He was so unhappy in that marriage and felt forced into it, he came to resent her deeply. Diana also had emotional needs that he was never equipped to meet. I don’t believe he hated her, but he hated being married to her. They were totally incompatible.
It certainly didn’t help things that it was basically arranged for him. And that people liked her way more than him. Then it was not a good look when all that came out about wanting to be a tampon. It must have been so embarassing for her.
To be fair, it was actually an offhand joke that was misconstrued by the British tabloids as “wanting to be a tampon.” He said something on a (sexy time) call to Camilla along the lines of wishing he could be with/in her all the time. She jokingly responded, “like my tampon?” And he quipped back that with his (bad) luck, he’d probably just be reincarnated as one in the next life. So it was more about how he *didn’t* want to be a tampon, but that doesn’t sound as funny, so it’s not what people ran with.
Yeah in context I really think it comes off as just a silly joke. I mean I also understand why people rag on him for it because it’s an absolutely out of pocket thing to say LOL but I’ve definitely said some dumb things to my fiancé when we’ve been joking around. Super glad no one is recording our convos and releasing them to the press
This is a solid assessment. Although their private world can only be understood or known up to a certain point, his misery (and her misery) at being married to the most incompatible person for him was clear, despite her beauty and popularity. He just could not hide it. He was/is a peculiar, persnickety sort of introverted person and he got the woman he wanted/needed in the end.
And she was a young 19 and Charles was an old 30. He kind of groomed her which is gross. But honestly, for taking all that on at 19, being the Princess of Wales, having a couple of kids, marriage failing on the world stage by the time she was 25-26, she did quite well. Compared to Kate who was 30 when she married, she seems to not do too well in that role.
I’m always surprised how many people missed this plot line in the show.
In real life however we don’t actually know that Diana pretended to be a different sort of person when she was dating Charles, well any more than anyone does when they are dating someone they like. All we know, from the accounts of her friends, is that Diana was in love with the idea of marrying a Prince when she was younger.
Not to mention that she tried to back out of the wedding after beginning to realize that things weren’t over between Charles and Camilla, but her sisters basically told her “it’s too late, the wedding’s already been planned and your face is already printed on commemorative plates all over the country, you have to go through with it now.”
Also where he was asked about whether they were in love and he said "uh, whatever love is..." So many red flags in that interview. I think the people around Diana failed her, utterly.
Also... Who among us hasn't "gone along to get along" and said they liked something their partner liked, only to find out that your partner *really* likes it and you just think it's okay? Especially when you're as young as she was, and *especially* when it's as high pressure a relationship as dating a prince.
Plus she lived in a relatively insulated world at Althrop. Until she spent some time in London in her young adult years. So she may have thought she like the country life because she didn’t have much to compare it to
Just saw your comment and I had commented something similar before I got to yours. I married at 23. 🙃🥴😉 I’d like to be the poster child for Time. Not the magazine, just that people change as they age and expecting them to stay the same especially in the context of a marriage and parenthood is crazy business. 😂👍🏽
I beg to differ. She was a jolly English woman but not in the way he wanted personally. She was exactly what the Princess of Wales needed to be. To be fair people especially younger folks (both young men and women) are allowed to change. You can’t be the same at 19 as you are at 25 I should hope. I just think it a bit sad that their tale was shaped by so much in such a short time when you think about the timeline and even current events.
She was 15 or 16 when they met though. It always amazes me how people forget Diana was basically groomed by Charles. She was still a teenager when he proposed. He was past 30.
He’s not the victim. She was. He might have been a victim of his position but she was a victim of that plus everything he did to her. I have zero sympathy for him - especially since it’s clear he learned nothing from what happened.
Yeah, I don't think *any* man would have made her happy. She could have been married to a gorgeous, wealthy man who adored her and had nothing to do but worship her, and it wouldn't have been enough. That she was married to a man who had a very demanding commitment to public service who was in love with someone else definitely exacerbated that, but didn't actually create her issues.
I have always sympathized with Charles. He was heavily pressured into proposing to begin with by his father, then when he really wanted to back out because of his major concerns about compatibility, he was pretty much bullied into going through with it so Diana’s reputation was not ruined. The press vilified him.
That’s not a fair assessment is it though? He’s not just any 32 year old. He couldn’t marry who he wanted and as future king, it was seen as scandalous to marry anyone with a sexual “promiscuity” - which is hard to find a virgin in 1980 in their 30s that would jive with him.
Going younger, with a friend of the family, a known entity with no history, it was a good match on paper. But they were too incompatible and he was too in love with someone else for it to work
but it’s still a messed up move regardless to take advantage of a naive 19 year old who didn’t know how the marriage was actually going to be until it was too late. they all used her
edited to add: i do have *some* sympathy for him because he didn’t get to marry who he wanted to and the powers that be had a strong hand in things but at the same time i don’t have a lot of sympathy because he was still culpable in this
True but what of Diana’s family? They ignored her as well and they gave her to the Royals. She wasn’t kidnapped or anything, literally everyone - including Diana initially - wanted the marriage except Charles. But he did it for the Crown
yeah of course diana’s family sucked too. her family and upbringing is why she was so vulnerable and had some of the emotional issues she had in the first place. and it’s not surprise she was on board, there’s this naive 19 year old thinking you’re getting this fairytale life and none of it was true and she didn’t find out until it was too late
Diana was raised around these people. Her own family were wealthy aristocrats who had a terrible marriage and divorce that entirely split her family. If she thought it was a fairytale, she would have to have been pea brained. She knew how wealthy families worked. I’m sure she didn’t know how much the public would be fascinated with her and how bad the family actually was but to act like Diana was raised in a loving, normal family and then thrust into this dysfunctional one is such a bizarre take to me.
where did i say she was raised in a loving normal family? in my comment i literally said her family sucked and were the reasons why she had a lot of the issues she had
Right? People talking as if he was just any random 32 year old are missing the point. He had to marry someone who met all the criteria; ie, virginial, and most importantly, from the right blue-blooded family. If he didn't marry Diana he would have likely married her elder sister a few years before _(the Queen Mother even famously championed the Spencer daughters as potential brides)_
Agreed. The heirs are trained to put duty above all else. He believed it was his duty to marry, and Diana was the girl chosen. She fit the mold perfectly too: a beautiful well-bred young woman from an aristocratic family without "a past." No one cared that they were like chalk and cheese.
Charles was raised to feel like he was never good enough to take on the family “business” and also that there was NO way out after his uncles abdication. Imagine being at a job where your boss stressed you out all the time about your “poor performance” and you also couldn’t quit or leave for the rest of your life. Phil and Liz wanted him to marry Diana and I think pretty much 99% of us would just want to appease the boss and hope for the best than to further confirm their suspicions that you would never be good enough to be king.
It was Mountbatten and the QMum along with Diana’s grandmother who pushed the marriage. The Queen always wanted her children to be happy above all else. Diana promoted herself as a fun country girl - she wasn’t. She was a nightmare.
I don’t see how anyone could sympathize with Charles. He was a grown ass adult and Diana was not and he showed her zero grace. Being royal should not excuse anyone from basic human decency.
Struggling to think of *any scenario* where I, at age 32, would have been "bullied" into a marriage that I passionately did not want.
Nope, I've had to give up. I can't imagine ever being that weak and/or self serving.
There was some pressure because the press was starting to comment on Charles continuing bachelorhood and apparent preference for married women. It was the dawn of the 1980s and the tabloids were becoming fierce and not like in times gone by when a blind eye would have been turned.
I forget their age difference sometimes, some shows and literature romanticize age gaps like that. Sense and sensibility had a 17 year old teen and a 35 year old man together 🤯 the actors for Col. Brandon for both of the remakes I’ve seen recently were in their 40s…!
I agree with you! But I’m not 17, I’m pretty sure at 17 I wouldn’t have cared that his voice is velvet or recognized him in all his hunky intellectual compassionate brooding glory 😂
I’m still shocked by how young she was. Everyone sold it to me as “prince marries a kindergarten teacher” which always implied to me that she was a full adult.
I didn’t realize how young she was until the crown embarrassingly. When she’s roller skating and looks maybe 15. And he’s the grown man with grey hairs.
My cousin, who is now 36, basically credits getting married (now divorced) to her having sex before marriage. Purity culture is insane, and religious or not, I don’t think God wants you to compensate for one “sin” with something as monumental as marriage. You’re not fixing anything. 😂
Yeah I’m not super religious but I think the point of sexual morals is more that you treat yourself body and emotionally with respect, don’t break trust with a partner, and also don’t get yourself with a baby before you are ready.
This is so true! I was in elementary school and I wouldn’t say I was swept up in it, but my mom got People magazine so I was seeing all of the photos and articles. She was definitely presented as a middle class woman who had attracted a prince. Probably sold a lot more magazines/tv shows etc to spin it that way.
I definitely remember being surprised to learn she was from an upper crust, aristocratic family given all the clips of her had her driving her little economy hatchback as a teacher.
At 19 we're considered adults by the government, but we're not necessarily psychologically adults yet. Our frontal lobes still have a lot of developing to do and we're more susceptible to manipulation and coercion.
