Princess Diana and Prince Charles were one of the most well-known and influential couples as soon as they became engaged in 1981. Unaware that the marriage and the relationship were doomed from the beginning and that the future King was to blame, many women aspired to be in her position.
According to many close to the late Princess, including Diana’s astrologer Penny Thornton, the issues between Diana and Charles began long before she found out he was having an affair with Camilla, who would later become his wife.
Shortly after they announced their engagement, Charles and Diana sat in front of the cameras. Charles said he was “delighted and frankly amazed” that Diana wanted a royal life with him and the then-soon-to-be princess noted that Charles was “pretty amazing.” But then, a question followed, and Charles’ answer to it traumatized young Diana. When the reported asked them in they were in love, Diana said yes, and Charles answered, “Whatever ‘in love’ means.”
What many labeled “the wedding of the century” ended in a difficult separation which eventually led to divorce, after Queen Elizabeth encouraged her son and her daughter-in-law to legally call their relation quits.
In actuality, Princess Diana was everything but typical, “breaking” conventions to ensure the happiness of her children. She had an unrivaled enthusiasm for motherhood. She was adamant about teaching her kids about the world beyond the royal palace’s walls, even though she knew they needed to be shielded from it. She also wanted their early years to be as typical as possible.
She feared they may take her boys away from her when she and Charles parted ways.
Biographer Howard Hodgson, author of the 2007 book Charles: The Man Who Will Be King, wrote, “She was well aware that the Queen had the constitutional right and authority under common law to take control of both boys’ care and education.”
“As such she could become the boys’ guardian or even appoint one: this would probably be their father and that might lead to Diana’s exclusion if she finally burned all her bridges with the Royal Family.”
According to former royal chef Darren McGrady, Princess Diana would spend Christmas Day alone after the marriage ended.
Speaking with royal reporter Omid Scobie for Yahoo UK series The Royal Story, McGrady revealed, “It was always quite sad when you were working with the princess the day before Christmas.”
“William and Harry would go off to Sandringham and Princess Diana was there on her own. And she insisted the staff spending their time with their families over Christmas, so we would leave food in the refrigerator.”
“So there was the princess, on her own, on Christmas Day.”
According to McGrady, the late princess didn’t feel comfortable while at Sandringham where the royals gathered together each December because “[it] was so tight, so compact. There were so many people there, all the families.”
“You just couldn’t get away. You came out of the dining room, and you couldn’t go into the sitting room because there were three or four people in there playing charades or Scrabble or something.”
The former royal chef added, “She would go off for a walk on her own and often I would bump into her when she was out walking. So, I think that’s probably what she wasn’t keen on.”
According to royal biographer Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story, he got audio recordings of the People’s Princess stating that she felt like a “outsider” at Sandringham, which he described as “terrifying and so disappointing.”
“No boisterous behaviour, lots of tension, silly behaviour, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd but insiders understood. I sure was [an outsider].”
On August 31, 1997, Diana lost her life in an automobile accident.
In an attempt to elude the paparazzi, Diana and her bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, driver Henri Paul, and partner Dodi Fayed—the son of Egyptian millionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed—crash the Mercedes in the Pont de I’Alma tunnel in Paris, resulting in her death.