- Season 4 of The Crown premieres on November 15, featuring Prince Charles (Josh O'Connor), the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) as main characters.
- The fourth season of The Crown picks up in 1977, the year Charles first meets 16-year-old Diana.
Once upon a time, Diana Spencer was a little girl who didn’t know she would grow up to become "the People's Princess." The fourth season of The Crown tracks Diana's journey from aristocratic daughter to a member of the royal family, beloved by the public and troubled behind the scenes.
Though it involves castles, the story of Prince Charles, the heir to the throne of England, and Princess Diana, is no fairy tale, which became evident with the very public dissolution of their marriage and the tragedies that came after. Years after she and Charles divorced, Princess Diana died in 1997 in a car accident. Her death left her sons William, then 15, and Harry, 12, motherless.
Regardless of how The Crown interprets and fictionalizes Diana and Charles’s courtship, marriage, and separation, here’s what really happened—often, in Diana’s own words.
July 1, 1961: Diana is born into an aristocratic family.
When Charles was 12 years old, Diana was born at Park House, a home her parents rented from Elizabeth II. She grew up in close proximity to the royal family, often playing with Prince Edward and Prince Andrew. When she was 13, Diana became "Lady" Diana Spencer when her paternal grandfather passed away, and her father became the eighth Earl Spencer. In short, Diana came from a “suitable” family: wealthy and aristocratic.
1977: Charles and Diana meet for the first time.
According to their official engagement interview, Charles and Diana, then 29 and 16, met at the Spencer family home. Charles was visiting Althorp for a hunting trip, as he was already friends with Diana’s older sister, Sarah.
Originally, Sarah had been seen as a match for Charles. But during a ski trip in February 1978, when Sarah was linked to Charles, she dashed her chances. Sarah allegedly told journalist James Whittaker that she wouldn’t marry Charles “if he were the dustman or the King of England.” According to Monarch: the Life and Reign of Elizabeth II, Diana later told her friend Mary Robertson, "My sister Sarah spoke to the press...Frankly, that was the end of her.'"
That relationship didn't take off—but Diana was still a suitable match for the future king. Before meeting Diana, some of Charles's other girlfriends and romantic entanglements included Anna Wallace, the daughter of a Scottish landowner; Amanda Knatchbull, Lord Mountbatten's granddaughter; and of course Camilla Parker Bowles, whom he would go on to marry.
1980: Charles and Diana meet again, this time romantically.
Charles and Diana, then 18-and-a-half, reconnected during a summer weekend at a mutual friend's house. They reportedly bonded over a conversation about Lord Mountbatten’s funeral, which they had both attended, according to Express.
In audio tapes recorded with voice coach Peter Settelen, later broadcast in the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, Diana recalled the awkward encounter that transpired after that conversation. “The next minute he leapt on me, practically. It was strange. I thought, ‘This isn’t very cool’...but I had nothing to go by because I’d never had a boyfriend,” Diana said.
After that weekend, Diana and Charles went on a few dates, like to Andrew’s royal yacht or to Balmoral Castle in Scotland—but not many. "We met 13 times and we got married," she was heard saying in Diana: In Her Own Words.
In the 1992 biography Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words, Diana reflected on their rushed courtship to journalist Andrew Morton. “He’d found the virgin, the sacrificial lamb, and in a way he was obsessed with me,” she said.
September 1980: Diana visits Balmoral on her third date with Charles.
Season 4 of The Crown depicts an important chapter of Diana and Charles's relationship: Meeting the family. Only the family is...the royal family. In September 1980, Diana traveled to the northern reaches of Scotland to spend a weekend with Charles and his family at Balmoral.
By all accounts, Diana passed the "Balmoral Test," the name for the informal criteria the Windsors use to judge visitors and outsiders. "The adjectives every witness applied enthusiastically to Diana in these early days of her romance with Charles were 'uncomplicated,' 'jolly,' and 'easygoing.' It was a big plus to Diana's cause that she appeared so happy tramping over sodden moors,'" Tina Brown wrote in The Diana Chronicles.
A year later, she and Charles would return to Balmoral to take engagement photos, and for their honeymoon.
1980: The media begins to follow Diana.
When they started dating, Diana was sharing a flat with other girls and reportedly working as a nanny. Photographers swarmed the young Diana's apartment after the trip to Balmoral in the fall of 1980. By the time she was an engaged in 1981, she was a celebrity.
January 1981: Charles agrees to propose—after some purported prodding from his father.
During his courtship with Diana, Prince Philip wrote Charles a letter with a pointed, and fateful, message: Either he should propose to Diana or release her. According to King Charles: The Man, the Monarch, and the Future of Britain, Charles recalled to a friend at the time, “To have withdrawn, as you can no doubt imagine, would have been cataclysmic. Hence I was permanently between the devil and the deep blue sea.” He reportedly felt trapped. However, Charles and Diana didn’t know each other well.
February 1981: Charles, 32, and Diana, 19, officially announce their engagement.
In the official engagement photos, Diana’s famous sapphire ring makes its premiere. But the real lasting “gem” of the engagement is the first televised interview between Charles and Diana.
When the interviewer asks if they’re in love, Diana responded, “Of course.” Charles memorably said, “Whatever ‘in love’ means.” The interviewer also jokes about how Diana will make a “great housewife.”
July 29, 1981: Charles and Diana get married in a ceremony seen by over 750 million people worldwide.
Charles and Diana's elaborate wedding ceremony took place at St. Paul’s Cathedral to a congregation of 3,500 people. At 25 feet long, Diana’s Emanuel wedding dress had the longest train in royal wedding history.