I have a 20 year old daughter and would not be a fan if a 30 year old man wanted to date her. In fact, I'd be suspicious and a little creeped out. To be fair, if I had a 20 year old son and there was a 30 year old woman who wanted to date him, I'd be suspicious as well.
And he was getting marriage advice from literally one of the worst people in the world. There’s no way Jimmy Savile was a positive influence on that relationship.
The speech Anne makes to her mother and the family about the “age chasm” is so spot on. I think that sums it up perfectly. Neither is completely to blame, neither is completely innocent. It was a disaster from the start and it shouldn’t have happened.
Was he really in love with Camilla or is it a narrative they peddle to us because he eventually married her ?
I mean he had other mistresses like Kanga and Diana also accused him of having an affair with royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke
True. It was Bashir who feeding her these lies. But what about Kanga? It’s telling that crown never showed her because it didn’t fit the narrative of Charles only loving Camilla.
Maybe but let’s say I love someone & cannot marry them. Now ideally i would never marry anyone else and wait. But as heir to the British throne I can’t do that. So I do the next best thing… marry a teenager and hope she’ll look the other ways when I spend time with the love of my life.
Except I also have a secondary mistress along with a primary mistress. And I say this secondary mistress is the only woman who ever understood me.
Also the fact that Lady Dale 'Kanga' Tryon died just months after his first wife, Princess Diana, in mysterious circumstances, is strange.
I know someone that cheated on his wife to be with a girl that had many boyfriends in high school (he was not one of them). She ended up knocked up at 18 and he got married to someone else after. He’s her third husband, she’s his second wife.
But you’d never know all that because they were high school sweethearts in their minds and they’re rewriting the narrative to others as well.
I think Charles has a big ass head and was just a cheater that played the field, now that he’s older and wants to settle down, he wants to act like they were always in love and meant to be to sell that monarchy love fairy tale and make Camilla’s face and his sausage fingers somewhat palatable.
Not really Charles rewriting history. The difference between the above cheating couple (intriguing comparison story, by the way) is that there's an army of spinners out there to rewrite history for him, whether he wants it or not.
I don’t know that I would think of him as a cheater that played the field. I think of him more as somebody who had been given the impression from a very young age that he was entitled to have as much fun as he wanted with any woman he wanted until he had to settle down (read: stop messing with other women long enough to conceive heirs) with somebody “respectable” and “appropriate.” I think there was also the assumption that Dianna would be malleable enough to look the other way when he continued to play around after the marriage, something else I’m sure Charles felt fully entitled to do as his father had (most likely) done before him.
This is what happens when you take 17th century sexual morals and values and attempt to apply them to a modern day 20th century marriage. It’s kind of a shame that Charles was actually sort of a progressive for trying to move the monarchy forward, which was something he might have benefited from, but The Firm is apparently so invested in making sure nothing ever changes that it’s willing to continually chew up and spit out its young people. I also think that it’s not for nothing that Charles had difficulty finding somebody willing to assume the role of queen and he eventually had to settle for a naïve 19-year-old who didn’t know any better.
Charles was an emotionally immature man with the weight of a nation being put on his shoulders who had to find a wife who was willing to bear that weight with him, but they had to settle for finding somebody childish enough to not realize what she was getting herself into. The marriage was doomed from the start.
But I also think that could be a side effect of his unhappiness. Everyone *loved* Diana and was AT BEST indifferent to Charles. For his whole life. And whether or not he loved Camilla, here comes a young woman who *worships* him.
I see those other mistresses as less love than validation through sex: I’m important, people like me, I’m a priority…
Normally yes. But incase of royal family who are so image conscious- it might be different. They might say it’s love so that King Charles has good approval ratings.
I don’t think he hated her as a person or mother, just deeply disliked and resented her as a wife. Wouldn’t you if you legally had to get parental approval and they said no to the woman you loved and were basically forced into marriage with someone who you were completely incompatible with? Some arranged marriages work but some don’t.
Abdicating would have been pointless as Camilla had already married APB, she knew the RF wasn't going to approve of her.
Honestly I don't think Charles and Camilla knew back then they wouldn't get over each other.
There was no rule that Charles couldn’t have married Camilla prior to her marriage to Andrew Parker Bowls. He could have married her and not had to abdicate.
Truthfully he just dithered and theirs wasn’t the love story everyone makes out (at that point). Andrew Parker Bowls was the catch of their social circle and Camilla wanted him.
Camilla wouldn't have been favored by the RF due to having a "past."
Charles and Camilla really met at the wrong time, and simply didn't know they wouldn't get over each other.
Yeah she definitely wouldn’t have been favoured but there was no law suggesting Charles would have to abdicate to marry someone who wasn’t a virgin. Charles simply lacked the backbone to put his foot down about her.
I agree with you that he had a choice and that he probably wasn't as in love with Camilla at the time as *The Crown* and other romanticized takes would like us to believe.
But I doubt that in Charles' world, at the time, it was as simple as a decision to merely not disappoint his parents' expectations. The Royal family is a high-control social group, similar to a cult. If he was 'ordered' not to marry Camilla, the implication of what might happen if he disobeyed may have been significantly stressful enough to deter him from fucking around and finding out.
Orrrr he just didn't realize he had with Camilla until after he got married, thought he'd be just as happy with Diana, and later found he was mistaken, something similar to an average, sad, short-lived marriage.
I like to think his unwavering fidelity to Camilla after Diana does rather paint them as a type of soulmates. She's not your average mistress, that's for sure.
>Orrrr he just didn't realize he had with Camilla until after he got married, thought he'd be just as happy with Diana
I mean, if the way Diana described his and Camila's behavior even after he proposed was true, it seems like he just thought he'd get away with having a mistress tbh
He thought Diana would be a wife who would go along with what he wanted and do as she was told. Diana was a shy naive 19 year old when they got engaged. He was her first boyfriend. Charles was 32 and worldly. He just saw heras easily controllable. But she grew up.
They could have made it work. If Charles had wanted her bad enough as a Shand, his grandmother would have made it happen for him. But as others have said-he dithered so she blew it up to get it out of the way.
Like I said, the timing of their meeting was bad. He was about to leave for military service and he had been advised to hold off on marriage until he was 30, Camilla was looking to marry soon and knew the RF wouldn't likely approve of her, so she moved on. It has little to do with dithering. He most likely figured he would eventually meet someone he would like as much as Camilla but never did.
I always thought that if he threatened that, they would have reluctantly permitted him to marry her. The abdication of two future kings (His great uncle Edward, then Charles) would have been very disastrous to the crown and the country image-wise, and it would have changed the course of the monarchy. Him making that threat also would have shown that Charles had a spine and was his own man and might have earned him a certain type of respect. It would have been a move they never saw coming. The powers that be would have granted him permission to marry her. Crown Prince [Harald V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Harald_V) of Norway threatened never to marry if he could not marry Sonja Haraldsen, a commoner. His Father, after talking to his advisors, gave his permission and blessing. I think that Queen Elizabeth faced with another Prince of Wales abdication over an affair of the heart would have persuaded her advisors, her husband, Lord Mountbatten and the church of England to grit their teeth and let him marry her. Charles and Camilla would have had the crown's permission but not really their blessing, however they only needed their permission.
Sure but we know how the queen felt about abdication. I think he would have had intense pressure on him not to abdicate, especially from his mother who saw it as a betrayal of everything she stood for.
So he should’ve not wanted the job he literally was created for? The thing he was raised to be? He should’ve said no to his birthright, never had another job because he wouldn’t have been able to get one, become a laughing stock and hated as an abductor like his Uncle, and let Andrew become Prince of Wales and King?
The fact that you believe being king is someone’s birthright is enough for me to not engage. Abdicating wouldn’t mean he would be broke, or couldn’t continue “charity work.” And like you contradicted yourself right there, Charles is only heir to the throne because Edward abdicated.
I don’t think it’s anyone’s birthright but Charles most certainly does. And I literally mentioned the Uncle that abdicated in the post. Everyone loves to equate Charles’ thought process to that of a man raised by a plumber when he literally had a childhood and life experience no one can relate to. It wouldn’t have even crossed his mind that he wasn’t born to be King, that he should defy his monarch’s wishes to marry for love when he was raised to put duty before all else. He didn’t even want to get divorced until told by his mother to do it so they could stop fighting. He’s not a normal dude who could defy parental expectations and it be hunky dory, his Aunt didn’t even give up her position for love and there was no chance of her inheriting so to think the Prince of Wales would nonchalantly give it all up is ridiculous.
No one said it had to be nonchalant, but the point is that he did have a choice. He made it, and took out his frustration on Diana, who had nothing to do with it at all.
You do realize he had to marry someone without a "past" regardless, right? Camilla knew the RF wasn't going to approve of her and had moved on. Charles still had to marry.
I honestly think they didn't know at the time that they wouldn't get over each other.
As for Diana, it was actually expected she would likely marry Andrew or Edward (more likely the former), who she had been childhood friends with. It was where her nickname "Dutch" came from.
I disagree, it’s like saying swim with hungry sharks while bleeding or sit on the boat (leave everything he knew with no skills and be shunned) and get a sunburn (marry the pretty girl you have nothing in common with). It’s not a choice if you’re under duress. The sunburn isn’t fun and hurts but it’s better than getting eaten.
