Prince Charles was afraid of being murdered at Diana's funeral
On the day of Princess Diana's funeral, Prince Charles was very anxious. As one royal biographer reveals, he feared for his life: heeded the murmurs of the crowds gathered in London, he was afraid he would be shot.
On September 6, 1997, the people and the British royal family bid farewell to Princess Diana. Lady Di's funeral, which took place in London that day, brought together a huge crowd mourning her tragic disappearance. In the procession of officials who crossed it, Prince Charles seemed at the bottom of the abyss. A mine of the worst days which can not be explained only by his sadness: as Ingrid Seward, biographer of the royal family, just revealed at the Henley Literary Festival, he also feared for his life. "Prince Charles was extremely nervous because he was Public Enemy Number 1," she said, as reported by the Daily Mail. He was very fatalistic. He was like, "If someone takes a gun and shoots me, this will be over." "
By this time, Prince Charles was hated by many of the Crown's subjects, who blamed him for being responsible for his divorce from Princess Diana. Strong suspicions of an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles - whom he has since married - had gripped many British citizens. On the day of Lady Di's funeral, he was therefore very tense: “The streets of London were very quiet. You could hear a fly flying. You could hear everything the crowd was saying, said Ingrid Seward. They said, “Look at him, look at him”. They were pretty mean. "
These comments, Prince Charles could not ignore. And their accumulation gave him chills down his spine: "He heard [the critics] all along the procession and he thought he would not last until the end," said Ingrid Seward. Yet on the day of the funeral, the Prince was not necessarily the most hated personality of the royal family: Queen Elizabeth II was also at the heart of a controversy. Many of her subjects took it very badly that she did not return directly to London when they learned of Princess Diana's death, preferring to stay in Balmoral, Scotland. Dickie Arbiter, his former head of press relations, told the Daily Mail about her state of mind on September 6, 1997: “She was not nervous,” he said. But she was worried about the reception she would receive. This probably explains his discretion at the funeral.
