Princess Diana Photos

During the early 1990s, the marriage of Princess Diana and Charles would fall apart. It would be an event that would be intially suppressed, then become sensationalised by world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the demise of their marriage.



Problems and Separation

There were reported difficulties between Charles and Diana as early as 1985. During 1986, Diana would begin an affair with Major James Hewitt, her former riding instructor, while Prince Charles turned to his former girlfriend, Camilla Shand, who had become Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Andrew Parker-Bowles. These affairs were exposed in May 1992 with the publication of Andrew Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story. The book also detailed Diana's alleged suicidal unhappiness, causing a media storm. During 1992 and 1993, leaked tapes of telephone conversations, which negatively reflected on both the royal antagonists, would surface.

Transcripts of taped intimate conversations between Diana and James Gilbey would be published by Britain's Sun newspaper in August 1992 with the title "Squidgygate" - a reference to Gilbey's affectionate nickname for Diana. November 1992 saw the surface of the leaked "Camillagate" tapes, where intimate exchanges between Charles and Camilla were published in the Today and Mirror newspapers. In the meantime, rumours had begun to surface about Diana's relationship with James Hewitt. These rumours would be brought into the open by the publication of Princess in Love in 1994.

In December 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the "amicable separation" to the House of Commons. A year later, on December 3, 1993, Diana announced her withdrawal from public life. Prince Charles would seek public understanding via a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby on June 29, 1994. In the interview, he confirmed his own extramarital affair with Camilla, saying that he had only rekindled their association in 1986, after his marriage to the Princess of Wales had "irretrievably broken down."

While she blamed Camilla Parker-Bowles for her marital troubles, Diana, at some point, began to believe Charles had other affairs. In October 1993, she wrote to a friend that she believed her husband to be in love with Tiggy Legge-Bourke and wanted to marry her. Legge-Bourke had been hired by Prince Charles as a young companion for their sons while they were in his care, and Diana was extremely resentful of Legge-Bourke and her relationship with the young princes.


The Divorce

On November 20, 1995, Diana was interviewed for the BBC current affairs show Panorama by journalist Martin Bashir. In the interview, Diana, speaking of Hewitt said, "Yes, I loved him. Yes, I adored him." Of Camilla, she claimed "There were three of us in this marriage." For herself, she said "I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts." On Charles's suitability for kingship, she said: "Because I know the character, I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don't know whether he could adapt to that."


As a direct result of Diana's Panorama interview, in December 1995, the Queen asked Charles and Diana for "an early divorce." This followed shortly after Diana's accusation that Tiggy Legge-Bourke had aborted Charles's child, after which Legge-Bourke would demand an apology. Two days before this story broke, Diana's secretary, Patrick Jephson resigned, later writing that Diana had "exulted in accusing Legge-Bourke of having had an abortion".


On 20 December 1995, Buckingham Palace publicly announced the Queen's request for the divorce. The Prime Minister and the senior Privy Counsellors would both backed the Queen's request, after which Prince Charles would immediately agree with the suggestion. In February, after negotiations with Prince Charles and representatives of the Queen, Diana announced her agreement. She would further irritate Buckingham Palace by issuing her own announcement of a divorce agreement and its terms. According to the settlement, Diana would receive a lump sum settlement of around £17 million, along with a clause, standard in royal divorces, preventing her from discussing the details. The divorce would be finalized on August 28, 1996.


Days before the decree absolute of divorce, Letters Patent were issued with general rules to regulate royal titles after divorce. In accordance, as Diana was no longer married to the Prince of Wales, she would lose the style Her Royal Highness and instead was styled Diana, Princess of Wales. Buckingham Palace issued a press release on the day of the decree absolute of divorce was issued, announcing Diana's change of title, but making it clear that Diana would continue to be a British princess.

