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- Prince Philip promised William and Harry that if they walked at Diana's funeral he would join them.
- The Duke of Edinburgh is said to have told his grandsons, "I'll walk if you walk."
- William and Harry will walk behind Philip's coffin during the funeral procession on Saturday.
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Prince Philip helped Prince William and Prince Harry after the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in 1997 by promising to walk with them behind the coffin during her funeral.
Princess Anne told ITV's Chris Ship in interviews that aired over the weekend to mark the death of Philip, her father, that the boys' decision to participate in the funeral, despite the global media attention it would invite, was partly influenced by the support of their grandfather.
In discussions on the day before Diana's funeral, Philip made his grandsons an offer. "I seem to remember him saying that, in fact, it was a question of 'if you'll do it, I'll do it,'" Anne recalled.
"That was him as a grandfather saying, 'If that's what you want to do and if you want me to be there, I'll be there,'" she added.
William was 15 and Harry was 12 when the Princess of Wales died in a car accident in Paris. They chose to walk with their father, Prince Charles; Diana's brother Earl Spencer; and Philip during a one-mile procession to Westminster Abbey on September 6, 1997.
In a recent interview with the Evening Standard, Anji Hunter, who was Prime Minister Tony Blair's government-relations director, recalled Philip's intervention before the funeral.
"We hadn't heard from him before, but he was really anguished. 'It's about the boys,' he cried, 'They've lost their mother,'" Hunter said. "Then, at a supper the night before the funeral, Philip is said to have turned to William and Harry and told them: 'I'll walk if you walk.'"
William and Harry have spoken out about having to make such a difficult decision at a young age.
In the 2017 BBC documentary "Diana, 7 Days," William said it "wasn't an easy decision, it was a collective family decision to do that," adding that "there is that balance between duty and family, and that's what we had to do."
It was a balance "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," he said.
Harry told 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."
He added: "I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."
The brothers will reunite on Saturday for their first public appearance together since March 2020 to walk behind Philip's coffin at his funeral at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, the Evening Standard reported.