When they married in 1981, with 750 million people watching from home, Prince Charles and Diana Spencer had the romance that royal fans across the world envied. While she was 20 to his 32, the story of their courtship and engagement made people swoon. The image of her in the puffy dress with the 25-foot train became indelible.
The mood behind the scenes, though, was dramatically different. “I was very, very deathly calm. Deathly, deathly, calm. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter and I knew it, but I couldn’t do anything about it,” Diana said of the day, in audiotape interviews for Andrew Morton’s 1992 book Diana: Her True Story. She spoke on the tapes of only having met Charles 13 times prior to their wedding.
The seams quickly began to show, though. Quickly there were rumors of affairs on both parts, long periods of time spent apart and very uncomfortable looking public appearances. By 1996 they were divorced. In season 5 of The Crown we see the key moments in the very public break-up. Here’s the broader story.
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July 29, 1981
Charles and Diana are married at London’s St. Paul Cathedral.
Summer 1986
Princess Diana meets former army officer James Hewitt, with whom she had a five year affair. Hewitt’s red hair led many to suggest that he was Prince Harry’s biological son, an allegation that has been fiercely denied. “I have never encouraged these comparisons and although I was with Diana for a long time I must state once and for all that I’m not Harry’s father,” Hewitt said in a 2002 interview with the Sunday Mirror.
Fall 1987
Speculation about the state of the royal marriage grew rampant. The press alleges that the pair have only spent one night together in the past six weeks, with Prince Charles visiting Scotland’s Balmoral Castle and Diana going between Kensington Palace and the country home Highgrove House. The News of the World reported that the Queen had held a meeting to address the rift and that Diana had walked out of it in anger.
1989
In the Andrew Morton tapes, Diana recounted approaching Camilla Parker Bowles at a birthday party and confronting her about her relationship with Charles. “I was terrified of her. I said, ‘I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I want you to know that. Don’t treat me like an idiot,’” Diana recalled. “‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world falling in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?’” Parker Bowles responded, according to Diana. “‘So I said, ‘I want my husband.’”
December 9, 1992
Prime Minister announces to the House of Commons that the Prince and Princess of Wales have separated. “It is announced from Buckingham Palace that, with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate. Their Royal Highnesses have no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected. This decision has been reached amicably, and they will both continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children,” he said. “The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, though saddened, understand and sympathize with the difficulties that have led to this decision.”
The palace said that the pair would share custody of their children and that Diana would reside at Kensington Palace while Charles would go between London’s Clarence House and his country home Highgrove. They also stressed that no “third party” was involved.
June 1994
Charles admitted to adultery during a televised interview with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby that marked his 25th anniversary as the Prince of Wales. When asked if he was faithful in his marriage, he replied, “Yes… until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.” Though he referred to Camilla only as a friend, it was assumed that they had resumed their affair, reportedly in 1986.
November 20, 1995
Diana is interviewed by Martin Bashir for the BBC program Panorama. She speaks candidly about her experiences with depression and bulimia and said those issues were exacerbated by Charles’s relationship with Camilla. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” she said.
The interview was seen by around 200 million people globally. It was later revealed that Bashir used deceit to obtain her cooperation.
December 1, 1995
Buckingham Palace says the Queen Elizabeth has written a letter to Charles urging him and Diana to divorce, likely motivated in part by the Panorama interview. They released a statement that said, “After considering the present situation, the Queen wrote to both the Prince and Princess earlier this week and gave them her view, supported by the Duke of Edinburgh, that an early divorce is desirable. The Prince of Wales also takes this view and has made this known to the Princess of Wales since the letter.”
February 29, 1996
After initial resistance, Diana says she will agree to a divorce. “It was an exceptionally difficult decision and one which the Princess of Wales has taken with immense sadness and regret,” her lawyer said in an interview with the BBC.
August 28, 1996
Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce is finalized. It was agreed that Diana would continue to live at Kensington Palace and would be known as Diana, Princess of Wales but not Her Royal Highness. Her settlement was rumored to be worth £15 million. A year and three days later she died in a car accident in Paris.
Adrienne Gaffney is an associate editor at ELLE who previously worked at WSJ Magazine and Vanity Fair.
