Heartbreaking promise Prince William made to Diana before her death

AMID her high-profile divorce from Prince Charles, Diana was reportedly comforted with a promise made by her eldest son.

IT WAS one of the most hotly-argued topics of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce — ‘Her Royal Highness’ title.

The Queen was reportedly happy for her to keep her title but Prince Charles was not, so Diana became Diana, Princess of Wales — shedding her HRH, reports The Sun .

The move separated her further from the Royal family and meant she had to curtsy to them — including her own sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.

Diana wasn’t happy about the change in her title. Credit: AFP Photo/Johnny Eggitt

William was just a young teenager when his parents were divorced, but he made his mum a promise in order to soothe her “distress.”

According to Diana’s close friend and butler, Paul Burrell, the prince vowed to help Diana reclaim her title.

In his book A Royal Duty, Burrell wrote: “She told me how he had sat with her one night when she was upset over the loss of HRH, put his arms around her and said, ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. I will give it back to you one day when I am King.”

William vowed to help his mum. (Photo: Tim Graham/Getty Images)

However, Diana — by then Princess of Wales — died just one year after the divorce was finalised, meaning Prince William was sadly unable to ever fulfil his promise.

On the 20th anniversary of her death last year, Prince William revealed his regrets over his final conversation with his mother.

In a documentary called Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, he said he hurried her off the phone when she called him from Paris, as he and Prince Harry were playing with their cousins in Balmoral.

A few hours later, she died in a car accident.

“Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know, ‘see you later’. If I’d known now obviously what was going to happen I wouldn’t have been so blasé about it and everything else. But that phone call sticks in my mind, quite heavily,” Prince William said.

And Prince Harry said he struggles to even remember what the call was about.

“It was her speaking from Paris. I can’t really necessarily remember what I said, but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was,” he said.

“Looking back on it now it’s incredibly hard. I’ll have to sort of deal with that for the rest of my life. Not knowing that was the last time I was going to speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out if I’d had even the slightest inkling her life was going to be taken that night.”

This story originally appeared in The Sun and is republished here with permission.