The British Royal Family is the most famous family in the entire world. They live their lives mostly in the public eye, which means everybody knows way too much about them. Sometimes, that helps royals make new fans. For example, it’s tough not to sympathize with Kate Middleton when you see her trying to calm down a kiddo who’s having a very public meltdown. Other times, though, it’s a bit more awkward, like when we learn about the royals who have a quiet rivalry between them.
This includes several living rivalries, of course, including the ones between William and Harry and the ones between (depending on who you believe) Kate and Meghan. But one of the craziest feuds in royal history was between two esteemed ladies who are long dead: Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, who gave birth to Elizabeth. What’s up with this rivalry? How do we know there was beef between these ladies, and what caused it? Keep reading to discover the answers!
No room for a rebel
So, how do we know that Princess Diana and the Queen Mother had a feud in the first place? Most of what we know comes from Diana herself. In a leaked phone call to friend (and possibly lover) James Gilbey, Elizabeth alleged that the older woman was doing her best to turn the rest of the Royal Family against her. Plus, royal writer Christopher Wilson, an expert on the two women, once claimed that “In the end, it’s my belief that Diana absolutely hated the Queen Mother.”
This raises the question: if we accept Diana’s claim that the Queen Mother was hostile towards her, what could have initially triggered these negative feelings? According to Wilson, one cause was Diana always flouting the royal rules, which irritated her rival, someone who was all about protocol. “Diana decided to do her own thing,” he said. “The Queen Mother could never really work out how Diana could do it and get away with it. And, of course, the more Diana did, and the more Diana got away with it, the bigger the breach between the two of them. And it was never going to be resolved.”
There’s irony for you. The Queen Mother reportedly didn’t like Diana for the same reason that most of us loved her: she was a rebel who loved to break the rules!
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The danger of playing favorites
Obviously, feuds have to go both ways. It would be one thing if the Queen Mother was just another royal who disliked Diana. She got plenty of dislike from her husband, so this would have barely been a blip on her radar. However, the Queen Mother also did her fair share of things that actively annoyed the younger woman. And one of them had to do with something every mother can relate to: Diana’s children!
In the eyes of Princess Diana, her two young boys were perfectly equal. However, many didn’t see it that way…they lavished special attention on William, who was destined to be the King of England. Unfortunately, the Queen Mother was the same way. According to journalist Richard Kay, she would regularly invite William to special lessons (like lessons in being a king) and exclude Harry.
Additionally, Kay claims that the Queen Mother usually sat William next to her and Harry far away. This reportedly led to an exchange between Diana and the Queen Mother that permanently soured their relationship. This is unfortunate, as it seemingly killed any chance of these two women forming a meaningful bond.
Life after divorce
You don’t have to be an expert in the Royal Family to know what might put two royals at odds with one another. For example, you’ve probably already guessed one of the primary reasons why the Queen Mother reportedly disliked Princess Diana: her divorce from Charles. According to Major Colin Burgess, the Queen Mother’s former equerry, “Once Diana split from Charles, she was very much persona non grata, and I never again heard her name mentioned by, or in front of, the Queen Mum, not even when I saw her a couple of months after Diana’s death, by which time I had left her employ.”
This might have been more understandable if the Queen Mother had been equally hard on Charles, who by all accounts destroyed his marriage by having a messy, ongoing affair with his now wife, Queen Camilla. However, she maintained pleasant relations with Charles while reportedly outlawing any mention of Diana’s name, even after she died. Why the grudge even after death? One reason for this is likely Diana’s tell-all interview with Martin Bashir, in which she spilled more royal tea than even the craziest gossip lovers were ready for!
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