The relationship between the Queen and Princess Diana in the 1990s was seriously complicated.

Andrew Morton has been busy lately: in addition to serving as a consultant for Season 5 of Netflix's The Crown (he's also part of the story), he published a new book this week called The Queen: Her Life (opens in new tab). The book details another storyline depicted on screen in Season 5, namely the late Princess Diana's sometimes complicated relationship with Her Majesty the Queen, for which Morton has written a book. Of Princess Diana, Morton said. Diana always felt that the Queen was like a referee for the couple and that she should intervene in the relationship between her husband and Mrs. (Camilla) Parker Bowles. But the Queen's policy was to hope for the best."

[2 [The divorce of Princess Diana and her son Prince Charles as well as two of their other four children (and the suffocating media attention surrounding it all), the 1992 "annus horribilis," and, of course, the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997 and its effect on her sons, Princes William and Harry, because the Queen had to contend with the worst of it all.

On June 14, 1992, Morton's biography of Princess Diana (later revealed to be an autobiography), Diana: Her True Story, was released. The public reaction to the book was "explosive," and "even though the Queen had long been acutely aware of the rift between [Prince Charles and Princess Diana] and their marriage, she was not prepared for such a detailed public exposé. ...... Behind the scenes, the Queen and her entourage tried to manage the unfortunate situation," Morton wrote in The Queen. Robert Fellows, the private secretary, asked the princess point-blank if she had helped with the book. She looked him in the eye and told him a clear lie: "No."

A few days after the announcement of her 1992 separation from Charles, Diana made an appointment to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace." Upon entering the Queen's suite, Diana burst into tears and insisted that everyone was against her. The queen did not know what to do. The queen had always disliked such emotional confrontations and, frankly, had never faced such a situation before or after. "During the hour-long conversation, Morton writes, the queen reassured Diana that she was not going to be a part of this. This was a profound relief to the princess, who had been brooding over the issue long before the actual separation"

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For the next several years, the so-called "Welsh War" continued, and "against the better judgment of her mother and sister (the Dowager Queen and Princess Margaret), the Dowager Queen tried to keep Diana within the royal family, quietly hoping that one day Charles and his wife would be reconciled." Princess Diana "took a wait-and-see attitude, prepared to sit on the sidelines until her husband took the initiative and asked for a divorce. She believed that since her husband had asked her to marry him, it should be he who initiated the process"

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Then in 1995, the BBC Panorama interview happened.

"When it aired, her televised confession was shocking and inexcusable for the royal family," Morton wrote.

"When the queen finally saw a recording of the program, she despaired and her husband [Prince Philip] was outraged. Something had to be done, not only for the sake of the monarchy, but also for the sake of the grandchildren."

On December 18, 1995, Diana received a handwritten letter from the Queen. Morton writes that "Diana was sorry, it was the first letter she had ever received from her mother-in-law." In that letter, the Queen explained that the best course of action was for Prince Charles and Princess Diana to divorce.

However, even after all of this fuss, the late Princess Diana invited Diana to Sandringham the following week for the royal family's traditional Christmas celebration. Diana declined, telling her friends, "I'm going in my BMW car and coming out in a coffin." Instead, she vacationed at Kensington Palace before flying out to the Caribbean.

"The princess's decision to decline the monarch's invitation, normally considered an order, was indicative of the rock bottom of her relationship with the queen," Morton writes. 'It was too much of an insult. From then on, the queen could no longer answer her phone at any time or invite her to afternoon tea. Since the Queen was one of the stakeholders in the divorce negotiations, their dealings had to be more businesslike than before."[4

Diana's future title was a point of contention. Diana told friends that she had decided to be known as Princess Diana and agreed to cease being "Her Royal Highness the Princess." The Queen intervened and clarified that Diana's "decision" was still a request and that she was not pressured to relinquish "Her Highness," Morton wrote. As for her title, her eldest son William said, "Don't worry, Mom. I'll give it back to you someday when I'm king."

Charles and Diana's divorce was finalized on August 28, 1996, and Diana died almost exactly one year later on August 31, 1997.

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