Almost a year before, according to Tina Brown, Prince Philip had warned Diana: "If you don't behave, my girl, we'll take your title away." Diana is alleged to have replied: "My title is a lot older than yours, Philip", implying that her own family, the Spencer family, was older and more aristocratic than the House of Windsor.

According to Buckingham Palace, as the mother of the second and third inline to the throne, Diana was still a member of the Royal Family. This statement was confirmed on January 8, 2007, by the Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, after a pre-hearing: "I am satisfied that at her death, Diana, Princess of Wales continued to be considered as a member of the Royal Household." This also appears to have been confirmed in the High Court judicial review matter of Al Fayed & Ors v Butler-Sloss. In that case, three High Court judges accepted submissions that the "very name 'Coroner to the Queen's Household' gave the appearance of partiality in the context of inquests into the deaths of two people, one of whom was a member of the Family and the other was not."


Life after Divorce

Even after the divorce, Princess Diana would maintain a high level of popularity. She would retain the double apartment on the north side of Kensington Palace (the one shared with Prince Charles since the first year of their marriage). It would remain her home until her death. She devoted herself to her sons and to many charitable efforts, using her international celebrity status to help raise awareness on many issues. She would also continue to endur the negative aspects of fame as well - her 1997 romance with Egyptian film producer and playboy Dodi Al-Fayed. It was a relationship which caused quite a stir and created such a media frenzy that, while visiting Paris, they would both become victims of a car accident, trying to escape from paparazzi.


Following her divorce, Diana dated the respected heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, from Jhelum, Pakistan for almost two years. Referred to as "the love of her life" by many of her closest friends after her death, Khan was intensely private and their relationship was conducted in secrecy. Coming from a traditional Pakistani family who expected him to marry from a related Muslim clan, their differences, which were not just religious, became too much for Khan. According to his testimony at the inquest for her death, it was Diana, who ended their relationship in a late night meeting in Hyde Park in June 1997.



Within a month, Diana began dating Dodi Al-Fayed, the son of her host that summer, Mohamed Al-Fayed. She initially wanted to take her sons to the Hamptons in New York for the summer, but was prevented from doing so by security officials. After deciding against a trip to Thailand, she accepted Al-Fayed's invitation to join his family in the south of France. His compound and large security detail could accommodate the Royal Protection squad. In lieu of her visit, he purchased a multi-million pound yacht on which to entertain her and her sons.


In January 1997, pictures of Diana touring an Angolan minefield in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket were seen worldwide. It was during this campaign that some accused her of meddling in politics and declared her a 'loose cannon.' In August 1997, just days before her death, she visited Bosnia with Jerry White and Ken Rutherford of the Landmine Survivors Network. Her interest in landmines was focused on the injuries they created, often to children, long after a conflict is over. Princess Diana is believed to have influenced the signing of the Ottawa Treaty, which created an international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines. Introducing the Second Reading of the Landmines Bill 1998 to the British House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, would offer tribute to Diana's work on landmines in the form of the following:

All Honourable Members will be aware from their postbags of the immense contribution made by Diana, Princess of Wales to bringing home to many of our constituents the human costs of landmines. The best way in which to record our appreciation of her work, and the work of NGOs that have campaigned against landmines, is to pass the Bill, and to pave the way towards a global ban on landmines.

The Princess Diana car accident would occur on August 31, 1997 in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris. Princess Diana dies, along with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul. The sudden and unexpected Princess Diana death would bring statements from people worldwide, as well as a number of tributes and memorials. Millions will watch the funeral of the beloved Princess and many will leave public offerings of flowers, candles, cards and personal messages outside Kensington Palace for months, following her death.

Next: A Princess Dies

Related Articles

Part One: A Princess is Born
Part Four: A Nation Cries

Princess Diana Photos Sources

1. http://www.biography.com/articles/Princess-Diana-9273782
2. Diana, Princess of Wales. (2011, August 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diana,_Princess_of_Wales&oldid=444695719

Funeral Guide

Find a Funeral Home

Send Flowers