Prince William Reflects on Princess Diana’s Funeral While Walking Behind Queen Elizabeth’s Casket

Prince William was reminded of his mother's funeral 25 years ago as he walked behind Queen Elizabeth's casket on Wednesday.

He and Princess Catherine made their first solo outing as the new Prince and Princess of Wales on Thursday when they visited Sandringham.

The royal couple talked to people and looked at cards and flowers left at the Norwich gates, where emotional Prince Charles told the crowd that yesterday's procession brought back memories of walking behind his mother Diana's coffin.

A crowd member told the Prince that she was close to tears, to which he replied, “Don't cry now, you'll start me.”

William was overheard telling a mourner that the Queen was everyone's grandmother, and that Prince George, age 9, was aware of her passing, while Princess Charlotte, age 7, and Prince Louis, age 4, were not as cognizant of the situation.

Meanwhile, Catherine was telling a stranger that reading too many condolence notes would make her cry.

When William was 15 and Harry was 12, they followed behind their mother's coffin.

Charles Spencer, Diana's brother, and Prince Philip, their grandfather, joined Diana and Charles, the boys' father, and the young princes.

In a BBC documentary from 2017, William described the very long, lonely walk behind Diana's coffin as “one of the hardest things I've ever done.”

The Prince said he tried to use his hair to hide, because he felt if he looked at the floor and his hair came down over his face, no one could see him.

He said it wasn't an easy decision to join the procession, and described it as a sort of collective family decision to do that.

“There is that balance between duty and family, and that's what we had to do,” William added.

“But there was a difference between me being Prince William and having to do my bit, versus the private William who just wanted to go into a room and cry, who'd lost his mother.”

Prince Harry has previously spoken out about the walk, telling Newsweek in 2017, “My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television.

I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances,” the Prince said, as the interviewer said his face hardened recalling the memory.

“I don't think it would happen today.”

For today's outing, a large crowd gathered behind metal barriers outside Sandringham's old Norwich gates to observe the Prince and Princess as they exited a Black Range Rover.

For nearly an hour, William and Catherine lingered at the gates of the Royal House, mingling with young and elderly Royal fans and reading the sentiments written on the sea of flower tributes left behind.

Fran Morgan, 62, spoke to Catherine as she and William spoke to the vast crowd that had come to see them at Sandringham, the Queen's estate in Norfolk.

Recalling their conversation, Mrs. Morgan said, “she said she couldn't believe how many cards and flowers there were.

But she also said, ‘I can't read them all or I would cry.'”

One visitor who missed the entire visit was three-month-old Eddie Shakespeare, who fell asleep just as the Royal couple arrived.

His mother Maisie, 27, from Cambridgeshire, said, “I was going to wake him up and show him to Catherine, but I didn't have the heart.

She thanked me for coming and said that all the sympathy meant a lot to her and William.

I'm glad I came, but as for Eddie, I'll just have to tell him about it when he's older.”

The new princess also spoke to one well-wisher today about how her children have been coping since the loss of their grandmother last week at Balmoral.

Speaking to BBC, the unnamed well-wisher, who was amongst the crowd standing outside the estate today, said, “My daughter asked her how the children were doing and Catherine thanked her and said yes, they were doing well and they were being looked after at school, so that was a nice exchange.”

The royal mother of three has had a hectic few weeks, what with the recent transfer to a new house in Windsor and the first day of school for Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.

She marched with her husband and other senior royals through downtown London yesterday to pay tribute to the late Queen.

The Prince and Princess of Wales today spoke to several of the one thousand or so people who gathered to greet them outside the Queen's Norfolk estate, with William telling one member of the crowd he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support.

Mourners have been paying their respects outside the estate's ornate Norwich gates around the clock since the Queen's death last Thursday, and have left thousands of bouquets, cards and gifts.

It comes as thousands of people continue to queue in line to pay their respects to the Queen in Westminster Hall, a site the Archbishop of Canterbury described as one of the most moving parts of the week.

Most in Wellbeach shook hands and posed for selfies with dozens of people who were waiting to view the Queen lying in state, and performed a blessing on a ten-year-old girl.

Among those to view the Queen's coffin were Theresa May and Tanni Grey-Thompson.

By 10am today, the queue leading up to Westminster Hall was around three miles long and stretched past London Bridge to HMS Belfast.

Before greeting those in line at the Victoria Tower Gardens in central London, the Archbishop said he was not at all surprised by the turnout and remembered the Queen as someone whose wisdom was remarkable.

He said, “She was someone you could trust totally, completely and absolutely, whose wisdom was remarkable, whose experience, I was the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury who she would have known, who really understood things and who prayed.”

Mr Wellbeach also told reporters that seeing thousands of people flood to pay their respects had been “one of the most moving parts of this week.”

In one sense, the people here stand for all those in the country who would like to be here and can't be, he said.