Diana's Relationships with The Queen and Other Members of the Royal Family

[Moonmaiden23]

Originally Posted by Duc_et_Pair

Her sons and her father. That will be it. The rest of the people always had the risk in them of making profit from her, or from their friendship with her.

Remember Queen Sofía's words: "Royals have no friends. They have family." (With that remarking to her sister Princess Irene of Greece, the only one Doña Sofía has trusted 100% her whole life). I think Diana was in a similar position, especially when her marriage with the Prince of Wales stranded.

She fell out with her father at least once after the wedding(over Raine Spencer) and even she and William were having problems at the time of the Paris tragedy. Their relationship never completely recovered from the Panorama interview, which horrified her eldest son. It caused him huge embarrassment at school.

Unfortunately it's somewhat correct to say that Diana had no truly consistent relationships in her life.

[Honeybees]

To the best of my knowledge, the last Christmas card that Diana, Princess of Wales sent was a non-professional one of her sons and Princesses Beatrice and Eugienie.

[Mermaid1962]

Hard to believe now, but Sarah was very popular both within the family and with the population at large. At the time, Diana seemed 'stuffy' next to her.

Originally Posted by eya

I know neither I also . How times change

There's a definite resemblance in some pictures. When Kate's face was fuller, there was a resemblance to the young Lady Diana, too.

Originally Posted by Iluvbertie

I had to do a double take with that photo of Diana to check who it was because at first glance I thought it was Kate.

[Dman]

Family relationships, no matter who you are, have it's ups and downs. That's just life for you. I have no doubt that The Queen and members of the royal family were deeply hurt when they learned of Diana's horrible death.

[ladongas]

Did Diana have a reputation for quarrels, for being moody, and for being difficult, before her marriage?

[Moonmaiden23]

I remember reading Diana being described as "stubborn" and "willful" by nannies, teachers, acquaintances....with at least one also describing her as an "actress".

But she was also called sweet, sensitive, helpful and almost preternaturally empathetic.

She was just a very complicated person from the start.

[Mermaid1962]

Slightly off topic, but I wish we knew more about Diana from people who knew her before her engagement and marriage. Then I think we'd have a better idea of what was her developing personality and how the pressure of being the Princess of Wales might have changed the trajectory.

[Pranter]

Based on her own words and those of her friends/family/teachers etc.....sounds like there were some unhappy parts to her childhood due to the divorce of her parents and separation from her mother. The boarding school seems to have given her stability and some happiness, activities in swimming/dancing etc.

She appeared to have been much like other young girls her age/station of the time after school years...sharing a flat and working, seeing what was to come next.

She really didn't have time to develop past that before she was married. I think the situation surrounding her marriage brought out so many negatives that may not of really been an issue in a different relationship.



LaRae

[Moonmaiden23]

At least one of her former childhood nannies has written a book. Also the American woman whose child Diana looked after before her engagement to Charles wrote a book with very interesting insights into her personality and character.

[Duke of Marmalade]

The Queen's Speech book by Ingrid Seward reveals her majesty in her own words | Daily Mail Online

[Queen Camilla]

Originally Posted by ladongas

Did Diana have a reputation for quarrels, for being moody, and for being difficult, before her marriage?

Yes.
Definitely yes. There were stories before she married.
One headline screamed 'There is nothing shy about Di.".
Her teachers, several nannies and former boyfriends all described her as difficult, moody, temperamental, headstrong, etc.
These stories were published before the marriage.

Diana herself described some of her own bad behavior as a preteen, teenager and woman.

She toss one nanny's clothes out of the window.
She threw another nanny's engagement ring down the sink.
She slapped her father because he married Raine.
Diana pushed Raine down a flight of stair in 1989.

The Spencer couldn't keep a nanny due to Diana's bad behavior.

Diana egged and floured James Gilbey's car just because her forgot a date with her.

Diana glued the lock on another boyfriend's car.

Diana poured sugar in the tank of another boyfriend car.

Diana had a classmate write a letter threatening Raine.

[Curryong]

Diana was hardly a demon seed as a child. Different people had different perceptions of her. Yes, she AND her brother did treat some nannies badly especially after the divorce like sticking pins in their chairs and throwing their clothing out of windows. Charles Spencer recalled nannies banging the children's heads against the wall as punishment for bad behaviour.

Her father's cousin Fiona Fraser remembered Diana as a child "She was very modest and she was like that before Johnnie and Frances separated. She was deeply perceptive at an early age, observing everything". She took on the self-imposed role of 'protector' to her father, and would trail behind him offering to make him cups of tea or bake him a cake.

