When Did Prince Charles and Princess Diana Meet?
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Before the fairytale wedding and the messy public divorce, here's how one of the most famous (and infamous) royal marriages in history got started.
Prince Charles met Diana in 1977, while dating her sister.
It was far from love at first sight when Charles met Diana. In fact, when the then-heir to the throne was first introduced to the future Princess of Wales during a grouse hunt at Althorp, the Spencer family home, in November 1977, he was there with her older sister, Sarah. He and Sarah had a short-lived romance, but they obviously weren't compatible—Sarah, who went on to marry Neil McCorquodale, reportedly said she wouldn’t marry Charles “if he were the dustman or the King of England.”
While her big sister may not have been head-over-heels, 16-year-old Diana (there was a 12 year age difference between her and Charles) evidently had a different impression, telling her friends that one day she was going to marry Charles and laughing that he was, “The one man on the planet who is not allowed to divorce me,” according to The Diana Chronicles.
In her later years, she recalled the incident somewhat differently, telling author Andrew Morton for his 1992 book Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words that her first thought upon meeting the Prince of Wales was, “God what a sad man.”
Charles, meanwhile, recalled that first meeting in a 1981 interview with The Telegraph: "I remember thinking what a very jolly and amusing and attractive 16-year-old she was. I mean, great fun, and bouncy and full of life and everything."
However, it's widely accepted that Charles was still in love with Camilla Shand (later to become Camilla Parker Bowles, and eventually Camilla, Queen Consort) at the time. The two had dated in the early '70s and Charles had intended to propose, but a combination of Camilla's on-again-off-again relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles, the interference of her and Parker Bowles's parents, and a feeling within the royal family that Camilla wasn't a suitable match for the heir to the throne caused friction. Camilla ultimately married Parker Bowles in 1973, though the couple divorced in 1995. At that time they released a statement, which read in part: "Throughout our marriage we have always tended to follow rather different interests, but in recent years we have led completely separate lives," according to The Washington Post.
Charles and Diana didn't start dating for several more years.
Once Charles's relationship with Sarah fizzled, the prince and Diana did not see each other again until 1980, when both she and Charles were invited to stay at Philip de Pass's house in Sussex.
“He’d just broken up with his girlfriend and his friend Mountbatten had just been killed. I said it would be nice to see him." Diana later said to her speech coach on a tape used in the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words. "We were talking about Mountbatten and his girlfriend and I said, ‘You must be so lonely.’ I said, ‘It’s pathetic watching you walking up the aisle with Mountbatten’s coffin in front, ghastly, you need someone beside you.’ Whereupon he leapt upon me and started kissing me and I thought, urgh, this is not what people do. And he was all over me for the rest of the evening, following me around like a puppy.”
Despite some apparently mixed feelings, the couple started dating soon thereafter. Most of their courtship took place over the phone; they reportedly only met in person 13 times before Charles proposed marriage.
They announced their engagement in 1981.
In February of 1981, the royal couple announced their engagement, revealing that Charles had popped the question three weeks prior.
"She had planned to go to Australia quite a long time before anyway with her mother and I thought 'well I'll ask her then so that she'll have a chance of thinking it over when she's away and saying I can't bear the whole idea—or not, as the case may be,'" Charles told BBC Radio after the announcement. In reality, Diana accepted right away, and together the couple gave all the appearances of soon-to-be-wedded bliss.
However, even at the beginning, Diana had her doubts. "We had this ghastly interview the day we announced our engagement,” she in Diana: In Her Own Words “And this ridiculous [reporter] said, ‘Are you in love?’ I thought, what a thick question. So I said, ‘Yes, of course, we are,’ and Charles turned round and said, ‘Whatever love means.’ And that threw me completely. I thought, what a strange answer. It traumatized me.”
Charles and Diana married later that year.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer married within six months of their engagement in a famously lavish royal wedding in St. Paul's Cathedral. The wedding, which was broadcast on television and seen by approximately 750 million people around the world, is still considered one of the most memorable royal weddings of all time.
The relationship didn't stand quite the same test of time. Though the couple went on to have two children, Prince William and Prince Harry, it progressively became obvious that they weren't a good match. Charles began an affair with Camilla in the 1980s, which would ultimately create a massive, worldwide scandal when the news went public in the early '90s. By 1992, Charles and Diana had officially separated; they finally divorced in 1996, just a year before her tragic death.
Eventually, Charles and Camilla began openly seeing one another, and—after a change to the Church of England's rules about remarriage after divorce took effect in 2002—married in a civil ceremony in 2005.
How accurate is the depiction of Charles and Diana's relationship on The Crown?
Prince Charles and Diana's relationship is central to the Netflix hit The Crown's fourth and fifth seasons, so how accurate is their depiction?
While the underlying elements of their courtship and marriage as shown on the show do seem to be accurate, many of the specific circumstances appear to have been changed. Charles meeting Diana while she's in costume for a school play, or Diana speaking to Charles about Mountbatten while he's in his car, as are both shown in season four, are all tweaks that appear to have been made for for dramatic effect.
Of course, as is the nature of creating a historical drama, particularly one about the famously private royal family, there are many details of conversations and circumstances that are impossible to know. Nonetheless, the depictions haven't been without controversy—in recent years, there have even been calls for the show to add a disclaimer noting that it is a work of fiction. Netflix has thus far declined to do so, though they did note in a trailer for season five that the show is "fictional"—a word they have never previously used in the show's trailers.
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