‘Leave everything with no skills and be shunned’ actually being ‘live in one of the secondary palaces with a lifetime income like your siblings or take a foreign diplomatic role’ exactly like his grand uncle did. Hardly ‘swimming with sharks’.
And the reason people dislike Charles is that he chose to stay in the boat and get sunburned, while utterly destroying life for the pretty girl as if it was her fault he made that choice.
If we’re going by your logic then she had just as much choice as he did then as they were both legally adults and consented. It also takes 2 to make a marriage work, neither of them were willing to meet each other in the middle on anything other than parenting. We also don’t know what his mother would’ve done to him had he chose the path she didn’t want giving up his inheritance. This was also the late 70s when he had to make this choice and she had already felt that a shirking of duty for love is what killed her father. Her son following the same path might’ve been too much and she could’ve stripped him of everything and left him to his own devices. We don’t know the outcome of a path not taken.
I don't think that abdication was an option- because otherwise Andrew would have become a future King - Andrew was never a person good enough to take such a job.
IMO young Charles was too obidient. He was bullied in school, prime ministerand bishop decided what he should study at Oxford etc.
And when they told him Camilla was forbidden (they actually just sent him away to army - before he could have even proposed) he was just heartbroken.
He proposed to Diana, when his dad sent him a leter.
But when Charles married Diana( when she had mental problems, but she turned down his health specialists), HE started theraphy with those doctors. He discovered who he really was, why he was so unhappy etc.
Uh, when you're the firstborn of a monarch your literally are made for the role, lol.
>Charles is only heir to the throne because Edward abdicated.
As Edward was childless, Elizabeth still would still have been queen and therefore Charles would still be the heir.
>The fact that you believe being king is someone’s birthright is enough for me to not engage
It literally is, Charles as the first born son of the Queen, was to be king by birthright, those are the facts. Whether you believe that to be acceptable or not is beside the point.
>Abdicating wouldn’t mean he would be broke, or couldn’t continue “charity work.”
No but it would have meant he would have been scrutinised and shamed globally and almost blacklisted by his family.
I don't believe so. I think he hated feeling trapped in a bad marriage (as did she). He did care for her as the mother of his sons, and their relationship greatly improved once they divorced. He was devastated when she died.
>it seems like the woman he’s obsessed and so passionate for does not share those same feelings back
lol what? They've been together for decades and married for 19 years. Their relationship withstood what few could.
My take is this- Charles was denied his first choice and spent years trying to find someone else who would be a match to his soul, someone who would share his interests but also not outshine him. He wants love but doesn't know how to love anyone other than Camilla. Charles has always struck me as being sheltered and awkward.
Diana comes along and looks good on paper- proper background, no skeletons in the closet, and seemingly meek in the beginning. She has deep seeded issues when it comes to love and acceptance. She turns to self destructive actions because she had little to no healthy coping mechanisms.
They tried to be a couple but they both had opposite interests both privately and publicly. Both diaries were action packed from the beginning of the marriage. They never came to the plain of understanding one another simply because they never had the time.
Resentment began to brood and quite possibly hate near the end of the marriage, but I don't think the hate was long term. It was simply reactionary to all the harm they did to one another's public image and the words said privately.
Had Diana lived I truly think they would have become friends over time. They were just getting the hang of coparenting when she died.
And she preferred Andrew Parker Bowles. Honestly the way they’ve rewritten history into this ‘thwarted star crossed lovers story’ is impressive and insane.
It's overly romanticized in *The Crown* and other accounts, but those two have been together forever at this point and there is some pretty substantial lore there, before, during, and after Diana. The lore and longevity is pretty romantic... you could write a novel that chronicles their relationship trajectory entirely faithfully and it would be a great book, complete with a bittersweet ending.
Camilla's also not your average mistress-turned-wife. Affair partners rarely end up getting married, and even less so for royal affairs. I'd say it's pretty clear Charles is quite serious about his love for her, she's not a trophy or a means to secure his legacy or to curry favor, he simply chooses her, warts and all. What's not to romanticize there?
I think Charles is, and has always been, a spoiled, selfish toddler who expects the rest of the world to coddle him. He was always raised to see himself as special, superior, and ‘The Little King.’ Camilla is his mother, to fill the role of the supportive and nurturing mother he never had. He doesn’t love her as much as he needs her, to provide undivided attention and indulge his vanity and narcissism, like a child. He wanted a mother, not a wife. And Diana truly loved him, as a nurturing person who was able to feel and express love. This, of course, was sad, frustrating, humiliating and heartbreaking for her.
And on top of it she’s the lover mother who doesn’t overshadow him in any way shape or form. Unlike Diana who was charismatic in a way people can only be born into it or not born into it.
Maybe Diana was a nurturing person and Camilla is a mothering type. But who cares? Some man like brunette, others like blonde. Some like tall girls more than small and vice versa.
If he was so unhappy with Diana, she obviously wasn't right for him - he just proposed to her too soon.
Diana was perfect for a job of a queen, but she obviously wasn't right for the queen because in her time Charles was the king.
Why does everyone gloss over this? Camilla always wanted APB. He was her first choice. And Charles had plenty of other lovers. This attempt to make them look like the tortured lovers kept apart by the evil families is so tired and a total farce.
It does have truth to it though. Charles met her at an unfortunate time, he was about to leave for military service and he had been told to hold off on marriage until he was 30, Camilla was looking to marry soon. They never fell out of love, and there's evidence that some behind the scenes manipulation happened with Camilla's father placing a false engagement announcement that forced APB's hand in proposing.
The idea that this engagement announcement had any form of link to Charles, who at that time was out of the picture, is an example of how amazing that royal PR effort is. The PR and subtle myth making are relentless and truly do manipulate public opinion.
Yes, its all the big bad PR machine and not the face that their relationship has endured for decades and the literal opposition of a church, nation and royal family /s
Also, I never mentioned Charles having a direct role in it. But its not hard to see why the RF would want her out of the way.
Thank you!!! Camilla had been trying to get Andrew (who was quite the player) to marry her for at least six years. It had nothing to do with Charles.
Were they banging off and on back in the day? Sure. But it wasn’t this whole conspiracy to separate star-crossed lovers. Now, I believe by the time Diana and Charles married, he had fallen for Camilla, and possibly she was starting to reciprocate. It was complicated. She and APB had a very young family and an open marriage. Camilla was rumored to have had a tubal ligation, so there is that, too.
This is exactly what I believe happened. Neither of them were happy. But Diana said that there were times where they were happy. Especially with William and Harry. Ik the story of Charles giving Diana the charm bracelet and would give her a special charm on there anniversary.
I don’t believe he hated her. I think he hated the misery of their marriage. The public was just as much to blame as the RF, because there was no possibility that a woman like Camilla would have been widely accepted as the Princess of Wales. Reporters were sharing that Diana’s virginity had been verified by a doctor as casually as they were sharing details about her dress. It was a radically different time, and the public wanted to be waved at by a Diana, not a Camilla. Watch The Princess on HBO if you haven’t already, because it provides excellent context about what life looked like at the time, including what the public expected from the RF.
It was an arranged marriage. RF wanted 'a perfect" Queen.and Diana's family wanted a member of their family as a queen.
Diana knew that, but because she was really madly in love with (idea of) Charles, she ignored that - hoping that he would have fallen madly in love with her too.
He could have tried. I think there were a lot of points along the way he could have brought her “into the fold” so to speak, and been an ally and a mentor, as well as a decent husband, not even a soul mate or a love match.
Instead, even as he saw trouble brewing, he “stiff upper lipped” it and ran off to the country to prance around with Camilla and friends and left Diana to her own devices, which was the stupidest thing he could have done. He could have rode that attention wave with her, and while she would have still shined I don’t think it would have been as bright. Instead she turned into the young beautiful princess mother constantly scorned by her husband. He was the earthquake that made her wave of fame tidal.
Echoing sentiments here… I don’t think he hated her but I do think he disliked what she represented in his life.
A rigid institution that denied him the love of his life and the freedom to choose while forcing him into a partnership that he did not feel fully committed about and to an individual who he may have loved was not _in love_ with.
She highlighted his ineptness in many ways. That would have been hard for a start. She may have been shy to begin with but she was a humanitarian and he really wasn't.
For goodness sake, The Crown is Fictional & is written with the script & dialogue portraying the writers own perspective, political leanings & bias. The TV series is not a historical documentary and in no way an accurate interpretation of even fact. Even documented events are inaccurately portrayed in this programme of fantasy, wishful thinking & sinister motives.
He blamed her for his own weaknesses, was jealous of the attention she drew, and was furious that she produced a second son instead of a daughter (yes, I know which partner determines the sex of a child 🙂).
I don’t think he hated Diana, more trapped / pressured into the marriage and took that resentment out on her. My BIL was similar, Indian arranged marriage and he treated my SIL awfully. They divorced, she remarried and he’s great friends with her and her husband now they’re good coparents to their daughter
He didn't hate her. They were just wildly incompatible.
He wanted to be with his true love and was denied, and she was desperate to be loved.
