The world was left stunned on 31 August 1997 when Princess Diana tragically died following a car crash in Paris. But while millions learned of the shocking news through headlines and broadcasts, Queen Elizabeth II made sure her grandsons, Prince William and Prince Harry, were spared from finding out in such a devastating way.

At the time of the accident, William, then 15, and Harry, 12, were spending the summer at Balmoral with their grandmother. According to royal expert Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles, the Queen immediately acted to protect the boys from the outside world until their father could speak to them directly.

In Channel 5’s documentary The Day Diana D.ie.d, which aired on 30 August, Brown explained: “The Queen immediately said that every TV, every radio set had to be removed. The only TV sets that remained were in the private rooms of the Queen and Prince Philip.”

The Royal Family decided not to wake the boys during the night. Instead, it was left to Prince Charles to break the news in the morning. His words were later recalled by Harry in his memoir Spare (2023).

“My dear son, mum has had a car accident,” Charles told him gently. “There have been complications. Mum has been seriously injured and has been taken to hospital, my dear son.”

Harry has since spoken about how surreal that moment felt, a memory etched into his mind forever.

Diana had been travelling with her boyfriend, Dodi al-Fayed, when their car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris. Both Diana and Al-Fayed were killed, along with driver Henri Paul. The princess’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the sole survivor.

For the Queen, Brown explained, protecting her grandsons was her foremost concern: “For her, the only important thing was to protect Harry and William from the loss of their mother.”

It was a decision that spoke volumes about the monarch’s instinct as both sovereign and grandmother—shielding two young boys from the weight of a tragedy the rest of the world was already mourning.