade with a chilling assertion: “We’ll forget her soon enough,”a remark that left the Earl stunned before he hung up the phone.
While Spencer questioned why an ex-husband insisted on marching behind Diana’s cortege in the first place, he later uncovered the calculated political reasoning behind placing William and Harry alongside their father.
“I learned that people advising him were saying, ‘Well, you can’t do that because the public will shout things out against you as you walk,'” Spencer revealed. “And then there was a thought that maybe if William and Harry walk beside him, then of course nobody was going to shout insults. There was an awful lot of less than straight talk going on at the time.”
Spencer eventually acquiesced after Palace officials claimed the boys had chosen to walk themselves, but witnessing 12-year-old Harry hurried along the route remains an unbearable memory.
“I just remember this tiny Harry… this tiny dot of a boy walking in public behind his mother’s coffin. It’s monstrous. I mean, it was awful at the time… Nobody now can possibly think that was the right thing to do.”
The procession through London was staged to project dignified royal duty to a watching world. Decades later, Spencer makes it clear the palace’s calculated gamble might have come at an unforgivable human cost.
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