The Prince of Wales made a heart breaking admission to a mourner while visiting Sandringham House. William and Kate went to view the sea of flowers left for the Queen at the gates of the Norfolk estate on Thursday (September 15).
William told one mourner that walking behind the Queen’s coffin to the lying in state on Wednesday was difficult, and reminded him of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales’s funeral. Caroline Barwick-Walters, 66, from Neath in South Wales, said: “He told us how difficult it was yesterday, how it brought back memories of walking behind his mother’s coffin.”
He told another woman: "Don’t cry now, you’ll start me," according to Daily Express royal correspondent Richard Palmer. Thousands of well-wishers turned out to see William and Kate look at the sea of flowers left for the late monarch by the Norwich Gates.
Read more: How long is the queue to see the Queen lying in state at Westminster Hall?
On Wednesday, the Queen's coffin was placed in Westminster Hall, with the King and senior members of the royal family walking behind it. It marked Queen Elizabeth leaving Buckingham Palace, the official residence where she spent so much of her working life, for the last time.
As she was brought into Westminster Hall, senior royals stood in formation facing the coffin on its purple-covered catafalque, which was flanked with a tall, yellow flickering candle at each corner of the wide scarlet platform. The King and Queen Consort stood together a metre or so apart, with the Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence behind them, then the Duke of York alone, and in the next row the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
Behind them were the Prince and Princess of Wales, with the Duke of Sussex behind William, and the Duchess of Sussex directly behind Kate. It's been 25 years since William and his brother Prince Harry followed the casket of their mother Princess Diana, which was taken on a similar procession through central London.
In 1997, Diana was killed aged 36 in a car crash in Paris. William and Harry were 15 and 12 years old respectively. Both brothers have spoken in the past of the lasting trauma they endured after their mother's death and the long, gruelling walk they took on during the procession.
William said in 2017 that the shock of Diana's death still lingered within him. He said in a TV programme: "You never get over it. It's such an unbelievably big moment in your life that it never leaves you. You just learn to deal with it."
The Duke of Sussex later said of the moment: "I don't think any child should be asked to do that." Harry said in a 2021 TV documentary series: "It was like I was outside my body, just walking along, doing what was expected of me, showing one tenth of the emotion that everyone was showing," revealing that he had later used alcohol and drugs to numb the pain.
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