The breakdown of King Charles’s first marriage to Princess Diana became so mired in scandal that it became a major threat to the monarchy itself, with five tumultuous moments defining the rocky period
When King Charles tied the knot with Princess Diana, the royal wedding was watched the world over, with the day seeming from the outside to be a picture-perfect fairytale.
But before long, cracks began to show between the couple in public, and as their relationship broke down irrevocably, the monarchy was plunged into crisis – with both Charles and Diana determined to win a PR battle and the public’s hearts.
Across five major moments, it became clear that their marriage had been a doomed one, and there was little chance it would go the distance – with some of the signs divorce loomed present from the very start.
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From the beginning of their relationship until its acrimonious – and incredibly public – end, it is well known that Charles and Diana’s marriage was tainted by his love for another, Queen Camilla.
1. Diana finds tragic proof
Just days before walking down the aisle, Diana stumbled upon a very sweet present amongst her soon-to-be husband’s belongings, but it wasn’t for her.
She found a personalised engraved bracelet in the office of then-Prince Charles’s private secretary, Michael Colborne. The piece of jewellery featured the initials G and F – believed by some to be a nod to the nicknames that Camilla and Charles used for one another: Gladys and Fred.
Charles is said to have told Diana it was nothing more than a parting gift to an ex-girlfriend, but some reports claim that Camilla still wears it sometimes to this day.
Speaking to her biographer, Andrew Morton, Diana said about the incident: “I was still too immature to understand all the messages coming my way. And then someone in his office told me that my husband has had a bracelet made for her. I walked into this man’s office one day and I said, ‘Ooh, what’s in that parcel?’ And he said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t look at that’.”
Diana said finding the gift filled her with “rage” and when she narrated the story years later, she said it made it clear to her that Charles had one foot out the door of their relationship at all times.
“I was devastated,” Diana explained, “and I said, ‘Well, he’s going to give it to her tonight’. So rage, rage, rage. You know, ‘Why can’t you be honest with me?’ But no, absolutely cut me dead. It was as if he’d made his decision, and if it wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t going to work.”
However, a royal biographer who is known to have close ties to Camilla – Penny Juror – has flatly denied this version of events, instead saying it was nothing more than a “thank you” and that Charles had done the same for other ex-girlfriends before his wedding.
“I think it is absolutely untrue that she and Charles slept together just before the wedding. They are both decent, honourable people,” the royal biographer has said, also noting: “The Prince is an inveterate giver of gifts, especially jewellery, as a way of thanking people; and he intended to see each of the women individually to say goodbye.”
2. Camilla and Diana’s flaming row
Diana, who had been married to Charles since 1981, eventually had enough. At a birthday party that both she and Camilla attended in 1989 she finally confronted her husband’s mistress about their relationship.
“I said, “I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that,'” Diana explained to Andrew Morton for his biography, which she secretly cooperated with, smuggling cassette tapes of her side of the story out of Kensington Palace.
“And she said, ‘Oh, it’s not a cloak and dagger situation.’ I said, ‘I think it is.’ I wasn’t as strong as I’d have liked, but at least I got the conversation going.”
Diana added, “Camilla then replied, ‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world to fall in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?’ I didn’t believe her, so I said, ‘I want my husband… I’m sorry I’m in the way, and it must be hell for both of you. But I do know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot.'”
Charles admitted that he resumed his affair with Camilla in 1986, five years after his marriage, because relations with Diana had totally broken down.
3. Charles and Diana’s other loves
Charles said he resumed his affair in 1986 – despite Diana’s suspicions that it was earlier – and Diana also seemed to give up somewhat on her marriage around this stage.
She is alleged to have had an affair with a royal protection officer, Barry Mannakee in 1985, and because of the gossip about the nature of their dynamic he was fired from his role a year later – and then died suddenly in a motorbike crash in 1987, which became wildfire for conspiracy, with even Diana saying, “I think he was bumped off”.
It is claimed that in about 1986, after Mannakee had been fired, she began a relationship with Major James Hewitt – an affair she admitted to in the mid-90s.
The pair’s romance went on until about 1992, but when the former Household Cavalry Officer, who Diana had met at a cocktail party, was sent to active duty in the Gulf War, things cooled between them.
In 1989, Diana is alleged to have had an affair with James Gilbey. Diana totally denied they had a relationship, and Gilbey has never breathed a word about his connection to her.
However, a phone call between the two was recorded in 1989, and made public in 1992, which became known as “squidgygate” – due to the fact he used this nickname for her 53 times in the call.
In 1992, when she was separated from Charles, Diana is said to have had a relationship with an art dealer called Oliver Hoare, who she knew through Charles. The romance is alleged to have lasted for two years, but when Hoare refused to leave his own wife, things turned sour and are said to have ended.
Diana is reported to have been infatuated with the art dealer, who was 16 years older than her, so much so that she once rang him 300 times in one night. After meeting at the Chelsea Harbour Club in 1995, Diana is alleged to have had a brief fling with rugby player Will Carling, originally asking him for personal training before sparks quickly flew between them.
Hasnat Khan has been said by some to have been an important love affair of Diana’s, with some of her pals even calling him the “love of Diana’s life”. They were together for two years from 1995 until shortly before her death, when he called things off because of his apprehension they would ever be able to be a normal couple with the bright spotlight trained upon her.
Despite their break up, he braved the cameras and attended her funeral at Westminster Abbey, paying his respects and saying the final goodbye in 1997.
4. Diana’s shock interview
Though Diana’s interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir for Panorama has come under new scrutiny in recent years for the deceptive methods the journalist used to obtain the exclusive sit down, it sent shockwaves across the nation when it aired – and was the final nail in Charles and Diana’s marriage.
The pair had been officially separated for three years when the interview aired, and Diana uttered the now-infamous words, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was quite crowded”.
She pulled the lid back on the state of her relationship with Charles, her long battle with mental health issues, including an eating disorder, and it was the first time a member of the Royal Family had ever been so candid.
Causing a major scandal, it also cast questions on the suitability of Charles as the future head of the Church of England – 30 years ago, the UK was a much less secular country.
5. Charles brutal confession
Whilst Diana’s interview went down in the history books for it’s shock value, Charles made some pretty revealing admissions himself about his extra-marital activity the year before, and in many ways Diana’s sit-down with Bashir had been in retaliation to her husband’s confessions – with both determined to win the PR battle that became widely known as the War of the Waleses.
In an interview – and biography he cooperated with – conducted by Jonathan Dimbleby, Charles addressed the rumours that had long swirled in the press about his affair with Camilla.
When he was asked if he had behaved in a “faithful and honourable” way to his wife, Charles replied: “Yes, absolutely.”
But Dimbleby pushed back gently, and Charles continued, “Yes. Until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.”
Never one to take things lying down, Diana stole the headlines and spotlight back from her husband amid his confession, famously wearing a little black off-shoulder number – that became known as her revenge dress – to the Serpentine Gallery, the very same night his interview aired.