a “loveless” marriage of convenience?

Lady Diana and Prince Charles met in 1977 when the latter was shooting capercaillies in Althorp, on the Spencer lands where the Princess of Wales lived. The prince had been invited by Diana’s older sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale. After this meeting, they did not see each other again for three years and it was in July 1980 that they met at a barbecue in the Sussex home. They then met again for a first official meeting, an opera then a dinner… Chaperoned by Diana’s grandmother! The latter spent the evening with them because Diana was very young and in the aristocracy, appointments had to be supervised to be sure that everything went well.

From that day on, Diana and Charles maintained a relationship over the phone seeing each other from time to time. They then announced their engagement before getting married on July 29, 1981 in a highly publicized ceremony at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. But little by little, their relationship deteriorated, something that was widely covered by the press from start to finish… But was there love between them or was it just a marriage of convenience? For Diana, it was a real romantic relationship but Prince Charles did not have exactly the same vision.

A peaceful and pleasant start to the relationship between Charles and Diana

The most beautiful moments experienced by Charles and Diana were before the engagement. “They had moments of great complicity, especially when they met because Charles really liked the fact that she was young and very spontaneous”, explains Amandine Deslandes, author of the Diana Princesse des Larmes biography published in January 2022: “It changed him from all the other women around him because he was at that time the most beautiful match in England”.

As for Lady Di, she liked the way he was as a prince and appreciated the fact of projecting himself with him and knowing that she was going to enter the royal family. “At that time, it was a bit like a honeymoon for the princess of wales and they had moments of complicity and frank laughter”, analysis Amandine Deslandes.

Prince Charles’ stunning marriage proposal that defines the relationship

But, if Lady Diana seemed to be on a little cloud, Charles saw his relationship differently. “Lady Diana was looking for eternal love, of romanticism, while Charles was very pragmatic and above all was looking for the woman who could accompany him on the way to the throne and give heirs to the crown”, explains the specialist “That’s not to say Charles didn’t have a deep affection and even love for Diana, but getting married to her was still a partnership.”

Moreover, his marriage proposal defines their relationship well because if Diana, who was “very blue flower” imagined seeing the prince kneeling on the ground with flowers in his hand, this is not at all what happened. Charles simply asked him if he was aware of what it meant to marry him and he explained to him the consequences of this union. “He explained to her that she could no longer do her shopping alone or drink a coffee on the terrace, it wasn’t romantic at all”, says Amandine Deslandes.

The engagement, the starting point of the complications

It was when the engagement was announced that the relationship between Lady Di and Charles began to really sour. Indeed, the day of the announcement, the Princess of Wales understood that her future husband was not on the same wavelength. When a journalist asked them “Are you in love?”, she claimed “Yes, a lot”, but Charles answered : “Whatever love means” which can be translated as : “It all depends on the definition you have of love”. We then saw Lady Di’s face change, understanding that for Prince Charles, this union did not have the same meaning as for her.

Then came the preparation for the wedding but “Diana already felt like she was making a mistake and I think Prince Charles too. entrusts us the biographer before however explaining: “But with a wedding of this magnitude, it was impossible for them to change their minds so they said ‘yes’ at the altar,” For better and for worse…

The honeymoon altered by the shadow of Camilla Parker Bowles

It was during the honeymoon on the royal yacht that Lady Diana discovered that Prince Charles was close to Camilla. Indeed, she noticed that her husband was wearing cufflinks that she had given him and even found pictures of Camilla in her wallet. “This honeymoon was therefore particularly complicated for Diana”, notes the author. The Princess of Wales, however, would have tried to be positive and then said to herself that everything would work out once the pressure of marriage passed. But she was very quickly disappointed because Camilla continued to exist in Charles’ life. If the latter has long denied the fact that he had an extra-marital relationship, it was very quickly public knowledge.

The couple then moved away more and more and Amandine Deslandes says: “Diana has, little by little, had lovers”, before adding: “The spouses then lived two lives in parallel and everyone did what they had to do but they showed up together at official events or family times”. Indeed, they were both keen on trying to save their children, Princes William and Harry from their worries and thus maintained a number of appearances together.

This event that led to the divorce of Charles and Diana

This atypical relationship, to say the least, could have lasted a long time, but an event accelerated the couple’s break-up: Andrew Morton’s biography released in 1992. The book caused a scandal because Lady Di confided in it about the setbacks of his wedding. Immediately after the publication of this writing, the couple from Wales separated but did not divorce because “in the royal family it is a tragedy to divorce”, says the biographer.

The prince and princess then remained separated for several years but in 1994, Charles publicly admits that he is having an affair with Camilla. In revenge, Diana gave a very controversial interview to the BBC in 1995 in which she said “Nthere were three of us in this marriage“. The couple is then on the front page of all the media. To put an end to this, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip order them to divorce, which they do. But the procedure is long and painful. “When she realized that public opinion was with her, she used the press to put pressure on the royal family and get what she wanted, it was then very tense between the two parties”, explains the specialist of the royal family. Indeed, there were media supporting Charles when others were behind Diana. This period has even been called “Wales War”.

Once the divorce pronounced on August 28, 1996, the tensions subsided because there was no more stake. Whether “Charles could be annoyed by the notoriety of his ex-wife”, as Amandine Deslandes reveals, there was no more big drama. This until death of Lady Diana at only 36 years old in a car crash as paparazzi followed her on August 31, 1997. Prince Charles then urged his mother to have a royal funeral.

Lahéla doesn’t like jeans or t-shirts, she comes to the newsroom in a dress and heels. This writing where she snoops on the web and social networks …