Diana certainly had no difficulty making friends at school or later on. The American who employed her as a baby sitter didn't even know she was an Earl's daughter at first, as Diana didn't tell her, and she praised Diana's skill with her child and her tidiness.

[Denville]

I think that at first she got on well Iwht Margaret but I believe that there were problems before Panorama.. I can't find the reference but I think that Di and she fell out over soemthing to do with a butler.. but of course when Di went public attacking Charles and the RF, Marg completely turned on her and I don't believe she ever forgave her and was reportedly annoyed to have to cut short her holiday when Diana died

[HistoryGirl]

Well if true, that last part's really mean. However, from my perspective, I totally understand cutting her off after the Panorama interview.

[Curryong]

Hi, Denville! My reading of various biographies uncovered nothing about a butler but that the relationship between Diana and Princess Margaret was extremely warm until, depending on which biography you read, the Morton book or Panorama interview. (I believe it was Panorama that finished Margaret's friendship.) Margaret couldn't bear anything which undermined the Queen or the prestige of the monarchy, and, following the Panorama interview, sent Diana a searing letter which wounded her considerably.

In the early years of the Wales's marriage Margaret and Diana had been very fond of each other. They loved each other's wit and sense of humour and met reasonably often. Diana admired Margaret's resilience as a single parent and the way she had led her life in the shadow of her sister.

Although they weren't so close after the Wales's separation, apparently Margaret wrote to Charles informing him that she would still be seeing Diana, and indeed, they attended ballet at Covent Garden together a couple of times, as they had sometimes during Diana's marriage.

Margaret never forgave Diana, and this animus lasted. She complained about the mound of flowers left by the mourning public after Diana's death to rot outside Kensington Palace, and alone of the royals standing outside Buckingham Palace did not bob her head in tribute as Diana's cortège passed by on the day of her funeral.

I do feel that the Panorama interview was the greatest of Diana's blunders during her life as Princess of Wales. She was filled, I think, with pain and grief and rage and resentment about how her marriage had ended and simply wasn't thinking straight.

[COUNTESS]

Diana had her faults and strengths. Margaret had hers, too. Margaret's life was a mess, as her life, as she saw it was stolen from her. And it was. The hoo ha over Townsend and then Charles marries his mistress. But I digress. Diana's death was mourned amazingly and still so in many places. Margaret's almost went unnoticed. In the end, both are dead. There are no winner in these type of contests, so to speak.

[Blog Real]

Diana was a mistake that you gave that interview to Panorama. I think it was from that interview that Diana's relationship with the Royal family started getting worse. Diana could have done things differently. This interview was the worst thing she did.

And how was the relationship of Diana to the Queen Mother? I once read that the Queen Mother not also forgave Diana for what he did to the Royal family.

[Curryong]

I don't think the relationship between the Queen Mother and Diana was ever really close. Most of that has to do with the huge age gap. Diana was just 20 when she married in 1981, the Queen Mother was 81 in that year.

I think it was reasonably cordial in the first years of the marriage, but the Queen Mother's character and personality was radically different to Diana's and I don't think she understood Diana very well. Her life as a woman of twenty in an aristocratic world which was only beginning to crumble just after the First World War was very different to Diana's as a single girl. She was of the 'You just get on with things' school, and like most of the rest of the royals, she grew to think of Diana as 'difficult'.

However much she may have regarded Diana as a suitable bride for Charles at first, I believe the Queen Mother was first and foremost and always a supporter of her beloved grandson. Right or wrong, whatever difficulties Charles would have had in marriage, whoever had been his bride, the Queen Mother would have been on his side, always, as she had been all his life.

[sndral]

Originally Posted by Denville

I think that at first she got on well Iwht Margaret but I believe that there were problems before Panorama.. I can't find the reference but I think that Di and she fell out over soemthing to do with a butler.. but of course when Di went public attacking Charles and the RF, Marg completely turned on her and I don't believe she ever forgave her and was reportedly annoyed to have to cut short her holiday when Diana died

I've read that the butler was Harold Brown (?) and Diana fired him and promoted Burrell. Princess Margaret hired him and Diana was furious, demanding that he be banned from KP. Margaret refused Diana's demand - reminding her who owned KP, basically pulling rank.

[Denville]

Thank you. I thought there was some dispute about a butler, earlier than the "final chill off" of relations between P Margaret and Diana, but I can't find the book now that said this. And I believe that things got so glacial that when Diana bought a present for Lady Sarah Chatto's new baby, she had to give it to one of her servants to give to Sarah Chatto...