The Mirror reports that, the night before the wedding, Charles, 32, told Diana, who had just turned 20 earlier in the month, that he didn't love her and did not want to go into the marriage on a false premise, the outlet reports. Understandably, this left the soon-to-be Princess of Wales devastated.
"One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding, Charles told her that he didn't love her," Thornton said. "I think Charles didn't want to go into the wedding on a false premise. He wanted to square it with her, and it was devastating for Diana."
Instead of saying “with all my worldly goods, I thee endow”, Charles professed it was “thy goods” he would “thee endow”. One of the Royal couple's bridesmaids, Clementine Hambro —great-granddaughter to Winston Churchill who was just four years old at the time — also fell and banged her head.
To that, they told her she had no choice. Sally Bedell Smith claims in her biography, Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life, that Charles even cried the night before his wedding as he couldn't get over his infatuation with his ex-girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles.
She's spotted crying at Heathrow airport upon his departure—not because she is sad, but because before he left, he had taken a phone call with Camilla Parker Bowles. “It just broke my heart,” she later recalled, according to Diana: In Her Own Words.
He told me he was terrified the first night he stayed in Kensington Palace, relieved at least that Charles and Diana had separate bedrooms. Apparently, she had 30 childhood cuddly toys lining the end of her bed."
On 22 February, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen would not attend the wedding ceremony, but would attend the church blessing and host the reception afterwards. The reason stated by the palace was the couple wanted to keep the occasion low key.
In a series of tapes recorded for her 1992 biography, Diana said that she recalled discovering a bracelet which Charles had bought for his longtime lover Camilla Parker Bowles shortly before their wedding. Due to her suspicions she wanted to call off the wedding but was put off the idea by her sisters.
Who walked behind Diana's coffin? The funeral procession included William and Harry,Prince Charles andPrince Philip, as well as hundreds of representatives of the charities Diana had been involved with.
One of the rumours was that he snuck Camilla into the palace the night before he wedded Diana. Prince Charles insisted there was no truth to this, according to the biographer, who has reported on the royals for nearly three decades.
' So, we sat down and I was terrified of her, and I said: 'Camilla, I'd just like you to know that I know exactly what's going on. ' And she said: 'I don't know what you're talking about. ' And I said: 'I know what's going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that.
Despite Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles' dating history, she still made the royal wedding's guest list — likely due to her husband Andrew Parker Bowles' role as the Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment.
The princess explained in the tapes how she had been feeling doubts about her relationship with Charles in the lead up to the royal wedding. She said when they were engaged she discovered a bracelet that the prince had engraved especially for Camilla, at which point she told her sisters she didn't want to marry him.
According to royal writer Andrew Morton, the two women did in fact meet for lunch prior to the royal wedding.
What were Princess Diana's last words? The firefighter on the scene of Princess Diana's accident revealed the last words she spoke before her death in an interview with The Independent. According to the firefighter, Xavier Gourmelon, the Princess of Wales asked: “My God, what has happened?”
Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.
Princess Diana was buried in a long black dress designed by Lay Di's friend and designer Catherine Walker.
Camilla may have been at Diana's wedding but she was not welcome at her funeral, which was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world. Still, to many her absence echoed around the ancient hall. The Queen made it clear to Charles that he could not take his paramour to the service.
After Princess Diana died in 1997, Charles, then the Prince of Wales, wore a navy suit to her funeral. At the time, royal watchers read his outfit choice as a tribute to the late princess; Diana was said to have preferred men in navy.
Following Diana's death in August 1997, the sapphire ring was inherited by her son Prince Harry, who eventually offered it to his older brother Prince William before he proposed to Kate Middleton with it in 2010.
As TIME pointed out, the royal family had been cool towards Diana even before her divorce from Charles, due to the attention she attracted from the tabloids. While the precise reasons for the coolness are “still ultimately a matter of speculation,” Lacey says, “there was no doubt it was there.
Despite her divorce from Prince Charles, Diana never stopped wearing her engagement ring. Upon her death in 1997, it was placed in the care of the royal family, where it remained until it landed on Kate Middleton's, now the Duchess of Cambridge, finger in 2010, when Prince William proposed.
Although it is customary for guests to avoid any white clothing to prevent upstaging the bride, Camilla's mother-in-law the Queen waived this rule and stepped out in a stunning pale ensemble as she attended the latter with her late husband Prince Philip.
As for what the queen kept in her bag, royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith says the items weren't all that different from what normal women carry with them: a mirror, lipstick, mint lozenges and reading glasses. As for the rest of the royal family, they have their own dress code rules they have to follow.
1947. Camilla Shand is born on July 17th, making her 16 months older than her future husband, Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, born November 14, 1948. The daughter of a British Army officer, Camilla grows up socializing with royals and attends Queens Gate school in London and finishing schools in Switzerland.