Queen scrambles to regain favour
Having seriously misread the mood of the nation, the Queen realised the Royal Family had to learn from Diana’s life and death
THE Queen stood solemnly in the Chinese Dining Room at Buckingham Palace, crowds of mourners visible beyond the balcony behind her.
It was 6pm on Friday, September 5, 1997 and finally, a week after Diana had been killed in a car crash in Paris, the Queen had broken her silence to address a nation in sorrow and increasing anger at her absence.
“What I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart,” she told the nation.
“First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.
“I admired and respected her — for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys. This week at Balmoral, we have all been trying to help William and Harry come to terms with the devastating loss that they and the rest of us have suffered. No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.
“I for one believe that there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary and moving reaction to her death.”
It was an emotional speech for the Queen and a concession that she had misjudged the mood of the public.
The news of Diana’s death broke in the early hours of Sunday, August 31. The 36-year-old princess was being driven at high speed in a Mercedes from the Ritz Hotel when the car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Diana, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, 42, and driver Henri Paul, 41, all died in the crash; her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, 29, survived.
The grief that swept over Britain was unlike anything that had been seen before. Highlighting the nation’s deep sorrow, then Prime Minister Tony Blair made a famous speech outside his local church. “She was the People’s Princess and that’s how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories forever,” he said.
That evening, a sombre Prince Charles landed at RAF Northolt on a flight carrying Diana’s body home.
The Royal Family was on its traditional summer holiday at Balmoral when the news broke and decided to stay there to protect Prince William, 15, and Prince Harry, 12, in their grieving.
Within days, the gates of Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace were obscured by a carpet of bouquets, teddies, candles, poems and drawings. It’s estimated a million bouquets were laid outside Kensington Palace.
No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.
People sobbed and strangers hugged as mourners felt compelled to make a pilgrimage to Hyde Park.
A book of condolence was opened, and when that was overwhelmed, several more were added. Queuing times to sign them were 11 hours.
The problem was the Royal Family was nowhere to be seen. By the Thursday, The Sun newspaper’s headline was “Where is our Queen? Where is her flag?” People were grieving, people were angry — they needed to hear from the Queen and could not understand her decision to stay in seclusion. The mood began to turn against the “out of touch monarchy” who had appeared so cold to Diana in life and now death. Symbolic of this outrage was the empty flagpole at Buckingham Palace. Flags were flying at half-mast all over the world, but protocol meant the Royal Standard was only flown when the Queen was in residence, certainly never lowered. For the woman who fought that protocol all her life, it was the final indignity.
Eventually, the Royal Family returned to London, and on the day of the funeral the Union Flag was flown at half-mast over Buckingham Palace for the first time.
The Queen also broke protocol with her televised speech, another first. “In the end, the Queen (honoured Diana) magnificently,” Tony Blair later said.
On September 6th, the day of Diana’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, 2.5 billion people tuned in worldwide. A million people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of her coffin — even more than for her wedding.
As her coffin slowly travelled from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey, Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, Charles, William and Harry walked behind in a sorrowful tableau. It would have a lasting effect on the boys — William had initially refused to walk and Harry recently said they should not have been made to do it.
“My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television,” he told Newsweek. “I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.”
Two thousand guests packed Westminster Abbey, mostly representatives of many of Diana’s charities and friends, including Cliff Richard, Hillary Clinton, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, George Michael, Mariah Carey, Clive James, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, as well as Elton John, who sang a new version of Candle in the Wind.
Afterwards a hearse took Diana’s body back to the folds of her family. Diana was buried, in private, on an island in an ornamental lake in the grounds of Althorp House. On July 1 this year, on what would have been her 56th birthday, the grave was rededicated in a service attended by her brother Charles, William, Catherine and Harry.
In his eulogy, Earl Spencer honoured his sister as “the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty”.
“All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden.”
In Diana’s final act, she taught the nation and the world it was permitted to cry in public and share your emotions — even if you’re royalty. The monarchy would never be the same again.