Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II’s Ups and Downs Through the Years

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Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II's Ups and Downs Through the Years

It's complicated. Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana had a complex relationship with many ups and downs. The pair met in late 1980, just a few months before Prince Charles proposed to his first wife. Royal biographer Andrew Morton wrote in his book Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words that the relationship between Diana and the queen started off uneasy. It's nerve-wracking for anyone to meet their future in-laws, and having her boyfriend's mother be the monarch added even more anxiety. Morton explained, “In the early days, Diana was quite simply terrified of her mother-in-law. She kept the formal obsequies – dropping a deep curtsy each time they met – but otherwise kept her distance.” However, the women's bond changed over the years. Amid Charles' affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, the Princess of Wales leaned on Elizabeth, seeking advice and support. Morton noted that Diana found "perhaps a rather unlikely ally at the palace in the queen whose understanding and helpful attitude did much to encourage Diana to soldier on." As the years wore on, the people's princess grew tired of being told to suffer in silence. In her 2002 book The Queen and Di, royal expert Ingrid Seward wrote that the queen felt just as irritated by Diana's emotional responses. “A footman said, ‘The princess cried three times in a half an hour while she was waiting to see you.’ The queen replied, ‘I had her for an hour — and she cried nonstop,'” Seward wrote. As Diana gave personal interviews and "went her own way," she became "more of a liability" for the royal family, the author explained. "In the end, Diana was the one person the Queen never learned to handle," Seward explained. "She reacted badly to criticism — any rebuke by the Queen was taken as an instance of the family ganging up on her. Neither patience nor the silent, steely-eyed displeasure Elizabeth had learned to deploy with such withering effect made any impression on Diana. Yet by doing nothing, and by allowing Diana to disregard the constraints of convention that keep the monarchy in place, the Queen unwittingly allowed the Princess to run out of control." Ultimately, the queen decided it was best for Charles and Diana to divorce. Diana tragically died in a 1997 car crash one year after the split was finalized. Her ex-husband went on to remarry Camilla in 2005, but the queen and Prince Philip did not attend the nuptials. The sovereign was long believed to have held a grudge against Camilla for not leaving Charles alone to mend his marriage. However, they later made amends, with Camilla getting the title Duchess of Cornwall. Elizabeth announced in February 2022 that she wanted Camilla to be named queen consort when Charles became king. Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022, in Scotland, and the official statement from the palace referred to camilla as "queen consort." Scroll down for a timeline of Diana and Elizabeth's ups and downs:

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1980

Diana was photographed at Balmoral, which made her relationship with Charles public. It was evident that the relationship had to be serious in order for the Prince of Wales to introduce her to the queen and other royal family members. 

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1981

Diana married Charles on July 29 after a six-month engagement. The queen attended wearing blue, matching Diana's sapphire engagement ring.

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1982

After Prince William's birth earlier that year, the queen allowed Diana to take on her first solo task: representing the royal family at the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco. Morton’s 1992 book, Diana recalled, “I went to the Queen, and I said, ‘You know, I’d like to do this,’ and she said, ‘I don’t see why not. If you want to do this, you can.'”

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1987

Rumors of Charles' affair become widespread and Diana reportedly leaned on the queen, who expected her daughter-in-law to stand by her man. 

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1992

Charles and Diana separated publicly. "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure," the queen said during her ruby jubilee speech. "In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an 'annus horribilis.'"

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1995

The queen finally called for a divorce. “I think that even after the separation in 1992, they still carried on doing engagements. I don’t think Diana ever really wanted to truly give up,” royal expert Emma Cooper exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2021. “Actually, it was the queen in the end [that] said, ‘You’re separated. You need to get divorced.’ And I think she never, ever — did she really want to do that? Look, I don’t know. It feels to me from the evidence of all the testimony that we had in her own words, that it was hard for her.”

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1995

Diana gave her famously controversial interview with the BBC program Panorama. She believed that the royal family were incapable of seeing anything she did as successful. "Well, anything good I ever did nobody ever said a thing, never said, ´Well done', or ´Was it OK?' But if I tripped up, which invariably I did, because I was new at the game, a ton of bricks came down on me," the Princess of Wales said.

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1997

The monarch addressed the nation with a speech from the balcony of Buckingham Palace five days after Diana's death. “She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness,” Elizabeth said. “I I admired and respected her for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.”

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2021

The sovereign skipped Diana's statue unveiling. The only Windsor-Mountbatten family members in attendance were Diana's sons, William and Prince Harry, who were there with Diana’s siblings, Earl Charles Spencer, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes.

“The royals wanted to keep it very personal and not have many family members in attendance since that would be a takeaway from the special moment,” a source exclusively told Us at the time. “This wasn’t a last-minute decision; it was decided on a few weeks ago that the other royals wouldn’t be attending. Meghan [Markle] just had her baby, [Duchess] Kate watched from afar with the kids, and same with the queen. Charles had said he didn’t want to be a distraction.”