Diana yearned for a third child – how she would have savoured this moment

How many parents whose own lives have not turned out quite as they wished live out their dreams through their children?

All her life, Princess Diana was a dreamer. As a child from a broken home she dreamed of having the perfect marriage.

As a wife she dreamed of a loving husband.

As the mother of two sons she dreamed of having a daughter.

And even in the darkest moments of their bitter marriage break-up, she allowed herself to dream that if only she and Charles could have a third child — girl or boy — their marriage might have been saved.

Diana’s friends were remembering this yesterday as William and Kate’s new baby arrived, and the three children Diana always wanted became a reality for her elder son.

Adored

Of course, the Cambridges didn’t need a third child to prop up what is patently a happy and loving marriage. But if Diana were still alive today, there is no doubt the new baby’s arrival would have signalled the start of one of the most gratifying periods in her life.

For next month, of course, at St George’s Chapel, in Windsor Castle, Harry marries bi-racial American actress Meghan Markle, who is descended from slaves.

And through them may be realised another of Diana’s dreams — her wish to be the mother of a mixed-race child.

When all hope of saving her marriage with Charles was lost, she transferred that dream of another baby with him to the idea of having her third child with another man — Hasnat Khan, the heart surgeon with whom she subsequently fell in love.

Harry will marry bi-racial American actress Meghan Markle, who is descended from slaves

She believed that through her global fame, having a mixed-race baby with the Pakistani-born Muslim could have far-reaching implications for a better and more peaceful world.

Ditto Prince Harry, who has become one of our most globally popular royal figures and who has made it plain that his philosophy stems from his mother.

Diana had even chosen a name if she’d had a daughter with Khan — Allegra. This is the name of the daughter of Lady Sophia Pilkington, a cousin of the Princess’s confidante Lady Annabel Goldsmith. Diana liked it because, from the Latin, Allegra means cheerful, lively and full of energy.

How the Princess would have relished all this domestic activity. She adored children. Some of her happiest days were when she was working as a teaching assistant at the Young England kindergarten in Pimlico.

‘If Diana was alive she would be so excited, busily designing things for the baby to wear,’ says one of her old friends. ‘And she would have loved being called on for baby-sitting duty.’

Diana and Charles (pictured with Prince William and Prince Harry) had seen each other a mere 13 times by their engagement

Ever the romantic, Diana would have viewed William and Kate’s domestic bliss — and their three children — as the natural outcome for a couple who knew each other for eight years before deciding to get married.

How ruefully would she have compared this with her own marriage to a man she barely knew — she and Charles had seen each other a mere 13 times by their engagement — and whom she addressed as ‘Sir’ when they were with other people.

Friends of Diana insist that at the very time — in 1986 — the Prince later said the marriage had broken down, they were in fact trying for a third baby.

Had they succeeded, it is widely assumed Camilla would have had no alternative but to give Charles up.

The question is, would he have given up Camilla?

Diana’s view was that, with a new baby, Charles would have felt he had to make their marriage work.

But this was not to be.

How perilous it could have been for William and Harry if their unhappy parents had struggled on together for years. After all, it’s well known that children who suffer the trauma of growing up in a warring home often repeat the circumstances in their own lives as adults.

Happily, William, now 35, grew up to be the kind of husband that Diana dreamed of, sharing the washing up and enjoying the domesticity of family life with Kate.

Obliged

In one significant way, the Duchess would undoubtedly have called on her mother-in-law — both suffered severely from their morning sickness during pregnancy.

‘With Harry it wasn’t so bad, with William it was appalling,’ Diana told her biographer Andrew Morton. ‘Almost every time I stood up I was sick.’

While Kate has been able to withdraw from some public engagements during her pregnancies, Diana was obliged largely to soldier on.

On one occasion, in December 1981, three months into her pregnancy with William, she travelled to York and Chesterfield, where crowds of 80,000 turned out to greet her and Charles.

‘I was sick all day,’ she later recalled. ‘I didn’t know what to do and was very aware that I wasn’t being helpful to my husband and I was just mortified. I look grey in all the pictures. I can remember exactly what I was wearing, black felt hat and a sort-of Robin Hood green cloak. I was simply dreadful. I felt so sick.

Regret

‘I felt I was a nuisance to the whole set-up. In the middle of a black-tie [event] I would go out to be sick, come back again . . . I felt it was my duty to sit at the table.’

Undoubtedly, she would have applauded the royal household’s decision to give Kate time to herself, free from engagements, during the most challenging times of her pregnancy.

Somehow, although it is almost 21 years since she died, Diana remains so much a part of this latest piece of joyful royal news.

For isn’t it the Princess who springs, nostalgically, to mind when recalling William telling the world, on his and Kate’s engagement: ‘We are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together’?

In an interview with U.S. TV, he spoke of his regret that his mother would never know his wife.

‘I’m just sad she’s never going to get a chance to meet Kate,’ he said.

In the same way, the delivery of his second son yesterday will have been touched by regret at Diana’s absence. But how proud his mother would have been to see William celebrate the arrival of the third child she longed for, but never had.