Millions adored Princess Diana — but many in the royal family scorned her. From feeling
like her father-in-law was judging her to having one princess completely cut her off,
Diana's relationship with the royals was not always friendly.
Much has been made of Queen Elizabeth II's treatment of Diana. The queen was never one for
public displays of affection to her own children, let alone their spouses. However, she liked Diana.
According to Reader's Digest, the queen believed Diana's aristocratic upbringing had prepared her
for a role in the royal family. Even when it became clear that the new princess was finding
the public scrutiny soul-crushing, the queen believed she just needed more time to adjust.
Diana started to rely on the queen for advice and support — but that was where
their differences really showed. Whereas the queen had been raised to bury displays
of emotions in the name of representing the Crown, Diana was a passionate person
who couldn't hide how she felt. As a result, the queen struggled with Diana's tearful outbursts.
After Diana's tragic death, however, the contrast between the queen's stiff upper
lip and Diana's warmth really came to light. While grieving for the most beloved member
of the royal family, the public read the queen's stoicism as heartlessness. However,
the monarch showed her true feelings in a speech delivered to the nation the night
before the funeral. In describing Diana in the speech, the queen said:
"She was an exceptional and gifted human being."
Charles and Diana met in 1977, when she was 16 and he was 29. According to Harper's Bazaar,
Charles described her at that first meeting as "very jolly and amusing and attractive."
Three years later, Charles was under pressure to marry. Specifically, an aristocratic virgin.
He'd reconnected with Diana at a mutual friend's house, and she fit the bill.
However, before and during the marriage, Charles continued to communicate with his married
ex-girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana was jealous of her husband's mistress — but Charles
was also jealous of his wife. Crowds flocked to see vibrant, warm Diana, and were visibly
disappointed if they got Charles instead. After at least one affair on both sides, as well as
several half-hearted attempts to reunite, the couple separated in December 1992. Following
Diana's death, Charles accompanied her sisters to transport her coffin from Paris to Britain.
Prince Philip was one of the few people at the center of the British royal family
who wasn't born into the Firm. So he understood Diana's frustrations with
the seemingly endless traditions and rules she was expected to follow. He also did everything
he could to support Diana. In a series of letters the pair exchanged in 1992,
Philip offered to give Diana advice on how to save her crumbling relationship with
Charles. According to People, however, Philip also admitted in the letters:
"I have no talent as a marriage counselor."
Diana responded warmly. She wrote back that she was "touched" by Philip's words of encouragement,
and even signed off with phrases like "with my fondest love." However, one of Diana's
confidantes later claimed that the duke wrote the princess two "cruel" letters in 1994. Furthermore,
royal historian Ingrid Seward told People that Diana found Philip "too judgmental." After all,
he was interested in protecting the British Crown — not Diana.
Before Diana became aware that Camilla Parker Bowles was the third person in her marriage,
the two had a cordial relationship.
"Well, there were three of us in this marriage. So, it was a bit crowded."
Camilla was a regular presence in King Charles' life, but Diana initially
believed she was just one of his circle of friends. In 1980, during Diana and Charles'
first official public outing together, Camilla accompanied the 19-year-old.
It wasn't until Diana and Charles got engaged that he confessed that
he and Camilla had previously dated. Diana became increasingly suspicious,
especially when she found a bracelet Charles had made for his ex-girlfriend.
It was engraved with the initials of their nicknames for each other, Fred and Gladys.
Fans of "The Crown" will remember an awkward lunch between Diana and Camilla. In the series,
Camilla offers Diana advice about Charles. Camilla also shows off her extensive knowledge of Charles,
much to Diana's surprise. This scene is based on a real meeting,
which Diana recounted to biographer Andrew Morton. Diana also said that she confronted Camilla more
directly after her marriage. As Reader's Digest reports, she told Camilla at a house party,
"I know exactly what is going on."
It didn't end the affair, but at least Diana said her piece.
Diana found comfort with another of the queen's daughters-in-law. She and
Sarah Ferguson were fourth cousins and grew up together. Ferguson told People
magazine that the pair had been best friends since they were teenagers.
"We were best friends from, I think, she was 14, I was 15, and then we went on all the way through."
It was partly thanks to Diana that Ferguson married into the royal family and became
the Duchess of York. The princess made sure that Ferguson and Prince Andrew sat next to one another
at a lunch in 1985, and soon after, the couple began dating. They married a year later in 1986.
Once Ferguson was officially in, the two friends supported each other through their various public
duties. And they often got into trouble in the process. On a joint ski trip in 1987,
the pair disrupted a photo shoot on the slopes by holding a pretend snowball
fight. The photographers were thrilled, but their husbands were not. However,
the press also fueled comparisons and rivalry between the sisters-in-law. Diana was painted
as the glamorous saint, but behind the scenes, Ferguson was more popular with the royal family.
Ferguson also blamed Diana for tipping off the press about her post-divorce romantic
holiday with another man in 1992. And Diana stopped speaking to Ferguson after the princess
claimed in her memoir that she had contracted plantar warts from wearing a pair of Ferguson's
shoes. Ferguson told Harper's Bazaar that by the time Diana died, they hadn't spoken for a year.
