When Princess Diana died in the early hours of August 31, 1997, from injuries sustained in a high-speed car crash in Paris, Britain and the world entered a period of reflective mourning, alongside her two young sons: Prince William, aged 15, and Prince Harry who was 12.
After a televised funeral service at Westminster Abbey on September 6, 1997, which was estimated to have been watched by over 2 billion people, the princess' body was driven to her family home, Althorp, in the county of Northamptonshire, England.
As Diana was no longer married to Prince Charles (now King Charles III) the royal family did not make the decision on where she would be buried. Ultimately, her Spencer family decided she would be buried on the Althorp estate, in the center of an island located in a large lake where she could rest in peace.
No photographs have ever been published of Diana's final resting place, with only aerial shots of the island and those taken from its perimeter making their way into the public domain.
Accounts of the site have been given in biographies and memoirs, most recently the 2023 book Spare, written by the princess' youngest son, Harry.
In the book, he revealed that in 2022, he took his wife Meghan Markle to visit the grave just days before his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II died. It was the 25th anniversary of Diana's own death and came two years after Harry and Meghan dramatically split from the monarchy.
Here, Newsweek looks at how Prince Harry remembered Meghan Markle's visit to Althorp in his memoir Spare.
The Boat
The Althorp estate has been in the possession of the Spencer family dating back beyond the 15th century and today the impressive Georgian mansion sits in a park and farmland estimated to be over 13,000 acres.
In 1975, when Princess Diana was 13 years old, her grandfather died making her father the new Earl Spencer and owner of Althorp and a number of other properties. The earl moved his family into the large house and the princess lived there until she moved to London in her later teenage years. She regularly returned to the estate during her father's lifetime.
In 1992, Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, inherited the house and estate. He oversaw his sister's interment at the grave on the island in the ornamental lake dug in the 19th century and developed a memorial around its perimeter.
Since Diana's death, her brother and two sisters, Jane and Sarah, have maintained close relationships with Princes William and Harry.
In Spare, Harry wrote that in 2022 he spent time with all three of his mother's siblings and Meghan on the estate before boarding a small boat to row his wife over to see the gravesite.
"I helped Meg into the boat," he wrote. "It wobbled, but I quick-stepped to the middle, got it righted in time. As she found a seat in the stern, I took up the oars.
"They didn't work. We're stuck. The thick mud of the shallows had us in its grip. Uncle Charles came down to the water's edge, gave us a little shove. We waved to him, and to my two aunts. Bye. See you in a bit. Gliding across the pond, I gazed around at Althorp's rolling fields and ancient trees, the thousands of green acres where my mother grew up, and where, though things weren't perfect, she'd known some peace."
Never Easy
In a rare account of the island itself, he went on to describe walking around a "labyrinth" of hedges before reaching his mother's resting place.
"Minutes later we reached the island and gingerly stepped onto the shore. I led Meg up the path, around a hedge, through the labyrinth. There it was, looming: the grayish-white oval stone."
It was, he said, the first time Meghan had seen the sacred place.
"No visit to this place was ever easy, but this one... Twenty-fifth anniversary. And Meg's first time. At long last, I was bringing the girl of my dreams home to meet mum. We hesitated, hugging, and then I went first. I placed flowers on the grave," he wrote. "Meg gave me a moment, and I spoke to my mother in my head, told her I missed her, asked her for guidance and clarity.
"Feeling that Meg might also want a moment, I went around the hedge, scanned the pond."
Clarity and Guidance
Harry wrote that during this significant moment, he left his wife's side so that she could have some time alone. When he returned, he found her in a state of quiet contemplation.
"When I came back, Meg was kneeling, eyes shut, palms against the stone," he wrote. "I asked, as we walked back to the boat, what she'd prayed for. 'Clarity,' she said. 'And guidance.'"
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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