Princess Diana’s father, Earl Spencer, helped convince her not to call off her wedding to then-Prince Charles, according to a new book by a royal biographer.
Excerpt from Ingrid Seward’s new book My Mother And Mein the edition Daily mail this weekend she claims she is “a month away from marrying the heir to the throne” during her wedding in July 1981, Princess Diana attended Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle and hoped to dance with her fiance, Prince Charles.
While Elton John performed at the gathering, the current King Charles “spent the entire evening dutifully working the room and making sure to talk to as many people as possible,” Seward wrote.
“Diana was in despair. Her fiancé had been away in America for most of the previous week, but he clearly had no desire to dance with her,” the excerpt continued. “Feeling emotionally exhausted, she threw herself into a frenzied dance with one man after another – and ended up dancing alone.”
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Princess Diana Cardiff appears at the Cardiff International Arena for ‘A Concert of Hope’.
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Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party was held in June 1981, and according to Business Insider, Elton John described it in his 2019 memoir “Me” as “the quietest disco in the world,” explaining that no one wanted to offend Queen Elizabeth, who was present.
Meanwhile, according to Seward, at one point during the evening, footman Mark Simpson spotted Princess Diana “looking exhausted and lost in her thoughts, but still moving in a slow, rhythmic beat to some tune in her head” in the castle’s quadrangle.
The extract then claims that Princess Diana went to her father’s home in Northamptonshire at 5:30am after the party, feeling “frantic, flustered, angry and had no intention of ever returning. As far as Diana was concerned, the Royal Wedding was called off.”
“But when she explained her decision to her father, Earl Spencer, he was appalled,” the author continued. “After calming her down, he pointed out that it would be an act of great discourtesy to break off her engagement to the future king so close to the wedding.”
“And, after all, wasn’t that what she always wanted? Didn’t she remember him telling her she should only marry the man she loved—and her firm reply, ‘That’s what I do’? Diana didn’t I wasn’t immediately convinced Seward added.
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in Daily mail excerpt from My mother and I Seward goes on to claim that eventually, after “bursts of tears and spells of indecision,” Princess Diana “allowed her father to talk her out of it.”
“She couldn’t deny that she still wanted to be Princess of Wales. And, at 19, she was still young enough to believe in happy endings, despite what her instincts told her that terrible night,” Seward wrote.
My Mother And Me tells the story of King Charles and his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, and was released on February 15 via Simon & Schuster. Later in an extract published this weekend, the author also writes about Princess Diana’s relationship with the late monarch, claiming that those who knew her found Diana “bewitching” and that Queen Elizabeth “had only two reservations”.
“She wondered if anyone so young could tell the difference between a man and a prince,” Seward wrote. “And she couldn’t help thinking that a Spencer girl would be a much better fit for her younger son Andrew.”
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Princess Diana and now King Charles on their wedding day in 1981 Anwar Hussein/Getty Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding: all the details
Eventually, according to the author, the Queen invited the couple to Birkhall on the Balmoral estate, where the biographer claims Diana “looked beautiful, very relaxed and quite delighted with herself”.
Diana and King Charles married on July 29, 1981 at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, five months after announcing their engagement on February 24, 1981. The couple would finally divorce in 1996, a year before Diana was killed in a car accident to Paris.
The wedding itself saw the biggest TV audience for a wedding of 750 million people in 74 countries, as previously reported.
Princess Diana later spoke to Andrew Morton about the wedding for his 1992 book. Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words. “I remember being so in love with my husband that I couldn’t take my eyes off him,” she told Morton. “I just absolutely thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. He’s going to look out for me.”
In an excerpt from Lady Colin Campbell The real Diana, published in 1998, Diana described the wedding again: “It was heavenly, amazing, beautiful, although I was so nervous walking up the aisle I swore my knees were going to knock and make noise.”
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Source: HIS Education