HOW WAS THE RELATIONSHIP OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND PRINCESS DIANA?
The monarch turned out to be Diana's "unlikely ally."
The relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana has not few screen representations; was recently seen on season 4 of The Crown when Olivia Colman's character said, "Is it possible that there is a part of you that is also enjoying your success a bit?" to Emma Corrin's broken Diana.
Of course, we are all well aware that The Crown is a fictional drama, one that describes its own narrative of actual events, but how accurate was this representation? Was the relationship between the two women as complicated as we have seen?
The Queen made it clear that she approved of Diana
While the creators of The Crown led us to think Diana was quite alien to royalty, she was raised in close royal circles with her father the queen's squire and hers two of hers grandmothers as the Queen's bridesmaids. Mother (mother of Elizabeth II). When she was a child, Diana herself lived at the Park House on the Sandringham estate and played with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, who were more similar in age than Charles. She had a serious knowledge of royal etiquette and how to behave with royalty; this was not a completely new world as it is sometimes described.
Naturally, this meant that Diana had met the queen long before she began courting Prince Charles. As royal biographer Ingrid Seward wrote in 2001, although the monarch "never directly addressed the question of her marriage, but by nodding and qualifying, she made it clear that she approved of Diana."
Andrew Morton, author of the 1992 biography Diana: Her True Story: In Her Own Words, wrote that the relationship between the two women was polite but formal, "governed by the fact that she was married to her eldest son and future king." 'In the early days, Diana was terrified for her mother-in-law, keeping formalities and bowing deeply each time they met, but otherwise keeping her distance.
She trusted Diana to represent the royal family
When Grace Kelly died in 1982, just over a year after Diana married Prince Charles, it was the Princess of Wales who attended the funeral in Monaco alone, an event that became her first solo engagement as a member of The Royal Family.
Diana had met Princess Grace at a gala the previous year and the two had reportedly gotten along. Upon hearing the news of her tragic death, Diana asked her husband if she could represent the family at her funeral.
According to Morton, both Prince Charles and palace officials thought it unlikely she would be allowed. Diana told Morton: "I went to see her private secretary, then Philip Moore, who said she didn't think it was possible because she had only been at work for three or four months." The royal told her biographer: "I went to see the queen and said, 'You know, I would like to do this,' and she replied, 'I don't see why not. If you want to do it, you can."'
At age 21, the princess was tasked with traveling abroad and, according to Morton, she was praised for "her demeanor at the highly charged and sometimes corny funeral service."
The queen's reaction to the breakup of Diana and Carlos
As Diana and Charles's relationship became increasingly unstable, as biographer Ingrid Steward wrote, Diana often appeared unannounced at the palace for an audience with the queen: “At first, the queen had a tolerant view of these visits. unscheduled ".
"Diana was generally in a much better mood when she left than when she arrived," recalled one of the queen's staff.
However, over time, Elizabeth II came to fear meetings with Diana. After one session, a footman said, "The princess cried three times in half an hour while she waited to see her." The monarch replied: "I had her for an hour and she cried non-stop."
In Morton's biography, Diana recalls a talk with the queen in which she said that "the reason our marriage had gone downhill was because Prince Charles was having such a difficult time with my bulimia." However, according to Morton, Diana was supported by the monarch and Prince Philip and, in her opinion, found "perhaps a rather unlikely ally in the palace in the queen whose understanding and helpful attitude did much to encourage Diana to move on" , wrote.
How Diana changed the queen
After Diana's death, the royal family came under public scrutiny, with many believing that the Windsors never welcomed the late princess. In the 2017 anniversary edition of her biography, Morton writes: "One of the many ironies of [the queen's] life is that Diana's impact on the royal family is measured by how accommodating the House of Windsor is to new arrivals". He adds: "It is relevant that the Queen was frequently joined by Prince William's girlfriend Catherine Middleton, now Duchess of Cambridge, in the early days of her royal career. Lessons have certainly been learned, but it has come at a price. ".