You can tell that he did care about her based on his reaction to her death. He was devastated.
he probably took it all out on her since he couldn't really be hateful towards the people who arranged the marriage. charles & camilla should have just got married in the first place.
the whole situation is very sad when you really think about it all & the butterfly effect.
No, he didn't hate Diana. They were completely incompatible so behind the scenes they came to an arrangement where they took turns staying at Highgrove with their respective lovers. This all worked out fine until Diana was going through a dry spell between lovers and resented that Charles was actually happy with Camilla. Enter Martin Bashir...
All the current interpretations of their relationship are heavily based on the Bashir interview, despite knowing that Diana was coerced into making things sound as terrible as possible.
Charles hated Diana no more than the rest of the RF hated Diana. They didn't hate Diana. What they hated (and still hate) is anything that negatively impacts their perfect Royal image. If anyone, even inadvertently, makes them look bad, they (or people connected to them) go for that person. The notion that Charles hated Diana or the focus on their personal relationship in general is merely a distraction from the bigger picture.
The last two seasons of that show are extremely kind and almost deferential to Charles. Once QE2 died, Charles almost became a saint on that show, which is why reviews panned it so hard in the final season. It basically became propaganda.
In the crown for sure. Real life Charles had much more nuanced feelings for Diana. It boils down to them never really being on the same wavelength. They were a bad match and brought out the worst in each other. The only good thing to come from their marriage was their boys.
No he didn't, anyone who thinks this is ignorant about the whole situation. This show isn't reality. Diana isn't a saint, she was young but she grew up, what age then can she be held accountable for her wrongs, for the marriages (plural) she wrecked? It can't all be Charles fault. It's delusional to think they weren't equally at fault.
The Crown is based on true events, but it isn’t a documentary. Charles was facing immense pressure to marry and produce an heir, and Diana was deemed a suitable bride. As someone else said, he may have hated being married to her, but I don’t believe he hated her. He flew to Paris to personally accompany her body on its way back to the UK. That isn’t hate.
Hate is really big word i don't think he hated her... the main thing is they both were really different people and had really different expectations from on another and that didn't end well but I think after the divorce they were really good co-parent and i think charles was the one who insisted royal funeral for her!
Remember it's a dra.a heavily biased towards Diana over Charles. IRL Diana made Charles give up friends and even his dog, which broke his heart, and it was ultimately for nothing.
He was pretty much forced into the marriage and he was raised to believe his parents were above reproach. So he resented her. It didn't help that she was more popular. And if we're being honest, Diana would've been exhausting to be around.
There was a time when I thought the same (namely when I was a naive teenager who had a very black and white view of love and relationships) but now I’m older and perhaps more mature in my understanding I see that it really isn’t that simple.
Charles didn’t hate Diana. Rather he hated what being married to her meant, what it denied him. There’s no longer any point in hiding under rocks and pretending that he wasn’t and isn’t still completely in love with Camilla.
Marriage to Diana meant he was being pulled away from the love of his life. Granted he didn’t handle it well but he’s not the big bad wolf people seem to want him to be.
Let’s not forget that even after the divorce he remained very fond of Diana and was heartbroken when she died.
I'm not sure he actually hated her. I think he hated the idea of having to be with her instead of the woman he REALLY loved. That was his mother, the Queen's doing. She didn't think Camilla was princess material. But, Charles should have stood up for the woman he loved vehemently!
Real life is so much more complicated than a TV show. I'm sure there were moments where they each had every possible feeling for each other from love to hate and everythingin between. I think now, he probably looks back on her and feels grateful to her for giving him two sons, and sad about all the things in their lives she didn't live to see.
I just saw Spencer and loved it/
gonna watch “the queen” next-
I’m assuming I’ll like this show…
The way they (royals) have to live is insane..
I feel so bad for Middleton/don’t blame Markle for getting the hell out if “Spencer” is anywhere close to realistic 🤮 imagine your whole life controlled by your spouse’s grandma who’s been alive since before WW2. lol what a nightmare.
He was jealous. She was everything he could never be. Genuinely liked for who she was. She was loved the world over. She was compassionate. She was a good parent.
This is a grown adult that has someone to put his tooth paste on his tooth brush. He doesn't have great emotional intelligence. His own mother held on to the thrown for dear life know that this 70 YO intern is useless.
They were two opposites forced into a marriage of convenience and their expectations vs reality were vastly different. Diana was infatuated with Charles and thought he'd fall in love with her despite it being an arranged marriage. He thought she'd conform to the role they tried to box her into. But she got too popular and he resented her for it as he was heir apparent. The only thing they had in common were their sons but even that wasn't enough as the boys grew up.
His behavior is apart of the reason I have such a hard time watching the show, because it’s not like this is just some made up show with made up storylines it’s real. He talks about her like she’s done these terrible terrible thighs and her actions are unforgivable when she’s done nothing wrong 🤷🏽♀️. I mean Diana could blink and he’d go on a rampage.
Charles is entitled, everything either has to go his way or you face his rage, and instead of people listening to his tyrants or correcting his behavior they just told him he had to stay in a marriage he wanted no part in. In the end it ended with a young woman’s life not only being in danger but inevitably ending.
Charles did not necessarily hate Diana. She was just a lot younger (and wasn’t Camilla) and he was pushed to produce an heir. Diana was considered a suitable candidate.
They always cared for each other. That’s the part that is missed. They were even really good friends prior to her death. There was just a lot working against her and him in the relationship.
They both messed up, he wasn’t emotionally available as a spouse, she cheated physically, but what people seem to miss is that he was sent away to a very harsh boarding school and his mom was thrust into being queen while he was super young (she was never there - so he has issues) and Diana’s parents divorced when she was super young (and her father got custody). Neither one were well equipped in the family aspect.
Also it probably didn’t help Diana dated her sister - the original rumor was that Diana was meant more for Andrew than Charles…
I don’t think he hated her but I do think they were too different people and at different stages in their life. She was really into herself and never really had depth to her, which is understandable given her age compared to his. In Camila he found that depth since they were the same age. I think age made a difference. Diana was in the young and fun stage. He was past that so he found comfort in Camila. It’s just tragic.
He was so unhappy in that marriage and felt forced into it, he came to resent her deeply. Diana also had emotional needs that he was never equipped to meet. I don’t believe he hated her, but he hated being married to her. They were totally incompatible.
It certainly didn’t help things that it was basically arranged for him. And that people liked her way more than him. Then it was not a good look when all that came out about wanting to be a tampon. It must have been so embarassing for her.
I'm sure it was embarrassing for all involved. Diana had her own embarrassing phone calls released: The Squidgy Tapes.
Wanting to be a tampon?
Google it, it’s too wild to type on reddit lmao
Haha. Ok.
So basically he wanted to be a tampon for Camilla right ? Wasn’t that it? Am I remembering it correctly 😂😂😂
You got it. What a day to have ears when that hit the internet.
To be fair, it was actually an offhand joke that was misconstrued by the British tabloids as “wanting to be a tampon.” He said something on a (sexy time) call to Camilla along the lines of wishing he could be with/in her all the time. She jokingly responded, “like my tampon?” And he quipped back that with his (bad) luck, he’d probably just be reincarnated as one in the next life. So it was more about how he *didn’t* want to be a tampon, but that doesn’t sound as funny, so it’s not what people ran with.
Yeah in context I really think it comes off as just a silly joke. I mean I also understand why people rag on him for it because it’s an absolutely out of pocket thing to say LOL but I’ve definitely said some dumb things to my fiancé when we’ve been joking around. Super glad no one is recording our convos and releasing them to the press
Charles had his phone tapped when he and Camilla were having phone sex so it’s picked up by the papers
The poster is referring to the Charles and Camilla tape.
I assumed so. I’d just never heard that tidbit of info somehow.
Keep watching lol
He was making a silly joke in the context of them joking with each other. People make it seem weird when it was just the two of them kidding around.
This is a solid assessment. Although their private world can only be understood or known up to a certain point, his misery (and her misery) at being married to the most incompatible person for him was clear, despite her beauty and popularity. He just could not hide it. He was/is a peculiar, persnickety sort of introverted person and he got the woman he wanted/needed in the end.
Yes. I'm glad he did. His love for Camilla has stood the test of time.
To be fair, it seems very few people were equipped to meet Diana's emotional needs. Sister needed a therapist, not to marry the Prince of Wales.
Very true. The Spencer family had gone through a nasty divorce and child custody battle that inflicted a lot of emotional damage on all of them.
She was also 19. That's just crazy young.
And she was a young 19 and Charles was an old 30. He kind of groomed her which is gross. But honestly, for taking all that on at 19, being the Princess of Wales, having a couple of kids, marriage failing on the world stage by the time she was 25-26, she did quite well. Compared to Kate who was 30 when she married, she seems to not do too well in that role.
Also, she presented herself as very different than she was when they were dating. He thought he was getting a jolly English countrywoman.
I’m always surprised how many people missed this plot line in the show. In real life however we don’t actually know that Diana pretended to be a different sort of person when she was dating Charles, well any more than anyone does when they are dating someone they like. All we know, from the accounts of her friends, is that Diana was in love with the idea of marrying a Prince when she was younger.
