Meghan to make first ‘pilgrimage’ to Diana’s grave

PRINCE Harry has spoken wistfully of how he would have loved his wife, Meghan, to have met his mother.

And now the former actress is to make an emotional ‘pilgrimage’ to the burial place of Diana, Princess of Wales.

I hear that the Duchess of Sussex is to visit Althorp, the ancestral seat of Diana’s family in Northamptonshire, for the first time.

She and Harry are expected to bring baby Archie on the poignant trip, which is due to take place around the time of the 22nd anniversary of the Princess’s death on August 31.

‘Harry wants Meghan to see his mother’s resting place,’ a royal source tells me.

He and Prince William used to visit Althorp, the home of their uncle and aunt, Earl and Countess Spencer, twice a year: on Diana’s birthday, July 1; and on the anniversary of her death.

However, the brothers are understood not to have visited since what would have been Diana’s 56th birthday in 2017, when they attended a private ceremony led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Harry has maintained a close bond with Diana’s family, and her sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, were included in the family portrait taken at Windsor Castle after Archie’s christening last month.

When Harry proposed to Meghan in 2017, he gave her a custom-made ring which featured two diamonds from his mother’s jewellery collection.

And in the television interview that followed their engagement announcement, Meghan responded: ‘In not being able to meet his mum, it’s so important for me to know that she’s a part of this with us.’

The Prince said poignantly of his mother: ‘I think she would have been best friends with Meghan.’

The couple remembered the Princess on Mothering Sunday by posting an image of Archie’s tiny foot above a bed of forget-me-nots, which are said to have been Diana’s favourite flower.

And they recently paid another tribute when they shared an inspirational quote from Diana on social media: ‘Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.’

The Princess is buried on a private island on the 14,000-acre estate that can be accessed only by boat. It is not open to the thousands of visitors who flock to Althorp House each summer.

Earl Spencer and Buckingham Palace declined to comment.