London, June 29 (BDNEWS)- Britain's Royal family forced the late Princess Diana to blood test her younger son, Prince Harry, to prove he was not the offspring of an affair with an Army officer.
Diana, who died in 1997, did not tell harry why his blood was being taken, the sun newspaper said in extracts from a book by Simone Simmons, an "energy healer" billed as a former close friend and confidante of the Princess, according to wire services.
Senior Royals, notably Queen Elizabeth's Husband Prince Philip, feared that their son, Prince Charles, who was married to Diana, might not have been the real father of Harry, who was born in September 1984.
Diana had previously had a passionate affair with Army officer Major James Hewitt, and there had been rumours that Harry -- who, like Hewitt, has red hair -- was the product of that relationship.
Simmons, whose book "Diana: The Last Word", is being serialised by the tabloid newspaper, claimed she felt Diana should know about the rumours Harry was illegitimate.
"It fell to me to impart the unpleasant news to the Princess," the paper quoted her as saying.
Diana, who publicly admitted to her affair with Hewitt in a 1995 television interview, insisted that the dates of her affair with the officer meant he could no possibly be Harry's father, Simmons said.
However, she was pressured to carry out DNA tests on both Harry and his elder brother, Prince William, to prove their paternity, the Sun said in its today's edition.
The tests showed that both princes had been fathered by Charles, the heir to the British throne, who Diana finally divorced in 1996, a year before her death in Paris.
BDNEWS/1200hrs.