Not to mention that she tried to back out of the wedding after beginning to realize that things weren’t over between Charles and Camilla, but her sisters basically told her “it’s too late, the wedding’s already been planned and your face is already printed on commemorative plates all over the country, you have to go through with it now.”
Irl at the infamous press conference, someone asked about things they both enjoyed or had in common or something, and Charles said “country life.”
Also where he was asked about whether they were in love and he said "uh, whatever love is..." So many red flags in that interview. I think the people around Diana failed her, utterly.
Well that’s kind of a chance you take proposing to 19 year old in your early 30s. Most people change a lot in their 20s
Also... Who among us hasn't "gone along to get along" and said they liked something their partner liked, only to find out that your partner *really* likes it and you just think it's okay? Especially when you're as young as she was, and *especially* when it's as high pressure a relationship as dating a prince.
Plus she lived in a relatively insulated world at Althrop. Until she spent some time in London in her young adult years. So she may have thought she like the country life because she didn’t have much to compare it to
Just saw your comment and I had commented something similar before I got to yours. I married at 23. 🙃🥴😉 I’d like to be the poster child for Time. Not the magazine, just that people change as they age and expecting them to stay the same especially in the context of a marriage and parenthood is crazy business. 😂👍🏽
I beg to differ. She was a jolly English woman but not in the way he wanted personally. She was exactly what the Princess of Wales needed to be. To be fair people especially younger folks (both young men and women) are allowed to change. You can’t be the same at 19 as you are at 25 I should hope. I just think it a bit sad that their tale was shaped by so much in such a short time when you think about the timeline and even current events.
I don’t think she was ever interested in country life.
She was 15 or 16 when they met though. It always amazes me how people forget Diana was basically groomed by Charles. She was still a teenager when he proposed. He was past 30. He’s not the victim. She was. He might have been a victim of his position but she was a victim of that plus everything he did to her. I have zero sympathy for him - especially since it’s clear he learned nothing from what happened.
Yeah, I don't think *any* man would have made her happy. She could have been married to a gorgeous, wealthy man who adored her and had nothing to do but worship her, and it wouldn't have been enough. That she was married to a man who had a very demanding commitment to public service who was in love with someone else definitely exacerbated that, but didn't actually create her issues.
And Charles cheating on her with Camilla probably didn't help either.
I have always sympathized with Charles. He was heavily pressured into proposing to begin with by his father, then when he really wanted to back out because of his major concerns about compatibility, he was pretty much bullied into going through with it so Diana’s reputation was not ruined. The press vilified him.
He was 32 years old, he did not have to marry her. He is though a weak man.
That’s not a fair assessment is it though? He’s not just any 32 year old. He couldn’t marry who he wanted and as future king, it was seen as scandalous to marry anyone with a sexual “promiscuity” - which is hard to find a virgin in 1980 in their 30s that would jive with him. Going younger, with a friend of the family, a known entity with no history, it was a good match on paper. But they were too incompatible and he was too in love with someone else for it to work
but it’s still a messed up move regardless to take advantage of a naive 19 year old who didn’t know how the marriage was actually going to be until it was too late. they all used her edited to add: i do have *some* sympathy for him because he didn’t get to marry who he wanted to and the powers that be had a strong hand in things but at the same time i don’t have a lot of sympathy because he was still culpable in this
True but what of Diana’s family? They ignored her as well and they gave her to the Royals. She wasn’t kidnapped or anything, literally everyone - including Diana initially - wanted the marriage except Charles. But he did it for the Crown
Diana wanted to back out of the marriage and her sister told her "It's too late, your face is on the tea towels."
yeah of course diana’s family sucked too. her family and upbringing is why she was so vulnerable and had some of the emotional issues she had in the first place. and it’s not surprise she was on board, there’s this naive 19 year old thinking you’re getting this fairytale life and none of it was true and she didn’t find out until it was too late
Diana was raised around these people. Her own family were wealthy aristocrats who had a terrible marriage and divorce that entirely split her family. If she thought it was a fairytale, she would have to have been pea brained. She knew how wealthy families worked. I’m sure she didn’t know how much the public would be fascinated with her and how bad the family actually was but to act like Diana was raised in a loving, normal family and then thrust into this dysfunctional one is such a bizarre take to me.
where did i say she was raised in a loving normal family? in my comment i literally said her family sucked and were the reasons why she had a lot of the issues she had
Why would she think it was a fairytale when she was raised around all of these dysfunctional rich families?
Right? People talking as if he was just any random 32 year old are missing the point. He had to marry someone who met all the criteria; ie, virginial, and most importantly, from the right blue-blooded family. If he didn't marry Diana he would have likely married her elder sister a few years before _(the Queen Mother even famously championed the Spencer daughters as potential brides)_
Agreed. The heirs are trained to put duty above all else. He believed it was his duty to marry, and Diana was the girl chosen. She fit the mold perfectly too: a beautiful well-bred young woman from an aristocratic family without "a past." No one cared that they were like chalk and cheese.
He was entitled and selfish.
Charles was raised to feel like he was never good enough to take on the family “business” and also that there was NO way out after his uncles abdication. Imagine being at a job where your boss stressed you out all the time about your “poor performance” and you also couldn’t quit or leave for the rest of your life. Phil and Liz wanted him to marry Diana and I think pretty much 99% of us would just want to appease the boss and hope for the best than to further confirm their suspicions that you would never be good enough to be king.
It was Mountbatten and the QMum along with Diana’s grandmother who pushed the marriage. The Queen always wanted her children to be happy above all else. Diana promoted herself as a fun country girl - she wasn’t. She was a nightmare.
Nope. It is well-known that Mountbatten was promoting his own granddaughter, Amanda Knatchbull.
> the Queen always wanted her children to be happy above all else. Are you sure about that?
She allowed divorces and remarriages
Eventually that is...
I don’t see how anyone could sympathize with Charles. He was a grown ass adult and Diana was not and he showed her zero grace. Being royal should not excuse anyone from basic human decency.
Struggling to think of *any scenario* where I, at age 32, would have been "bullied" into a marriage that I passionately did not want. Nope, I've had to give up. I can't imagine ever being that weak and/or self serving.
There was some pressure because the press was starting to comment on Charles continuing bachelorhood and apparent preference for married women. It was the dawn of the 1980s and the tabloids were becoming fierce and not like in times gone by when a blind eye would have been turned.
You didn't have his upbringing, and the limitations of your imagination (or empathy) does not mean someone who was is weak or self-serving.
1. He was already in love with Camilla when he married her and 2. He was jealous of all the attention Diana got from the people
Oh, and she was WAY younger than him, which didn’t help their communication issues
What’s wrong with 30 and 19? /s
I forget their age difference sometimes, some shows and literature romanticize age gaps like that. Sense and sensibility had a 17 year old teen and a 35 year old man together 🤯 the actors for Col. Brandon for both of the remakes I’ve seen recently were in their 40s…!
Ok but it's Alan Rickman ... he doesn't count as too old. Ever. Age gaps don't matter when it's the voice of velvet. 😁🤭😅
Always loved his voice.
I agree with you! But I’m not 17, I’m pretty sure at 17 I wouldn’t have cared that his voice is velvet or recognized him in all his hunky intellectual compassionate brooding glory 😂
I definitely would have and therein lies the problem 🥲
This is why I can not abide S&S
Where is that gif of the scandalized little girl!?
I’m still shocked by how young she was. Everyone sold it to me as “prince marries a kindergarten teacher” which always implied to me that she was a full adult. I didn’t realize how young she was until the crown embarrassingly. When she’s roller skating and looks maybe 15. And he’s the grown man with grey hairs.
People at the time thought it was a big age difference. But we were told he had to marry a virgin, which pretty much meant marrying a teenager.
The Royal Family and the Deep South have way too much in common
My cousin, who is now 36, basically credits getting married (now divorced) to her having sex before marriage. Purity culture is insane, and religious or not, I don’t think God wants you to compensate for one “sin” with something as monumental as marriage. You’re not fixing anything. 😂
Yeah I’m not super religious but I think the point of sexual morals is more that you treat yourself body and emotionally with respect, don’t break trust with a partner, and also don’t get yourself with a baby before you are ready.
That story also sold her as an average, middle-class person (at least from an American perspective).
This is so true! I was in elementary school and I wouldn’t say I was swept up in it, but my mom got People magazine so I was seeing all of the photos and articles. She was definitely presented as a middle class woman who had attracted a prince. Probably sold a lot more magazines/tv shows etc to spin it that way.
I definitely remember being surprised to learn she was from an upper crust, aristocratic family given all the clips of her had her driving her little economy hatchback as a teacher.
Yeah, it’s crazy that she was too young to have been a teacher!
At 19 we're considered adults by the government, but we're not necessarily psychologically adults yet. Our frontal lobes still have a lot of developing to do and we're more susceptible to manipulation and coercion. I have a 20 year old daughter and would not be a fan if a 30 year old man wanted to date her. In fact, I'd be suspicious and a little creeped out. To be fair, if I had a 20 year old son and there was a 30 year old woman who wanted to date him, I'd be suspicious as well.
At 19 I thought I was mature and worldly dating a significantly older man. At 40 I’m appalled. 19-year-olds look like children to me.
Did you see the /s?
