Heartbreaking promise Prince William made to Diana before her death
During the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, the former couple hotly-argued whether she would be allowed to keep her title as ‘Her Royal Highness’.
Reportedly, the Queen was happy for her to retain the title, however, Charles was against it, so Diana then became Diana, Princess of Wales.
The change separated Diana further from the Royal family and meant she had to curtsy to all members, including her own sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
William, who was 14 years old at the time of his parent’s divorce, made a promise to his mum to ease her “distress” over the title change.
According to Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, William vowed that he would reinstate her HRH title.
In his book A Royal Duty, Burrell wrote: “She told me how he had sat with her one night when she was upset over the loss of HRH, put his arms around her and said, ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. I will give it back to you one day when I am King.”
However, William’s promise was sadly left unfulfilled as his mother died in a car crash just one year after the divorce was finalised.
Last year, in the lead up to the 20th anniversary of his mother’s death, William revealed his regrets over his final conversation with his mother.
In a documentary called Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, the second in line to the throne said he rushed off the phone when she called from Paris as he was playing with Harry and their cousins in Balmoral.
A few hours later, she died in the car crash.
“Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know, ‘see you later’. If I’d known now obviously what was going to happen I wouldn’t have been so blasé about it and everything else. But that phone call sticks in my mind, quite heavily,” Prince William said.
Prince Harry also revealed how the regret of their last phone call has lingered with him.
“It was her speaking from Paris. I can’t really necessarily remember what I said, but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was,” he said.
“Looking back on it now it’s incredibly hard. I’ll have to sort of deal with that for the rest of my life. Not knowing that was the last time I was going to speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out if I’d had even the slightest inkling her life was going to be taken that night.”