The Truth About Princess Diana's Relationship With The Royal Family

When Lady Diana Spencer was first put forward as a potential wife for obstinate bachelor King Charles III, the royal family believed the 19-year-old would fit right into the fold. Or the Firm, as they call themselves. After all, Diana had practically grown up in the queen's back garden, in a house on the royal estate of Sandringham. Her family, the Spencers, had been close advisors to the British monarchy for centuries. Fans of "The Favourite" may know that Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) was Diana's distant relative. And Diana's grandmother Lady Fermoy spent more than 30 years as a loyal lady-in-waiting to the queen mother. Besides, Diana seemed so eager to please, they assumed she'd be no trouble.

However, Diana quickly proved that she intended to do more than cut ribbons, wave from a carriage and look nice in a tiara. Her shrewd manipulation of the media (which didn't always work in her favor) and airing of dirty royal laundry disgusted members of the family who had previously welcomed her. Her mistrust of Charles and his relationship with his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles (whom he would later marry) caused an irreparable split. But she also worked hard to build a relationship with her two sons, William and Harry, that marked her as the most motherly royal possibly in history.

Here's the truth about Princess Diana's relationship with the royal family, including all her in-laws, her beloved sons, and the most controversial princess.

The story of King Charles' and Princess Diana's wedding, marriage and acrimonious divorce has become a reverse fairy tale. Kindergarten teacher/aristocrat marries handsome (to some) prince; moves to his castle (Kensington Palace, to be precise); becomes anxious and lonely when he abandons her for his mistress; and scandalizes — and then wins over — the nation when they divorce.

Charles and Diana met in 1977, when she was 16 and he was 29, and dating her older sister Sarah. Shortly after their engagement, Charles described her at that first meeting as "very jolly and amusing and attractive," according to Harper's Bazaar. 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 now-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, several unenthusiastic attempts to reunite, and trading accusations in the media, the couple divorced in 1996. Following Diana's death, Charles accompanied her sisters to transport her coffin from Paris to Britain.

Before Diana became aware that Camilla Parker Bowles was — as the princess later put it — the third person in her marriage, the two had a cordial relationship. Parker Bowles 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 — at a polo match Charles played in — Parker Bowles accompanied the 19-year-old.

It wasn't until Diana and the king got engaged that he confessed that he and Parker Bowles had previously dated. Diana became increasingly suspicious, especially when she found a bracelet Charles had made for Parker Bowles. 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 Parker Bowles. Parker Bowles (Emerald Fennell) offers Diana (Emma Corrin) advice about Charles, showing off her extensive knowledge of the other woman's fiancé, and casually ascertains when Diana won't be accompanying him. This scene is based on a real meeting, which Diana recounted to biographer Andrew Morton. Diana also said that she confronted Parker Bowles more directly after her marriage. As Readers' Digest reports, at a house party, she told Parker Bowles, "I know exactly what is going on." It didn't end the affair: but at least Diana said her piece.

The two most important relationships in Diana's life were with her children, Prince William (born in 1982) and Prince Harry (born in 1984). Diana had always been very good with kids, and she was determined that her sons wouldn't have the kind of cold, distant relationships that have long been common between parents and children in the history of the British royal family. For example, People reported that she blamed the queen and Prince Philips' distinctly uncuddly approach to parenting for what she saw as Charles' emotional unavailability.

In 2017, 20 years after Diana's death, Prince William told a documentary, "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. "She always understood that there was a real life outside of the palace walls," William says. Diana was known to take her sons on the bus, to a theme park, and to McDonald's. With regards to the latter, she explained to the horrified royal chef that she wanted them to experience the toys in Happy Meals!

William says that Diana passed on her approach to life to her sons. He said, "She gave us the right tools ... not obviously knowing what was going to happen."

Princess Anne — the queen's second child — and Princess Diana had very different personalities. Anne is happiest traipsing through the muddy countryside, and is famous in Britain for having had the same hairstyle for over five decades. She freely brags that it takes her 10 minutes, according to People. In contrast, Diana preferred the glamour and bustle of city life, was constantly gossiped about in the tabloids, 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, although without generating as much publicity. In 1990, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her patronage of Save the Children. (Seven years later, after Diana's death, the founders of anti-landmines charity the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) won the prize, and credited Diana for raising awareness of the cause.) And like Diana, Anne wanted her children Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips to have relatively normal non-royal lives, to the point that she declined her mother's offer to bestow them with HRH titles.

These similarities weren't enough to save Anne and Diana's relationship. According to Vanity Fair, Anne considered Diana "silly," and was acerbic when they did speak. Diana took to avoiding her sister-in-law. The rift was cemented when Diana declined Anne's invitation to Zara's christening, weeks before her wedding, saying she was too busy. She probably was, but Anne's coldness didn't help.

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, with every outing and outfit splashed across the tabloids. She sympathized with Diana's difficulties navigating both the media and the royal family and tried to guide her, according to Town and Country.

Margaret was empathetic even when Charles and Diana decided to separate in 1992. She had been through her own painful and public divorce. But her support for Diana ground to a halt after the younger princess's infamous interview with the BBC show "Panorama."

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, including between Diana and Margaret's children. When Diana died, Margaret refused to bow her head as the coffin passed by her at the funeral.

Although Diana isolated herself from most of the royal family during and after her divorce from Charles, they did share an opinion about another outsider who married in. Marie-Christine von Reibnitz is today better known as Princess Michael of Kent, after her husband, the queen's cousin. (Prince Michael's father was the queen's father's younger brother. Which means he's also related to Prince Philip, through Queen Victoria.) She has another name among certain members of the royal family: Princess Pushy.

Princess Michael was born into an aristocratic Austrian family, and is proudly descended from French royals Henri II and Catherine de Medici, according to the Washington Post. She has a reputation among her fellow royals for being a snob, which apparently led to Princess Anne creating her famous nickname.

Diana didn't get on with Princess Michael either, and reportedly had her own nickname for the Austrian princess: the U-Boat Commander. It's 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, who was born in 1945, denied knowledge of this. But independent of her father's past, she's been accused of racism multiple times. (Brace yourself.) She has been accused of telling a group of Black diners in a restaurant to "go back to the colonies" (something she denies), and of naming two black sheep after tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.