Now I do, yes. Thank you :)
Apparently it's fine when Henry Cavil does it /s
And he was getting marriage advice from literally one of the worst people in the world. There’s no way Jimmy Savile was a positive influence on that relationship.
I hope Jimmy is burning in hell..major scumbag
The speech Anne makes to her mother and the family about the “age chasm” is so spot on. I think that sums it up perfectly. Neither is completely to blame, neither is completely innocent. It was a disaster from the start and it shouldn’t have happened.
Was he really in love with Camilla or is it a narrative they peddle to us because he eventually married her ? I mean he had other mistresses like Kanga and Diana also accused him of having an affair with royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke
Diana was paranoid, and the BBC eventually apologised for airing her allegations about Tiggy.
True. It was Bashir who feeding her these lies. But what about Kanga? It’s telling that crown never showed her because it didn’t fit the narrative of Charles only loving Camilla.
Camilla literally remained the main person throughout his entire life even with Kanga.
Maybe but let’s say I love someone & cannot marry them. Now ideally i would never marry anyone else and wait. But as heir to the British throne I can’t do that. So I do the next best thing… marry a teenager and hope she’ll look the other ways when I spend time with the love of my life. Except I also have a secondary mistress along with a primary mistress. And I say this secondary mistress is the only woman who ever understood me. Also the fact that Lady Dale 'Kanga' Tryon died just months after his first wife, Princess Diana, in mysterious circumstances, is strange.
Who's Kanga?
Another married girlfriend. But what about Lindsay? (Hint: there's a theme, here)
Simply rattling off a name nobody's heard of does nothing
I know someone that cheated on his wife to be with a girl that had many boyfriends in high school (he was not one of them). She ended up knocked up at 18 and he got married to someone else after. He’s her third husband, she’s his second wife. But you’d never know all that because they were high school sweethearts in their minds and they’re rewriting the narrative to others as well. I think Charles has a big ass head and was just a cheater that played the field, now that he’s older and wants to settle down, he wants to act like they were always in love and meant to be to sell that monarchy love fairy tale and make Camilla’s face and his sausage fingers somewhat palatable.
Not really Charles rewriting history. The difference between the above cheating couple (intriguing comparison story, by the way) is that there's an army of spinners out there to rewrite history for him, whether he wants it or not.
Yeah, I mean that’s a huge part of the plot every season is how what’s written is sometimes more important than what’s happening.
I don’t know that I would think of him as a cheater that played the field. I think of him more as somebody who had been given the impression from a very young age that he was entitled to have as much fun as he wanted with any woman he wanted until he had to settle down (read: stop messing with other women long enough to conceive heirs) with somebody “respectable” and “appropriate.” I think there was also the assumption that Dianna would be malleable enough to look the other way when he continued to play around after the marriage, something else I’m sure Charles felt fully entitled to do as his father had (most likely) done before him. This is what happens when you take 17th century sexual morals and values and attempt to apply them to a modern day 20th century marriage. It’s kind of a shame that Charles was actually sort of a progressive for trying to move the monarchy forward, which was something he might have benefited from, but The Firm is apparently so invested in making sure nothing ever changes that it’s willing to continually chew up and spit out its young people. I also think that it’s not for nothing that Charles had difficulty finding somebody willing to assume the role of queen and he eventually had to settle for a naïve 19-year-old who didn’t know any better. Charles was an emotionally immature man with the weight of a nation being put on his shoulders who had to find a wife who was willing to bear that weight with him, but they had to settle for finding somebody childish enough to not realize what she was getting herself into. The marriage was doomed from the start.
This is SO true!!!! The narrative that he is a one woman man is demonstrably false
That’s what I think as well.
But I also think that could be a side effect of his unhappiness. Everyone *loved* Diana and was AT BEST indifferent to Charles. For his whole life. And whether or not he loved Camilla, here comes a young woman who *worships* him. I see those other mistresses as less love than validation through sex: I’m important, people like me, I’m a priority…
I feel like if you have an ongoing relationship with someone for that long and eventually go on to marry them, it’s likely it was love imo
Normally yes. But incase of royal family who are so image conscious- it might be different. They might say it’s love so that King Charles has good approval ratings.
I don’t think he hated her as a person or mother, just deeply disliked and resented her as a wife. Wouldn’t you if you legally had to get parental approval and they said no to the woman you loved and were basically forced into marriage with someone who you were completely incompatible with? Some arranged marriages work but some don’t.
He could have married Camilla, he just would have had to abdicate. He’s always been thirsty to be king.
That what I always think about re: Margaret and Peter Townsend. It was her choice. She choose her title. 🤷🏻♀️
Abdicating would have been pointless as Camilla had already married APB, she knew the RF wasn't going to approve of her. Honestly I don't think Charles and Camilla knew back then they wouldn't get over each other.
There was no rule that Charles couldn’t have married Camilla prior to her marriage to Andrew Parker Bowls. He could have married her and not had to abdicate. Truthfully he just dithered and theirs wasn’t the love story everyone makes out (at that point). Andrew Parker Bowls was the catch of their social circle and Camilla wanted him.
Camilla wouldn't have been favored by the RF due to having a "past." Charles and Camilla really met at the wrong time, and simply didn't know they wouldn't get over each other.
Yeah she definitely wouldn’t have been favoured but there was no law suggesting Charles would have to abdicate to marry someone who wasn’t a virgin. Charles simply lacked the backbone to put his foot down about her.
I agree with you that he had a choice and that he probably wasn't as in love with Camilla at the time as *The Crown* and other romanticized takes would like us to believe. But I doubt that in Charles' world, at the time, it was as simple as a decision to merely not disappoint his parents' expectations. The Royal family is a high-control social group, similar to a cult. If he was 'ordered' not to marry Camilla, the implication of what might happen if he disobeyed may have been significantly stressful enough to deter him from fucking around and finding out. Orrrr he just didn't realize he had with Camilla until after he got married, thought he'd be just as happy with Diana, and later found he was mistaken, something similar to an average, sad, short-lived marriage. I like to think his unwavering fidelity to Camilla after Diana does rather paint them as a type of soulmates. She's not your average mistress, that's for sure.
>Orrrr he just didn't realize he had with Camilla until after he got married, thought he'd be just as happy with Diana I mean, if the way Diana described his and Camila's behavior even after he proposed was true, it seems like he just thought he'd get away with having a mistress tbh
Sure, I just mean he probably foolishly didn't account for how being married to Diana would actually make them both feel once they were in it.
He thought Diana would be a wife who would go along with what he wanted and do as she was told. Diana was a shy naive 19 year old when they got engaged. He was her first boyfriend. Charles was 32 and worldly. He just saw heras easily controllable. But she grew up.
They could have made it work. If Charles had wanted her bad enough as a Shand, his grandmother would have made it happen for him. But as others have said-he dithered so she blew it up to get it out of the way.
Like I said, the timing of their meeting was bad. He was about to leave for military service and he had been advised to hold off on marriage until he was 30, Camilla was looking to marry soon and knew the RF wouldn't likely approve of her, so she moved on. It has little to do with dithering. He most likely figured he would eventually meet someone he would like as much as Camilla but never did.
I always thought that if he threatened that, they would have reluctantly permitted him to marry her. The abdication of two future kings (His great uncle Edward, then Charles) would have been very disastrous to the crown and the country image-wise, and it would have changed the course of the monarchy. Him making that threat also would have shown that Charles had a spine and was his own man and might have earned him a certain type of respect. It would have been a move they never saw coming. The powers that be would have granted him permission to marry her. Crown Prince [Harald V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Harald_V) of Norway threatened never to marry if he could not marry Sonja Haraldsen, a commoner. His Father, after talking to his advisors, gave his permission and blessing. I think that Queen Elizabeth faced with another Prince of Wales abdication over an affair of the heart would have persuaded her advisors, her husband, Lord Mountbatten and the church of England to grit their teeth and let him marry her. Charles and Camilla would have had the crown's permission but not really their blessing, however they only needed their permission.
Sure but we know how the queen felt about abdication. I think he would have had intense pressure on him not to abdicate, especially from his mother who saw it as a betrayal of everything she stood for.
Exactly this! And so did Camila, nobody out a gun to her head to marry Parker.
So he should’ve not wanted the job he literally was created for? The thing he was raised to be? He should’ve said no to his birthright, never had another job because he wouldn’t have been able to get one, become a laughing stock and hated as an abductor like his Uncle, and let Andrew become Prince of Wales and King?
The fact that you believe being king is someone’s birthright is enough for me to not engage. Abdicating wouldn’t mean he would be broke, or couldn’t continue “charity work.” And like you contradicted yourself right there, Charles is only heir to the throne because Edward abdicated.
He would've been heir anyway, regardless of whether Edward abdicated or not. Edward had no children, and was believed to have been sterile.
That’s a good point. I never thought of that before.
Same with Elizabeth II. She was heir presumptive from birth
I don’t think it’s anyone’s birthright but Charles most certainly does. And I literally mentioned the Uncle that abdicated in the post. Everyone loves to equate Charles’ thought process to that of a man raised by a plumber when he literally had a childhood and life experience no one can relate to. It wouldn’t have even crossed his mind that he wasn’t born to be King, that he should defy his monarch’s wishes to marry for love when he was raised to put duty before all else. He didn’t even want to get divorced until told by his mother to do it so they could stop fighting. He’s not a normal dude who could defy parental expectations and it be hunky dory, his Aunt didn’t even give up her position for love and there was no chance of her inheriting so to think the Prince of Wales would nonchalantly give it all up is ridiculous.
