Prince Harry returned to the UK for the Invictus Games earlier this month and was later joined by his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and their two children, Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie, as part of a family holiday. Now, Meghan has released a series of photographs from their family trip, which includes an emotional image of Prince Harry and his children at his late mother Princess Diana’s childhood home and final resting place.
In the photo, Prince Harry is alongside his son, Prince Archie, each of them with huge bunches of flowers gathered in their arms as they walk between two lines of trees. Princess Lilibet is seen from behind, in the foreground of the image, with Meghan presumably the person taking the photograph (slide 9 in Instagram post below). The family are in the grounds of Althorp, the stately home owned for centuries by Princess Diana’s family in Northamptonshire.
The location is also Princess Diana’s final resting place, as she was buried on an island in the centre of an ornamental lake in the grounds. ‘An ancient arboretum stands nearby, which contains trees planted by Prince William and Prince Harry, other members of her family and the princess herself,’ wrote the BBC at the time.
Sion Touhig
Aerial view of where Princess Diana is laid to rest.
Although there is also a chapel where at least 20 generations of the Spencer family have been buried, the island location was chosen as her brother was ‘concerned about public safety and security and wanted his sister to be buried where her grave could be looked after properly and visited in privacy by her sons,’ according to the BBC. Given Prince Harry brought his children to Althorp with bouquets, it seems likely the flowers were supposed to be left at Princess Diana’s resting place.
Princess Diana Archive
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Anwar Hussein
Prince Harry was just 12 years old when his mother died in 1997, while Prince William was 15. Between them, the brothers now have five children (Princes George, Louis and Archie, and Princesses Lilibet and Charlotte), to whom Princess Diana would have been grandmother. At the time of an ITV documentary about Princess Diana’s life, Prince William said, ‘She’d be a lovely grandmother, she’d absolutely love it, she’d love the children to bits,’ according to the BBC.
Prince Harry had added that, ‘Our mother was a total kid through and through,’ and said, ‘When everybody says to me “So she was fun, give us an example”, all I can hear is her laugh in my head.’ He also said at the time that he had only cried twice for his mother, and that one of the times had been during the burial at Althorp, which followed a more public funeral at Westminster Abbey.