She Wasn’t a Princess When She Died: The Year Diana Finally Lived

In the early hours of August 31, 1997, the Alma Tunnel in Paris. A Mercedes crashed into the 13th pillar. Diana Spencer, 36, died at the scene.

In public memory, the title is “Diana, Princess of Wales.” But the marriage had already ended.

On August 28, 1996, the decree absolute of divorce took effect. On August 31, 1997, she died. The interval was one year and three days.

That year was the only free period of her life.

On November 20, 1995, the BBC’s Panorama aired. Diana sat before the camera and said the line: “There were three of us in this marriage.”

The night the interview aired, Buckingham Palace’s press office did not go home. An assistant was told to compile the front-page headlines of all major media outlets overnight. The next morning, three different draft statements sat on the Queen’s private secretary’s desk. Each was shorter than the last.

Before that, outside speculation about the royal marriage remained at the level of rumor. After the interview, rumor became testimony. Testimony given in person by the sitting Princess of Wales.

In December 1995, the Queen wrote to Charles and Diana. The statement released by Buckingham Palace was carefully worded: “Having considered the current situation, the Queen wrote to the Prince and Princess of Wales earlier this week to express her view that an early divorce was desirable.”

Charles replied quickly. Diana was silent for weeks.

During those weeks, she attended engagements as usual. At the end of November, she went to an AIDS hospice in London. In the photograph, she is bent over talking to a patient, her hand on the other person’s arm. The same day, she canceled a charity dinner she had been scheduled to attend with Charles. The official explanation was “scheduling conflict.”

On July 12, 1996, lawyers for both sides announced agreement on the terms of divorce. On July 15, a decree nisi was granted. On August 28, the decree absolute took effect.

Terms: a lump sum of about £17 million; about £400,000 a year to maintain her private office; the right to remain at Kensington Palace; joint custody; retention of the style “Princess of Wales”; loss of the style “Her Royal Highness” (HRH).

She had held the words “Her Royal Highness” from her wedding day, July 29, 1981. Until August 28, 1996, that was fifteen years, one month, and thirty days.

She cried on the day she signed. Not because she could not let go of the marriage. That marriage had long been dead. She was crying about something else.

Every item the agreement gave her had limits. The house was borrowed. The settlement was traded for in negotiation. Custody was shared. What she received was the best terms that could be written into a divorce agreement. Nothing more.

The night she signed, she called a friend. On the phone she did not talk about the divorce. She asked whether the friend had read the book she had recommended the week before. The next day, she went to the gym as usual.

In the first year after the divorce, she kept moving.

In January 1997, she went to Angola. She chose the destination herself. The palace did not arrange the visit. She put on protective gear, walked through a minefield, and went to see children who had lost legs to land mines. In the photograph, she is crouching on the ground, talking to a little girl missing one leg. The protective suit was large on her; it did not fit well.

Those photographs spread around the world. A woman recently divorced, stripped of the style “Her Royal Highness,” stood alone in an Angolan minefield. She had no royal entourage and no official press release. The style “Her Royal Highness” was gone. Just one person in protective gear, and a piece of land not yet cleared.

That same year, she went to Bosnia. She visited land-mine victims and continued supporting Centrepoint, the Leprosy Mission, and the National AIDS Trust. These were organizations she retained as patron after the divorce.

At a time when AIDS was still stigmatized, she touched AIDS patients directly with her hand. The gesture was photographed and printed in major newspapers. She did not explain why she did it. The photograph had already said it.

Among the charities she kept after the divorce were some the palace had hoped she would give up. She did not give them up. She renegotiated her patron roles and kept them in her own name.

In the early hours of August 31, 1997, Paris.

The driver, Henri Paul, was over the legal blood-alcohol limit and under the influence of antidepressants. Speeding. Paparazzi pursuit. Tunnel. The 13th pillar.

French judicial investigators and a three-and-a-half-year British police inquiry reached the same conclusion. In 2008, a London High Court jury ruled that Diana and Dodi died by “unlawful killing,” caused by the reckless behavior of the driver, Paul, and the pursuing paparazzi. No evidence pointed to a royal plot.

William and Harry issued a joint statement agreeing with the jury’s verdict. It included the sentence: “We hope that this brings an end to it all.”

The conspiracy theories did not end. But the official findings were clear.

In December 1997, the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty was formally opened for signature, with 122 countries signing. Four months after Diana’s death.

She did not negotiate the treaty or sign it. She was not a diplomat. In January of that year, she put on a protective suit that did not fit well, walked into a minefield not yet cleared, crouched down, and spoken to a little girl missing one leg.

The photographs spread around the world. Then 122 countries signed.

She did not live to see that day.

Go back to August 28, 1996. The day she signed.

After she finished crying, she wiped her tears and walked out of the room. Someone was waiting for her in the corridor. She said something, and the other person laughed. Then she went to the gym.

The next day, she began arranging the trip to Angola.