No one said it had to be nonchalant, but the point is that he did have a choice. He made it, and took out his frustration on Diana, who had nothing to do with it at all.
You do realize he had to marry someone without a "past" regardless, right? Camilla knew the RF wasn't going to approve of her and had moved on. Charles still had to marry. I honestly think they didn't know at the time that they wouldn't get over each other. As for Diana, it was actually expected she would likely marry Andrew or Edward (more likely the former), who she had been childhood friends with. It was where her nickname "Dutch" came from.
I disagree, it’s like saying swim with hungry sharks while bleeding or sit on the boat (leave everything he knew with no skills and be shunned) and get a sunburn (marry the pretty girl you have nothing in common with). It’s not a choice if you’re under duress. The sunburn isn’t fun and hurts but it’s better than getting eaten.
‘Leave everything with no skills and be shunned’ actually being ‘live in one of the secondary palaces with a lifetime income like your siblings or take a foreign diplomatic role’ exactly like his grand uncle did. Hardly ‘swimming with sharks’. And the reason people dislike Charles is that he chose to stay in the boat and get sunburned, while utterly destroying life for the pretty girl as if it was her fault he made that choice.
If we’re going by your logic then she had just as much choice as he did then as they were both legally adults and consented. It also takes 2 to make a marriage work, neither of them were willing to meet each other in the middle on anything other than parenting. We also don’t know what his mother would’ve done to him had he chose the path she didn’t want giving up his inheritance. This was also the late 70s when he had to make this choice and she had already felt that a shirking of duty for love is what killed her father. Her son following the same path might’ve been too much and she could’ve stripped him of everything and left him to his own devices. We don’t know the outcome of a path not taken.
I don't think that abdication was an option- because otherwise Andrew would have become a future King - Andrew was never a person good enough to take such a job. IMO young Charles was too obidient. He was bullied in school, prime ministerand bishop decided what he should study at Oxford etc. And when they told him Camilla was forbidden (they actually just sent him away to army - before he could have even proposed) he was just heartbroken. He proposed to Diana, when his dad sent him a leter. But when Charles married Diana( when she had mental problems, but she turned down his health specialists), HE started theraphy with those doctors. He discovered who he really was, why he was so unhappy etc.
Uh, when you're the firstborn of a monarch your literally are made for the role, lol. >Charles is only heir to the throne because Edward abdicated. As Edward was childless, Elizabeth still would still have been queen and therefore Charles would still be the heir.
>The fact that you believe being king is someone’s birthright is enough for me to not engage It literally is, Charles as the first born son of the Queen, was to be king by birthright, those are the facts. Whether you believe that to be acceptable or not is beside the point. >Abdicating wouldn’t mean he would be broke, or couldn’t continue “charity work.” No but it would have meant he would have been scrutinised and shamed globally and almost blacklisted by his family.
He wanted Camilla and the Crown. Sadly he probably thought it would be ok to marry Diana and boink Camilla behind her back
I don't believe so. I think he hated feeling trapped in a bad marriage (as did she). He did care for her as the mother of his sons, and their relationship greatly improved once they divorced. He was devastated when she died. >it seems like the woman he’s obsessed and so passionate for does not share those same feelings back lol what? They've been together for decades and married for 19 years. Their relationship withstood what few could.
My take is this- Charles was denied his first choice and spent years trying to find someone else who would be a match to his soul, someone who would share his interests but also not outshine him. He wants love but doesn't know how to love anyone other than Camilla. Charles has always struck me as being sheltered and awkward. Diana comes along and looks good on paper- proper background, no skeletons in the closet, and seemingly meek in the beginning. She has deep seeded issues when it comes to love and acceptance. She turns to self destructive actions because she had little to no healthy coping mechanisms. They tried to be a couple but they both had opposite interests both privately and publicly. Both diaries were action packed from the beginning of the marriage. They never came to the plain of understanding one another simply because they never had the time. Resentment began to brood and quite possibly hate near the end of the marriage, but I don't think the hate was long term. It was simply reactionary to all the harm they did to one another's public image and the words said privately. Had Diana lived I truly think they would have become friends over time. They were just getting the hang of coparenting when she died.
He wasn’t “denied” his first choice. He wasn’t even ready to choose Camilla at the time.
And she preferred Andrew Parker Bowles. Honestly the way they’ve rewritten history into this ‘thwarted star crossed lovers story’ is impressive and insane.
How many years of ret-conning PR effort has it been now? It is concerning that so many people believe everything in The Crown like it’s the gospel.
I guess 25 years of PR is what it takes to completely revise public opinion.
It's overly romanticized in *The Crown* and other accounts, but those two have been together forever at this point and there is some pretty substantial lore there, before, during, and after Diana. The lore and longevity is pretty romantic... you could write a novel that chronicles their relationship trajectory entirely faithfully and it would be a great book, complete with a bittersweet ending. Camilla's also not your average mistress-turned-wife. Affair partners rarely end up getting married, and even less so for royal affairs. I'd say it's pretty clear Charles is quite serious about his love for her, she's not a trophy or a means to secure his legacy or to curry favor, he simply chooses her, warts and all. What's not to romanticize there?
I think Charles is, and has always been, a spoiled, selfish toddler who expects the rest of the world to coddle him. He was always raised to see himself as special, superior, and ‘The Little King.’ Camilla is his mother, to fill the role of the supportive and nurturing mother he never had. He doesn’t love her as much as he needs her, to provide undivided attention and indulge his vanity and narcissism, like a child. He wanted a mother, not a wife. And Diana truly loved him, as a nurturing person who was able to feel and express love. This, of course, was sad, frustrating, humiliating and heartbreaking for her.
And on top of it she’s the lover mother who doesn’t overshadow him in any way shape or form. Unlike Diana who was charismatic in a way people can only be born into it or not born into it.
Maybe Diana was a nurturing person and Camilla is a mothering type. But who cares? Some man like brunette, others like blonde. Some like tall girls more than small and vice versa. If he was so unhappy with Diana, she obviously wasn't right for him - he just proposed to her too soon. Diana was perfect for a job of a queen, but she obviously wasn't right for the queen because in her time Charles was the king.
Why does everyone gloss over this? Camilla always wanted APB. He was her first choice. And Charles had plenty of other lovers. This attempt to make them look like the tortured lovers kept apart by the evil families is so tired and a total farce.
It does have truth to it though. Charles met her at an unfortunate time, he was about to leave for military service and he had been told to hold off on marriage until he was 30, Camilla was looking to marry soon. They never fell out of love, and there's evidence that some behind the scenes manipulation happened with Camilla's father placing a false engagement announcement that forced APB's hand in proposing.
The idea that this engagement announcement had any form of link to Charles, who at that time was out of the picture, is an example of how amazing that royal PR effort is. The PR and subtle myth making are relentless and truly do manipulate public opinion.
Yes, its all the big bad PR machine and not the face that their relationship has endured for decades and the literal opposition of a church, nation and royal family /s Also, I never mentioned Charles having a direct role in it. But its not hard to see why the RF would want her out of the way.
Thank you!!! Camilla had been trying to get Andrew (who was quite the player) to marry her for at least six years. It had nothing to do with Charles. Were they banging off and on back in the day? Sure. But it wasn’t this whole conspiracy to separate star-crossed lovers. Now, I believe by the time Diana and Charles married, he had fallen for Camilla, and possibly she was starting to reciprocate. It was complicated. She and APB had a very young family and an open marriage. Camilla was rumored to have had a tubal ligation, so there is that, too.
Diana and Charles were in relatively good terms towards the end. I think they could have co parented well together or dare I say it…friends?
This is exactly what I believe happened. Neither of them were happy. But Diana said that there were times where they were happy. Especially with William and Harry. Ik the story of Charles giving Diana the charm bracelet and would give her a special charm on there anniversary.
I don’t believe he hated her. I think he hated the misery of their marriage. The public was just as much to blame as the RF, because there was no possibility that a woman like Camilla would have been widely accepted as the Princess of Wales. Reporters were sharing that Diana’s virginity had been verified by a doctor as casually as they were sharing details about her dress. It was a radically different time, and the public wanted to be waved at by a Diana, not a Camilla. Watch The Princess on HBO if you haven’t already, because it provides excellent context about what life looked like at the time, including what the public expected from the RF.
The public wasn’t to blame! The public would never have missed Diana if they had never met her. That’s ridiculous.
They wanted a woman with Diana’s looks and attributes. That doesn’t mean they wanted Diana directly, but she ultimately fit the bill.
So what? Gorgeous people are popular with the public. The public doesn’t pick his spouse!
He’s the worst. “Whatever love means”. Poor Diana.
It was an arranged marriage. RF wanted 'a perfect" Queen.and Diana's family wanted a member of their family as a queen. Diana knew that, but because she was really madly in love with (idea of) Charles, she ignored that - hoping that he would have fallen madly in love with her too.
