Royals 'wanted William and Harry in Princess Diana funeral cortege in bid to protect Charles from lynching'

Royals 'wanted William and Harry in Princess Diana funeral cortege in bid to protect Charles from lynching' - Royal courtiers feared Prince Charles would be lynched by angry members of the public at Diana’s funeral unless his sons accompanied him as he walked behind her coffin, it emerged last night.

The claim by former Labour spin chief Alastair Campbell suggests the poignant image of the two young princes walking in the funeral cortege was manufactured in part to protect their father, who was facing a tidal wave of public anger over his treatment of Diana.

In comments that are likely to prove hurtful to William, Mr Campbell says Diana’s elder son was initially reluctant to take up the high-profile role because he believed it was being done to appease the media.

Sombre: Princes William and Harry walk with Prince Charles, Charles Spencer and Prince Philip behind Diana's coffin

Public grief: Princes William, Harry and Charles walk past the mountains of floral tributes left by members of the public

He was eventually persuaded to take part by aides of Prince Charles who convinced him that it was ‘what his mother would have wanted’.

In his new volume of diaries to be published this week, Tony Blair’s former communications chief writes that fears for Prince Charles’s safety emerged on September 4 during a conference call with courtiers who were with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at Balmoral.

Mr Campbell writes: ‘Sandy Henney (the Prince of Wales’s press secretary) had been sent up to try to explain why he might do it. She (Henney) was obviously saying it was what his mother would have wanted whilst there was also the fact it would avoid the risk of Charles being publicly attacked.’

The people's princess: Diana won the hearts of the nation with her warmth and generosity

The conference call also involved Sir Robin Janvrin, then the Queen’s deputy private secretary, who was also at Balmoral. Mr Campbell was at Buckingham Palace with Sir Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary.

Mr Campbell writes that the courtiers were divided as to whether the Prince of Wales should walk behind the coffin with his two sons.

‘Robin said if William did not do it then Charles couldn’t “for obvious and understandable reasons”. So he was back to proposing cars for the princes but Charles [Spencer] was against that.

‘They realised that if William doesn’t go behind the coffin, they have a real problem because Charles would have to go behind the coffin with Charles Spencer.

‘There is no way he can do this without the boys, he said. When I said to Fellowes it was possible to sell the idea of the boys going behind by car if they left from Kensington Palace, he said they were just against cars full stop. He said they had to keep pushing for it.’

Mr Campbell said Prince William initially refused to talk to anyone about taking a role in the funeral.

He says the young Prince was ‘consumed by a total hatred of the media’ because of the apparent role of paparazzi photographers in the car chase that led to her fatal accident in a Paris tunnel.

He also reveals that the Prime Minister pleaded with the Queen to show off her ‘vulnerable side’ in order to win back public opinion.

At the time Mr Blair’s artfully-scripted reference to Diana as the ‘People’s Princess’ was judged to have caught the public mood of mourning far better than the Royal Family’s show of traditional reserve.

Mr Campbell, who listened in on the call, writes: ‘It was the first time I’d heard him [TB] one on one with the Queen and he really did the ma’am stuff pretty well, but was also clear and firm too.

‘He said he felt she had to show that she was vulnerable and they really were feeling it. He said: “I really do feel for you. There can be nothing more miserable than feeling as you do and having your motives questioned”.’

Mr Campbell’s diaries, which are being serialised in the Guardian, also confirm for the first time that he was the inspiration behind the claim in 1998 that Gordon Brown had ‘psychological flaws’.

The slur infuriated the then Chancellor and continued to dog him throughout his career. Mr Brown’s close aide Sue Nye said the phrase was ‘like a bullet’. But Mr Blair told him the reason it hurt was because it was too close to the truth.

Mr Campbell writes: ‘TB said the problem with “psychological flaws” was its brutal truth, which is why it hurt him so much.’ The then prime minister also said he was ‘worried’ about the potential impact of the row on his relationship with Mr Brown.

Mr Campbell still denies using the precise phrase.

But when Mr Blair called him after the story broke, his diary records: ‘I did say anyone who thought GB would have won was off their heads, and this was all about nursing a grievance that was not justified. I couldn’t deny I’d been pretty heavy.’

In the introduction to his new volume of diaries Mr Campbell also takes a swipe at Peter Mandelson, describing his memoirs last year as an ‘insufferably self-indulgent account’. ( dailymail.co.uk)