King Charles hasn’t professed his grief publically after Princess Diana tragically passed away in a car accident in 1997. But a recent, emotional three-page handwritten letter disclosed that he experienced ‘unbearable emptiness’ following the Princess of Wales’s passing. Charles addresses the letter to a friend named Peter, who had lost a loved one named Liz to sickness. He has expressed that his heart “bleeds” for his friend. Drawing from his Christian beliefs, the King also wrote, “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face,” using 1 Corinthians 13:12 from the Holy Bible as the source.
According to The Daily Mail , the December 8, 1997, royal letter, signed “Charles,” written on a letterhead from Highgrove House, is up for auction at RR Auction in Boston, Massachusetts, fetching £1,500 ($2,000). It comes with its original envelope bearing the King’s directions to be delivered ‘by hand’. An RR spokesperson stated: “This lengthy handwritten letter to ‘Peter’ expresses his sympathy upon the death of a loved one. Charles was likely particularly emotional at the time he wrote the letter, as Princess Diana had tragically passed away just a few months before in August 1997.”
The letter which was written four months after the passing of Princess Diana read: “I have been thinking so much of you yesterday and today, knowing how deeply you will be affected by yesterday’s tragic news about dear Liz. My heart bleeds for you as I can imagine so well the utter agony and despair you must have gone through during all these heart-rendering months that you have known about Liz’s illness. All of us who know you are so fond of you and have felt the agony in a far lesser way of course, but have longed to wave a magic wand to transform the situation.”
King Charles mentioned that he believed in the afterlife as he continued: “I often think that, that is the worst part of being unable to help in any constructive way except to say constant prayers in the background & to try and surround you both with love & affection & concern. I can so well imagine the unbearable emptiness you must feel at this time; the sense of bewilderment & confusion that accompanies the removal of someone still so young from this world. Personally, I believe that there is another dimension beyond this physical one & that we will be amazed to discover it for ourselves when we are eventually the moment upon to make that certain journey for ourselves.”
Friday 5 September 1997 Princes Charles, William and Harry followed the hearse carrying Diana’s coffin to Kensington Palace in a Rolls Royce. It was clearly a harrowing experience for the young princes #Diana24 pic.twitter.com/60ytyApHmt
— Diana Day by Day (@DianaDaybyDay) September 5, 2021
He lovingly concluded the message: “I can’t tell you how pleased & happy I am to have known Liz. She was such a great life-enhancer.’We shall all have such special memories of her but, above all, Peter, we mind about you & you are so very much in my thoughts and prayers at this most anguishing of times. I thought you might just find a very small speck of comfort from this short piece of profoundly wise verse by William Blake and, together with this, I enclose a few ‘Highgrove things’ as a token of immense, affectionate sympathy.”
This article was originally published on 08.04.24.