Fulfilling that maternal role before the critical eye of both the world and her in-laws was surely a daunting task. Yet Diana performed it admirably. Demonstrative where Charles was reserved, preferring fun to formality, she gave the boys a sense of childhood that no Windsor would have or could have. But even during times when she was taking her sons to the latest adventure flick or arranging for Wills to meet Cindy Crawford, she was mindful that her boys couldn't be just boys. "She didn't want William to go through life thinking, 'You're a member of the royal family, and that's how you live all the time,' " says Lord Archer. "But she was particularly aware that William had this role to play, that she was the mother of the future King of England."
Now, of course, William, 15, and Harry, who turns 13 on Sept. 15, are left to navigate the world at a time when their mother's warm hugs and words of affection are sorely needed. "They adored their mother, and she loved them passionately," Tiffany president Rosa Monckton, one of Di's closest friends, told the BBC. "I can hardly bear to think about them." The concern is shared by friends and strangers alike. "The whole country has got to feel for the children, the two boys," said Ian Calvert, 46, a mourner at Kensington Palace. "You can't really explain what they're going to go through."
Indeed, few seem to know. In the tragedy's wake, Charles (in seclusion at Balmoral with the boys) has, in public at least, shown only a stiff upper lip, and royal watchers say he and other members of the family have stressed carrying on gamely over letting it all out. Driven to regular church services just hours after their mother's death, the boys silently sat through a sermon in which her name wasn't mentioned. As they entered the church, "Charles wasn't even holding their hands," says Anthony Holden, the prince's biographer. "She would have had her arms around them." Adds royals author Brian Hoey: "Great efforts will be made to keep the boys occupied. At times of great distress the family tries to do things exactly as normal. Private emotions are not allowed to interfere with public duty."
Not that Charles isn't as passionately devoted to Wills and Harry as Diana was. "One thing they always had in common was their concern for the welfare of the boys," says Hoey. Fortunately, Wills and Harry enjoy country life at Balmoral and Highgrove, the royal residences they will now likely call home when they are not at Eton and Ludgrove, their respective boarding schools. Both boys share their father's love of hunting. But Charles will always be occupied by his work. "He is not a bad father—he has been maligned," says Peter Archer, royal correspondent for Britain's Press Association. "He is the heir, and he has to be away from home. This is the way of aristocrats. They don't see as much of their children as an ordinary British family, but that's not to say he doesn't write to his children, send them gifts or telephone them."
For additional day-to-day emotional support, William and Harry will no doubt have to turn to surrogate figures like Tiggy Legge-Bourke, 31, their onetime nanny who left Charles's employ last March but rushed back to Balmoral the day after the accident. "She will be trying to shield them and calm them down," says Hoey. "I feel sure she will come back much more closely into the fold." Young, vivacious and a longtime favorite of the princes—if not of Diana—"she draws them out and makes them laugh," says Hoey.
Another candidate is Charles's longtime friend Emilie van Cutsem, 51, who has three grown sons and has vacationed en famille with Charles and the boys. But Van Cutsem is, according to an acquaintance quoted in London's Daily Mail, "so proper that she refuses to let her sons wear jeans and [sneakers]." Camilla Parker Bowles, for her part, isn't likely to be seeing them at all. Charles has long kept his mistress and sons apart, and many believe that she is less likely than ever to become his wife. "The specter of Diana is going to haunt him until the day he dies," says Hoey. "We've seen the end to any possibility of a marriage [to Camilla] in the near future."
Wherever they find it, support and guidance will be crucial. "Harry will feel Diana's loss most keenly," says Judy Wade, royals reporter for Hello! magazine. "William can cope, he is more manly—he's had to be because he is the oldest son." Yet it is William, Wade believes, who will be most troubled by the media's role in his mother's death. "William already hates press photographers," she says. "This will deepen any anger he has." Adds Anthony Holden: "How on earth is William going to deal with the media for the rest of his life if he thinks they killed his mother?"
That, for a boy who will be king, is a problem. With his mother gone, says a palace source, "he's going to become much, much more Windsor"—which means, on top of fewer outings to amusement parks and the movies, having to bear formal photo ops like the one Charles staged at Balmoral last month. And while most believe Charles will still inherit the throne, some feel he ought to step aside in favor of William. "It may be the only way to save the monarchy," says Holden. "People are now realizing the love for the royal family was in fact love for Diana."
Though William could, as one royal watcher suggested half-seriously years ago, "decide to go backpacking in Nepal and not come back," that doesn't seem likely. After all, he is—and will always be—his mother's son. "He knows how much Diana would want him to do the job he was born to do," says Lord Archer. "He will be conscious of that and, in her memory, do it even better."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
