Diana was the People’s Princess. A philanthropist and loving mother who won the heart of the nation.
And yet, Queen Elizabeth II and her daughter-in-law had a troubled relationship.
A new book The Queen’s Speech: An Intimate Portrait of the Queen in her own words, reveals Her Majesty became confused and frustrated with Diana.
“The Queen was desperate to help Diana but she just didn’t know how,” book author Ingrid Seward, who is editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine told People Magazine.
“And Diana couldn’t connect with the Queen.”
Seward said the Queen became frustrated with Diana as she voiced her concerns about her failing marriage.
“The Queen had never had to confront that type of conundrum. You just didn’t go into the Page’s vestibule and break down and say, ‘Oh, mama’ – because that’s what Diana used to call the Queen – ‘Everybody hates me! Your son hates me!’ ”
“She just broke down in front of the Queen and no one had ever done that before in her life. She just didn’t know how to handle this emotional young woman. She was really just a child.”
“The Queen was not prepared for it and simply didn’t know how to deal with it. She had no idea.”
Seward writes when the Queen was told that Diana had been in a car accident in the early morning hours of Aug. 31, 1997 the monarch responded: “Someone must have greased the brakes.”
But Seward said the sentence, though harsh by today’s standards, was not intended as an insult.
“It is a very old-fashioned, English saying,” says Seward.
“It is the sort of thing people said if someone went down the hill and had an accident. Her very first reaction was, ‘Oh my God, someone has tampered with the car.’ She obviously very quickly knew it wasn’t true.”
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