The two most important relationships in Diana's life were with her children,
William, Prince of Wales, and Harry, Duke of Sussex. Diana had always been very good with
kids. She was also determined that her sons wouldn't have the kind of
distant relationships that have long been common between parents and children in the royal family.
In 2017, 20 years after Diana's death, Prince William spoke about his mom in the documentary,
"Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy." He said in the doc:
"There's not many days that go by that I don't think of her."
He recalled Diana's playfulness, and her down-to-Earth approach to royal parenting, noting,
"She always understood that there was a real life outside of the palace walls."
Diana was known to take her sons on the bus, to a theme park,
and to McDonald's. With regards to the American fast food chain, Diana told the horrified royal
chef that she wanted her boys to experience the toys in Happy Meals. William also said that his
mom passed on her carefree approach to life to both of her sons. He said in the documentary:
"She gave us the right tools ... not obviously knowing what was going to happen."
"I wanted her to be proud of the person I would become."
Like his older brother William, Harry has many cherished memories of his mom. Harry has
recalled Diana's mischievous sense of humor, which many would argue that he inherited. As
Harry noted in the ITV documentary, one of the lessons his mother taught him was this:
"You can be as naughty as you want, just don't get caught."
It's clear that unlike some royal children throughout history,
both Harry and William knew their mother loved them. Harry recalled that Diana
would sweep him up in her arms and squeeze him tight. He said in the ITV documentary:
"Even talking about it now I can feel the hugs that she used
to give us ... that compassion that I think everybody needs."
He recalled that whenever he was in a room with his mother,
he could intuitively feel how much she loved him. When Diana died suddenly in 1997,
both princes were devastated. William was 15 and Harry was 12 at the time of
Diana's death. While speaking about the pain of losing his mother, Harry admitted to ITV:
"There's not a day ... we don't wish that she was still around."
"We will do everything we can to make sure that she's not forgotten."
Princess Anne and Princess Diana had very different personalities.
Anne is at her happiest when she's hiking through the muddy countryside,
and is known for having the same hairstyle for more than five decades. In contrast,
Diana preferred the glamor and bustle of city life, and became a style icon.
That said, the sisters-in-law did have some traits in common. Like Diana,
Anne works hard for various charities. She was even nominated in 1990 for a
Nobel Peace Prize for her patronage of Save the Children. And like Diana,
Anne wanted her children Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips to have relatively normal
non-royal lives. Anne even declined her mother's offer to bestow her children with royal titles.
However, these similarities weren't enough to save Anne and Diana's relationship. According
to Vanity Fair, Anne considered Diana "silly," and used sharp language when
they did speak. Diana eventually began avoiding her sister-in-law. The rift was
cemented when Diana declined Anne's invitation to Zara's christening, saying she was too busy.
Princess Margaret, the queen's younger sister, was not someone you wanted to be on the wrong
side of. Initially, Diana managed to avoid this dangerous position. Margaret had experienced the
highs and lows of being the press' favorite glamorous princess. So she sympathized with
Diana's difficulties navigating both the media and the royal family and tried to guide her.
Margaret was empathetic even when Charles and Diana decided to separate in 1992. After all,
she had been through her own painful and public divorce. But her support for Diana
ground to a halt after Diana's infamous interview with the BBC show "Panorama."
"Did you really think that a campaign was being waged against you?"
"Yes, I did. Absolutely."
Although she didn't name names, Diana painted the royal family as cold and conniving. Despite
her rebellious streak, Margaret had always been a staunch royalist and was deeply protective of
the queen. She instantly turned on Diana, burning all their letters and cutting off communications.
When Diana died, Margaret refused to bow her head as the coffin passed by her at the funeral.
The queen mother was close to Diana's maternal grandmother,
Lady Fermoy. For more than three decades, Lady Fermoy served as one of the queen
mother's closest ladies-in-waiting. So it's no wonder that the queen mother and Lady
Fermoy may have conspired to set up their grandchildren, Charles and Diana. However,
other sources say that the lady-in-waiting was not keen on the match, believing that Diana would
struggle to fit in with the royal family's indecipherable rules and odd sense of humor.
According to the BBC, the queen mother initially recognized Diana's plight as an outsider and
supported her. But she was also very close to Charles. As a result, Diana began to resent
that her husband prioritized the opinions of his grandmother and mom over her own.
There's another uncomfortable connection between the two women. Diana died so suddenly that no
arrangements had been made for her funeral. Instead, palace organizers dusted off the
plan they'd designed for the queen mother. The queen mother attended Diana's funeral
and went on to live nearly another five years. She died in 2002 at the impressive age of 101.
Princess Michael was born into an aristocratic Austrian family.
She has a reputation among her fellow royals for being a snob,
which apparently led to Princess Anne creating her famous nickname: Princess Pushy.
Diana didn't get on with Princess Michael either, and reportedly had her own nickname for her:
the U-Boat Commander. Diana's nickname for Princess Michael is even more on-the-nose
than it appears. In 1985, it was revealed that Princess Michael's German father had
been an early Nazi supporter, and was a major in the S.S. Princess Michael denied
knowledge of this. However, she has been accused of racism multiple times. Although she denies it,
Princess Michael allegedly told a group of Black diners in a restaurant to "go back
to the colonies," according to Town & Country. Furthermore, the outlet reported that the princess
was also accused of naming two black sheep after tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.