LONDON - Princess Diana had planned to return to London on Sunday for a week-long reunion with her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, before they left for the fall term at boarding school. But the boys were awakened before dawn that morning by their distraught father.
At first, they were told their mother had been in a serious accident. Minutes later, the unthinkable was confirmed. She was dead.
Hours later, the boys accompanied Prince Charles to the weekly Sunday service in the small village church near Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where they had spent three weeks with their father and the royal family.
The two young princes wore suits with black ties; they were grim-faced but never shed a tear. There was no mention of their mother's name during the hour-long service or in the standard prayers for the royal family - Diana was eliminated from the prayer list when she lost the title of "Her Royal Highness" last year.
The British public, on the other hand, can't stop crying. In the midst of an extraordinary outpouring of grief following the death of Diana, the only public sympathy expressed for the royal family is for her sons: William, 15, and Harry, who turns 13 in less than two weeks. While Diana's life was full of melodrama and disappointment, the two boys were a constant source of joy to her. She embraced motherhood with a passion, and lavished on her sons all the love missing from her own childhood: unrestrained affection, attention and guidance, a spirit of play.
In one shattering night, she was taken from them forever. "It's just a tragedy," said one mourner outside Kensington Palace, echoing the sentiments of thousands who have left notes of condolence for the boys. "I feel so terrible for the two princes."
The boys have remained with the royal family in Scotland, where they will stay until Saturday's funeral at Westminster Abbey. They have been joined by their former nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, who has an affectionate, tender relationship with both princes.
Royal aides at Balmoral have been ordered to hide all newspapers announcing the deadly accident in Paris. The papers are full of stories about the effect of her death on her children. Grief experts all agree that the loss of their mother at such impressionable ages will change them profoundly and might haunt them for the rest of their lives. Pundits and the public have expressed fear that the contrast between the stiff-upper-lip tradition of the monarchy and their mother's spontaneous, emotionally open style could have a devastating effect on the boys, particularly at this time. The public silence from the royal family about Diana's death has only reinforced concerns about William and Harry. Yesterday's edition of the Sun reported that William has insisted that he and his brother be allowed to walk behind the gun carriage bearing their mother's coffin to Westminster Abbey.
Overnight, the almost hysterical devotion displayed this week for Diana has been transferred to her eldest son. Sporting the blond hair and lanky good looks of the Spencers, William is now her living embodiment.
This is a mixed blessing for the monarchy: The next Prince of Wales will come to the throne with unprecedented public support, but with the hope that this future king carries all the best traits of his mother.
Of all Diana's many roles - abandoned wife, party queen, fashion plate, humanitarian - the one she cherished most was as mother to her two children. However history ultimately judges the late princess, she will be remembered as a devoted, passionate parent. The fiercest battles during her separation and divorce from Prince Charles were over time with her sons.
"It's well known that Diana and the boys were very, very close," says London psychiatrist Dennis Friedman. "She adored them and they adored her."
Friedman is the author of "Inheritance: A Psychological History of the Royal Family." Diana's death, he says, makes the boys psychological orphans. They've lost their mother, and have never truly had a loving relationship with their father.
Charles may care for his sons, says Friedman, but "he has always been a very distant father, as all members of the House of Windsor have been for generations."
Diana's legacy as a mother began with her insistence on raising the royal babies like other well-off British children of their generation.
There was national rejoicing when William Arthur Philip Louis was born June 21, 1982. England had a glamorous young royal couple and a new heir to the throne. Diana signaled her intentions to be a modern mother when she insisted on bringing her 9-month-old son on an official tour of Australia. William was the first royal baby ever to travel on a major trip with his parents.
Two years later, the crown had the heir and the spare. Henry Charles Albert David was born on Sept. 15, 1984. Diana's youth and her obvious delight in her babies led most people to think there would be many more. The secret was that the marriage was all but over. The closeness Charles and Diana experienced after William's birth was not repeated. Among intimates of the royal couple, it was whispered that Charles had yearned for a daughter, not another son.
Diana always insisted on a "normal" life for her sons, to whatever degree that was possible. Instead of tutors inside the palace walls, both boys attended nursery and elementary schools in London before they left for boarding school at age 8 - over her objections.
She was an active, deeply involved mother. She exposed them to places no royal prince had ever seen, and was criticized for introducing them to AIDS patients and the homeless. "I want them to have an understanding of people's emotions, of people's insecurities, of people's distress, of their hopes and dreams," she answered. More than anything, she wanted William to be a modern and compassionate king.
As a little boy, William was independent and confident. At 15, he is now considered to be the most like his mother: spirited but sensitive.
The child who once slipped tissues under a bedroom door because he heard his mother crying became her closest confidant. He was her sounding board, especially since the divorce last year, and many believed Diana leaned too much on the young shoulders of her beloved "Wills."
Harry has evolved into the fun-loving, sporty prince. His grades have been less than spectacular, and his parents had decided their younger son would repeat his final year at Ludgrove to hone his academic skills and allow him to mature.
AP PHOTO
An unidentified woman and child view the floral tributes outside London's St. James's Place yesterday left in memory of Diana, Princess of Whales, who was killed in a car crash on Sunday. The Princess' body lays in the Chapel Royal at St. James's Place. Princess Diana's funeral will take place Saturday at London's Westminster Abbey followed by a burial at Althrop, her family's stately home.
AP PHOTO
A guardsman at Buckingham is seen behind gates decorated with momentos yesterday left in memory of Princess Diana.