On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris. For a week leading up to his grandiose funeral, the UK has plunged into unprecedented monarchy-shattering mourning.
• Also read: Prince William and his family leave London for Windsor
Divorced from Prince Charles for a year, the 36-year-old woman and her new relationship, Egyptian film producer Dodi Al-Fayed, have been hounded by paparazzi in the Mediterranean all summer.
Arriving in Paris on the afternoon of August 30, the couple went to dinner at the Ritz, a palace on the Place Vendôme, which they discreetly attempted to leave a little after midnight aboard a Mercedes.
Pursued by photographers on motorcycles, the mighty sedan rushes into the Alma Tunnel at high speed and crashes into a pillar.
Diana is pulled out of the smashed Mercedes by rescue workers. Dodi Al-Fayed and her driver, whose test will reveal high blood alcohol levels, died instantly. Her bodyguard is badly injured.
Seven photographers are arrested. The next day, magazines are offered photos of the accident for a million dollars.
The princess, suffering from “very severe haemorrhagic shock of thoracic origin”, is transported to the Pitié-Salpêtrière. At 4 a.m., doctors pronounced him dead.
The French ambassador is on the phone with the Queen’s aides-de-camp in Balmoral, Scotland, where Elizabeth II, her husband the Duke of Edinburgh Charles, and Princes William, 15, and Harry, 12, are staying for the summer.
“People’s Princess”
The UK wakes up in mourning. Under a gray sky, hundreds of tearful Londoners begin to lay flowers outside the palaces of Buckingham and Kensington, the Princess’ residence.
Sobbing in his voice, Labor PM Tony Blair pays tribute to the ‘princess of the people’.
There is dismay all over the world. US President Bill Clinton says he is “deeply saddened”. In India, Mother Teresa prays for the deceased before she dies a few days later. Michael Jackson, ‘collapsed’ cancels concert he was supposed to give in Belgium
The paparazzi are the first to be charged. Diana’s brother Charles Spencer accuses the newspapers of having “blood on their hands”.
Embarrassed, the popular British press elevated Diana to the rank of icon. “She was born a lady. She has become our princess. Her death made her a saint,” writes the Daily Mirror.
The enthusiasm of the population is growing. At the Palace of Saint-James, where his remains rest, you have to wait until eleven to access the registers of condolences.
“The vision of the bouquets is striking: a real sea that reaches almost a hundred meters in length,” writes AFP.
“The Queen Forced to Speak”
Funeral planning is a headache. Since her divorce, Lady Di is no longer entitled to the title of Royal Highness and a national funeral. But the Brits are demanding a tribute worthy of their “Queen of Hearts.”
Especially as anger rises at the silence of the royal family holed up in Balmoral.
The newspapers, furious at the lack of a flag at half-mast at Buckingham Palace, urged the Queen to reach out to her subjects. “The royal family has let us down,” quips The Sun.
“Wounded” decides on September 5 Elizabeth II to pay tribute to this ex-daughter-in-law, whom she did not like, in a televised address – the 2nd in 45 years of reign – before bowing publicly in front of his coffin.
“If the Windsors don’t learn their lesson, not only will they bury Diana, they will bury their future,” warns the Guardian, with nearly a quarter of Britons now voting to abolish the monarchy.
The next day, nearly a million people take part in the funeral procession in deep silence, punctuated by tears and the sound of the death knell.
With their heads bowed, the two orphan princes follow the coffin, accompanied by Prince Charles, the Duke of Edinburgh and Earl Spencer, under the gaze of 2.5 billion viewers.
In Westminster, 2,000 guests including Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Luciano Pavarotti, Margaret Thatcher and Tom Cruise attend the ceremony. Elton John performs his hit song “Candle in the Wind” which he rewrote in honor of Diana.
In the afternoon, the princess was buried privately in Althorp, north-west London. She rests there on a small island in the family park.