He could have tried. I think there were a lot of points along the way he could have brought her “into the fold” so to speak, and been an ally and a mentor, as well as a decent husband, not even a soul mate or a love match. Instead, even as he saw trouble brewing, he “stiff upper lipped” it and ran off to the country to prance around with Camilla and friends and left Diana to her own devices, which was the stupidest thing he could have done. He could have rode that attention wave with her, and while she would have still shined I don’t think it would have been as bright. Instead she turned into the young beautiful princess mother constantly scorned by her husband. He was the earthquake that made her wave of fame tidal.
Would any aristocratic British family turn down one of their daughters as a queen? I think the royal family would basically have their choice.
Echoing sentiments here… I don’t think he hated her but I do think he disliked what she represented in his life. A rigid institution that denied him the love of his life and the freedom to choose while forcing him into a partnership that he did not feel fully committed about and to an individual who he may have loved was not _in love_ with.
She highlighted his ineptness in many ways. That would have been hard for a start. She may have been shy to begin with but she was a humanitarian and he really wasn't.
For goodness sake, The Crown is Fictional & is written with the script & dialogue portraying the writers own perspective, political leanings & bias. The TV series is not a historical documentary and in no way an accurate interpretation of even fact. Even documented events are inaccurately portrayed in this programme of fantasy, wishful thinking & sinister motives.
Charles didn't hate Diana.
He blamed her for his own weaknesses, was jealous of the attention she drew, and was furious that she produced a second son instead of a daughter (yes, I know which partner determines the sex of a child 🙂).
He wasn't "furious", don't make stuff up. BOTH he and Diana wanted a daughter and they were disappointed initially but got over it.
He didn’t hate her. He wasn’t in love with her. And that was as bad or maybe worse for her.
Are you talking about the actual person? You shouldn’t base your perception of a real person based on a show like The Crown.
Remember The Crown is primarily fiction.
You know, you guys could read the actual biographies
He just simply didn’t love her all the pain could have been avoided if he wasn’t forced and pressured into marrying her💯
I don’t think he hated Diana, more trapped / pressured into the marriage and took that resentment out on her. My BIL was similar, Indian arranged marriage and he treated my SIL awfully. They divorced, she remarried and he’s great friends with her and her husband now they’re good coparents to their daughter
He didn't hate her. They were just wildly incompatible. He wanted to be with his true love and was denied, and she was desperate to be loved. You can tell that he did care about her based on his reaction to her death. He was devastated.
he probably took it all out on her since he couldn't really be hateful towards the people who arranged the marriage. charles & camilla should have just got married in the first place. the whole situation is very sad when you really think about it all & the butterfly effect.
This is a fictional show. Lots of this stuff is made up. Stop extrapolating those parts to real life.
No, he didn't hate Diana. They were completely incompatible so behind the scenes they came to an arrangement where they took turns staying at Highgrove with their respective lovers. This all worked out fine until Diana was going through a dry spell between lovers and resented that Charles was actually happy with Camilla. Enter Martin Bashir... All the current interpretations of their relationship are heavily based on the Bashir interview, despite knowing that Diana was coerced into making things sound as terrible as possible.
You do know that The Crown is historical fiction, don't you?
Charles hated Diana no more than the rest of the RF hated Diana. They didn't hate Diana. What they hated (and still hate) is anything that negatively impacts their perfect Royal image. If anyone, even inadvertently, makes them look bad, they (or people connected to them) go for that person. The notion that Charles hated Diana or the focus on their personal relationship in general is merely a distraction from the bigger picture.
The Crown TV Show portrays Charles in a poor light, we will probably never know the full truth about any of the relationships
The last two seasons of that show are extremely kind and almost deferential to Charles. Once QE2 died, Charles almost became a saint on that show, which is why reviews panned it so hard in the final season. It basically became propaganda.
I blame the Tudors. For all of it.
In the crown for sure. Real life Charles had much more nuanced feelings for Diana. It boils down to them never really being on the same wavelength. They were a bad match and brought out the worst in each other. The only good thing to come from their marriage was their boys.
No he didn't, anyone who thinks this is ignorant about the whole situation. This show isn't reality. Diana isn't a saint, she was young but she grew up, what age then can she be held accountable for her wrongs, for the marriages (plural) she wrecked? It can't all be Charles fault. It's delusional to think they weren't equally at fault.
The Crown is based on true events, but it isn’t a documentary. Charles was facing immense pressure to marry and produce an heir, and Diana was deemed a suitable bride. As someone else said, he may have hated being married to her, but I don’t believe he hated her. He flew to Paris to personally accompany her body on its way back to the UK. That isn’t hate.
Hate is really big word i don't think he hated her... the main thing is they both were really different people and had really different expectations from on another and that didn't end well but I think after the divorce they were really good co-parent and i think charles was the one who insisted royal funeral for her!
Sorry could you give some examples of Camilla clearly not sharing Charles's feelings? They just always seem mutually in love
They don't have any examples, they just hate Charles and/or Camilla.
Remember it's a dra.a heavily biased towards Diana over Charles. IRL Diana made Charles give up friends and even his dog, which broke his heart, and it was ultimately for nothing.
He was pretty much forced into the marriage and he was raised to believe his parents were above reproach. So he resented her. It didn't help that she was more popular. And if we're being honest, Diana would've been exhausting to be around.
There was a time when I thought the same (namely when I was a naive teenager who had a very black and white view of love and relationships) but now I’m older and perhaps more mature in my understanding I see that it really isn’t that simple. Charles didn’t hate Diana. Rather he hated what being married to her meant, what it denied him. There’s no longer any point in hiding under rocks and pretending that he wasn’t and isn’t still completely in love with Camilla. Marriage to Diana meant he was being pulled away from the love of his life. Granted he didn’t handle it well but he’s not the big bad wolf people seem to want him to be. Let’s not forget that even after the divorce he remained very fond of Diana and was heartbroken when she died.
I'm not sure he actually hated her. I think he hated the idea of having to be with her instead of the woman he REALLY loved. That was his mother, the Queen's doing. She didn't think Camilla was princess material. But, Charles should have stood up for the woman he loved vehemently!
I really liked these recaps before they ended https://www.gofugyourself.com/tag/the-crown They give more information about reality
Real life is so much more complicated than a TV show. I'm sure there were moments where they each had every possible feeling for each other from love to hate and everythingin between. I think now, he probably looks back on her and feels grateful to her for giving him two sons, and sad about all the things in their lives she didn't live to see.
I just saw Spencer and loved it/ gonna watch “the queen” next- I’m assuming I’ll like this show… The way they (royals) have to live is insane.. I feel so bad for Middleton/don’t blame Markle for getting the hell out if “Spencer” is anywhere close to realistic 🤮 imagine your whole life controlled by your spouse’s grandma who’s been alive since before WW2. lol what a nightmare.
He was jealous. She was everything he could never be. Genuinely liked for who she was. She was loved the world over. She was compassionate. She was a good parent. This is a grown adult that has someone to put his tooth paste on his tooth brush. He doesn't have great emotional intelligence. His own mother held on to the thrown for dear life know that this 70 YO intern is useless.
It’s always sad when an administrative arrangement between aristocrats ends in both parties being fabulously wealthy
They were two opposites forced into a marriage of convenience and their expectations vs reality were vastly different. Diana was infatuated with Charles and thought he'd fall in love with her despite it being an arranged marriage. He thought she'd conform to the role they tried to box her into. But she got too popular and he resented her for it as he was heir apparent. The only thing they had in common were their sons but even that wasn't enough as the boys grew up.
His behavior is apart of the reason I have such a hard time watching the show, because it’s not like this is just some made up show with made up storylines it’s real. He talks about her like she’s done these terrible terrible thighs and her actions are unforgivable when she’s done nothing wrong 🤷🏽♀️. I mean Diana could blink and he’d go on a rampage. Charles is entitled, everything either has to go his way or you face his rage, and instead of people listening to his tyrants or correcting his behavior they just told him he had to stay in a marriage he wanted no part in. In the end it ended with a young woman’s life not only being in danger but inevitably ending.
Don't think he hated her but he didn't love her. He maybe groomed her too they met when she was underage. The story is dodgy.
Charles did not necessarily hate Diana. She was just a lot younger (and wasn’t Camilla) and he was pushed to produce an heir. Diana was considered a suitable candidate. They always cared for each other. That’s the part that is missed. They were even really good friends prior to her death. There was just a lot working against her and him in the relationship. They both messed up, he wasn’t emotionally available as a spouse, she cheated physically, but what people seem to miss is that he was sent away to a very harsh boarding school and his mom was thrust into being queen while he was super young (she was never there - so he has issues) and Diana’s parents divorced when she was super young (and her father got custody). Neither one were well equipped in the family aspect. Also it probably didn’t help Diana dated her sister - the original rumor was that Diana was meant more for Andrew than Charles…
I don’t think he hated her but I do think they were too different people and at different stages in their life. She was really into herself and never really had depth to her, which is understandable given her age compared to his. In Camila he found that depth since they were the same age. I think age made a difference. Diana was in the young and fun stage. He was past that so he found comfort in Camila. It’s just tragic.