Queen Elizabeth II Dead astatine 96: Relive Her Extraordinary Royal Life

So overmuch of Queen Elizabeth II's beingness revolved astir duty, loyalty and tradition, the choices she and different household members made dictated hardly ever dictated by their feelings successful the moment, but by history.

And erstwhile it came to ensuring that the monarchy had a bountiful future, the expected result for her eldest son, King Charles III, was marriage.

That is, matrimony to the close person, the queen having seen up adjacent however consequential the wrong prime of mate could beryllium to the full household erstwhile her uncle David—King Edward VIII for little than a year—abdicated the throne truthful helium could wed twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. If David had joined idiosyncratic much suitable, helium astir apt would've had his ain kids and the line of succession would've looked overmuch different.

And considering Elizabeth, who passed away Sept. 8 astatine the property of 96, nudged her younger sister, Princess Margaret, away from her preferred love once upon a time, the old-fashioned bias against divorced radical didn't peter retired with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's generation.

In taped interviews that made up the nutrient for Andrew Morton's supposedly unauthorized 1991 biography Diana: Her True Story (reissued arsenic Her True Story successful Her Own Words aft her death), Diana recalled her first content of Charles when she saw him astatine Althorp, her family's Northampton estate, successful 1977: "God, what a bittersweet man." 

Both of her grandmothers had served arsenic ladies-in-waiting to Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Diana's father, John Spencer, was a viscount, truthful the family was British nobility and their societal ellipse ever included members of the royal family. Charles' overmuch younger brothers, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, were among Diana's puerility playmates—and she felt unspeakable for them. "Look astatine the beingness they have, however awful," she often thought, per Morton. Moreover, her sister Jane was joined to Robert Fellowes, adjunct backstage caput to the queen.

As for the queen, Diana had "known her since I was tiny truthful it was nary large deal" being astir her, the "People's Princess" recalled. At slightest up until July 1980 when, after reuniting with Charles astatine the location of a communal friend, the prince "leapt connected maine practically," yet proposing matrimony connected Feb. 6, 1981, aft astir 7 months of sporadic dates.

Diana infamously insisted later connected that she received small guidance from anyone astatine Buckingham Palace—not Charles, not his family, not their staff—as to what was expected of her erstwhile she got engaged, and she said the queen's bureau provided no help whatsoever astatine taming the property mob that had go obsessed with the aboriginal Princess of Wales overnight.

But successful the Morton publication and her infamous 1995 interrogation with Martin Bashir connected the BBC's Panorama, Diana places the onus for her suffering connected Charles, having expected to beryllium his No. 1 precedence but soon uncovering out that wouldn't beryllium the case, the Prince of Wales not rising to her expectations of a devoted hubby whatsoever.

In adjacent her astir rueful moments, Diana seemingly ne'er expected overmuch beyond what she got from her in-laws—and she never directed her ire expressly astatine the queen, adjacent portion recalling feeling truthful unsocial portion struggling with bulimia, terrible greeting sickness and postpartum depression.

When she threw herself down the stairs astatine Sandringham portion large with Prince William, "the Queen comes retired perfectly horrified, shaking—she was truthful frightened," Diana shared successful the Morton tapes. Charles, she continued, "went retired riding and erstwhile helium came back, you know, it was conscionable dismissal, full dismissal."

In a 2016 foreword to the 25th day edition of his book, Morton wrote that Diana said "the queen" in the tapes but, erstwhile looking implicit the manuscript, "she altered the substance and inserted the Queen Mother's name, presumably retired of deference to the Sovereign."

From the beginning, the queen was supportive of Diana's instincts erstwhile it came to forging connections, specified arsenic erstwhile she asked the monarch's support to represent the household astatine the Princess Grace of Monaco's ceremonial successful 1982, the erstwhile Grace Kelly having been precise benignant to her erstwhile a recently engaged Diana archetypal met her. Charles had predicted his parent would accidental no, but the queen told Diana, "I don't spot wherefore not, if you privation to bash this you can." 

Diana besides insisted determination was ne'er immoderate statement (as rumored) with the queen implicit whether to instrumentality then-8-month-old Prince William with her and Charles connected their circuit of Australia and New Zealand. "We ne'er adjacent asked her," she said, "we conscionable did it."

Diana did, however, consciousness hopelessly misunderstood, the queen having "indicated" to Diana that she understood the princess' bulimia to beryllium a origin of her marital discord alternatively than a symptom.