Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997)

The People's Princess

Princess Diana died in the early hours of Sunday morning, 31 August 1997, after a car accident in Paris. Her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, was also fatally injured, as was the driver, Henri Paul. The fourth occupant of the car, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was seriously injured but survived.

Dodi Fayed was the son of Egyptian-born billionaire businessman Mohamed Fayed. The fatal car accident occurred after the Princess and Dodi departed the Hotel Ritz in Paris (owner: Mohamed Fayed). Driver Henri Paul was a hotel employee.

The princess drew up and signed her will six years earlier, in June 1993, while she was married to Prince Charles. She did not make a new will after they were divorced three years later in August 1996.

She changed her will by codicil in February 1996, but only to switch executors. Out went Patrick Jephson, who had been her Equerry and Private Secretary; in went her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale. Princess Diana and Patrick Jephson fell out over her suspicion that her children's nanny, Tiggy Legge-Burke, was having an affair with Prince Charles.

Wills, wishes and reality

In her will, Princess Diana left the bulk of her £20 million estate to her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. As they were minors at the time, the assets were placed in trust. Much of her estate derived from her divorce settlement with Prince Charles.

Princess Diana left nothing to any of her 17 godchildren; neither "godchild" or "godchildren" appears in her will, nor does it mention any of her 17 godchildren by name. However, she composed a "letter of wishes" in which she hoped that each would receive a gift from her estate.

After her death, her will was varied. In the new will, each godchild was left a personal memento.Her butler, Paul Burrell, who had also been excluded in the original will, was left £50,000 free of inheritance tax. The new will also appointed an additional executor, Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.

Trouble, then more trouble

In January 2001, Burrell was arrested and accused of stealing 342 items worth £5m belonging to Diana, Prince Charles and Prince William.

His first trial was stopped for legal reasons and the retrial, in 2002, came to a sudden dramatic end: the Queen revealed that Burrell had told her that he had taken items from Kensington Palace for safekeeping. Burrell was acquitted.

Controversy also arose regarding Princess Diana's "letter of wishes" concerning gifts to her godchildren. She had not formally incorporated this letter into her will, so the letter of wishes remained just that, wishes, not instructions that the executors were legally obliged to honour.

The gifts include items such as a decanter, a carriage clock, watercolour paintings, a model harp and an Odenby coffee service. Several parents of the godchildren were upset that their children were given items of low value, whereas the Princess, they argued, wanted them to have substantial gifts.

The Burrell trial and the "letter of wishes" kerfuffle received considerable attention in the media and in subsequent books and other forms of communication.

Carry On Kensington

In his memoir A Royal Duty, Paul Burrell says that about six weeks after Diana's death, he was in the Princess' wardrobe room in Kensington Palace with Diana's two sisters and her mother. The family members packed three suitcases with her blouses, skirts, shoes and other things. "None of these items had been valued for probate but, as executors of the estate, the family was doing as it wished."

Although Princess Diana's wedding dress ended up in the family mansion in Northamptonshire, Burrell notes that the Princess "wanted her wedding dress to be sent to the National Dress Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her elder son was making it clear that he didn't want it to go to Althorp. It's on display at Althorp."

At least the dress was preserved for posterity. Burrell relates that Diana's mother went through her daughter's correspondence and "shredded more than 50 letters."

Burrell also describes his fateful meeting with the Queen, which lasted three hours. A Buckingham Palace press release says the meeting lasted 90 minutes. Either way, it was a long session. This press release is a comprehensive document relating to the Burrell court case.