The wedding was marked by astounding statistics—and some nervous mix-ups. Instead of saying “Charles Philip,” Diana called her soon-to-be husband “Philip Charles Arthur George” at the altar. They also forgot to kiss after exchanging vows. But turned kissing on the public balcony of Buckingham Palace into a royal tradition.
Diana was just 20 when she became Princess of Wales. “I remember being so in love with my husband that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I just absolutely thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. He was going to look after me. Well, was I wrong on that assumption,” Diana told Andrew Morton in her biography, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words.
July 1981: The couple heads on their honeymoon.
After the wedding, the newlyweds left for a 14-day cruise aboard the royal yacht Britannia. There was a third person on the trip: Camilla. According to Diana, Her True Story in Her Own Words, Charles wore the present Camilla brought for him: cufflinks with intertwined “C’s,” for their names. That was the start of their troubles.
"The clash in personality and interests became apparent during the honeymoon. So did the vast age difference. The prince was most comfortable fishing or reading. He pursued intellectual stimulation from authors such as mystical philosopher Laurens van der Post and psychoanalyst Carl Jung...Diana, meanwhile, spent most of her time with the crew, with whom she had more fun. She even thrilled the sailors with an impromptu performance on the piano," Martin Gitlin wrote of their honeymoon in Diana, Princess of Wales: A Biography.
June 21, 1982: Prince William is born.
Diana got pregnant with William not long after the wedding. According to Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words, the couple "scheduled" the birth of their oldest son around his polo schedule.
“When we had William, we had to find a date in the diary that suited Charles and his polo,” Princess Diana told biographer Andrew Morton.
September 15, 1984: Prince Harry is born.
According to Diana's biography, Charles desperately wanted a daughter, to the point that Diana didn’t reveal the baby’s sex even after she learned during a scan. When Harry was born, Charles allegedly burst out, “Oh God, it’s a boy,” Charles followed up with, “And he’s even got red hair!”
Diana later told friends that, after hearing Charles’s reaction, something inside her died. Morton writes in Diana’s biography that this was “the beginning of the end of their marriage.”
1984: A psychic tells Diana what she already knows.
Astrologer Peggy Thornton told Diana that she would get out of the marriage, one day—and that she wouldn’t be queen, according to Vogue.
In 1995, after she and Charles had already separated, Diana told the BBC’s Martin Bashir that she didn’t think she would ever be queen. “I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, but I don't see myself being queen of this country. I don't think many people will want me to be queen. Actually, when I say many people I mean the establishment that I married into, because they have decided that I'm a non-starter,” Diana said.
"I do things differently, because I don't go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that's got me into trouble in my work, I understand that. But someone's got to go out there and love people and show it," she continued in the candid interview.
1986: Charles rekindles his romance with Camilla.
According to Charles’s authorized biography, written in 1994, he began seeing Camilla romantically again in 1986—though their friendship had never ceased.
Diana reportedly had extramarital affairs of her own. She fell for her married bodyguard, Barry Mannakee, in 1985, and called him "the greatest love I've ever had" in a 1994 interview, seen in the Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words. Three weeks after Mannakee was let go, he was killed in a motorcycle collision. Diana suggested he was "bumped off."
In 1986, Diana began an affair with James Hewitt, a cavalry officer, according to his book Love and War, which chronicles their relationship.
1989: Diana confronts Charles and Camilla.
The big talk happened at the 40th birthday of Camilla’s older sister. Charles and Camilla had disappeared from the party and were chatting together. Diana found them, and asked Camilla for a private conversation.
“I’m sorry I’m in the way. I’m obviously in the way. It must be hell for both of you. But I do know what’s going on, and don’t treat me like an idiot,” Diana recalls saying in the documentary Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words.
1992: Diana's explosive biography is published.
Diana broke precedent by shattering silence, and going on the record with journalist Andrew Morton. The ensuing biography, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words, gave a glimpse into Diana's perspective and her marriage with Charles. “She believes that they are caught in an emotional time warp without the necessary vision to appreciate the changes that have take place in society,” Morton wrote. Diana would go on to use her royal celebrity as a force for change.
1992: Diana and Charles separate.
After 11 years of marriage, Diana and Charles formally separated. Both continued their royal duties—apart. The public separation proved to be a turning point for the House of Windsor.
“What had once seemed an archetypal family, raised above others by regal distance, now seemed more common and as confused by the complexities of modern life as anyone else,” the Washington Post wrote in 1992.
1994: Charles publicly admits to having an affair in a documentary.
Journalist Jonathan Dembley was hired to make a documentary for the 25th anniversary of the prince’s investiture. Many suggest the real goal was to create a positive picture of the prince, counteracting the effects of the previous years’ scandals—namely, the tapes between Charles and Camilla that were leaked to the press in 1993. Charles was heard saying, “I'll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!”
The noble efforts of the documentary backfired when Charles outright admitted his affair. According to the New York Times, Charles said he tried to be “faithful and honorable” to Diana, but gave up after “it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried."
1996: Prince Charles and Princess Diana announce their divorce.
After four years of separation, Charles and Diana filed for divorce.
Reportedly, Prince Philip, Charles’s father, took Diana’s side. According to Town and Country, in 2003, former butler Paul Burrell released letters to the Daily Mail that had been exchanged between Diana and Prince Philip during the divorce proceedings.
Philip allegedly wrote, "I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla,” and, “Charles was silly to risk everything with Camilla for a man in his position. We never dreamed he might feel like leaving you for her. Such a prospect never even entered our heads."
But Philip also criticized Diana: "Can you honestly look into your heart and say that Charles's relationship with Camilla had nothing to do with your behaviour towards him in your marriage?”
August 31, 1997: Princess Diana dies after a car accident.
The day of the fatal car accident, Diana was in Paris with her lover, Egyptian billionaire Emad “Dodi” Fayed. After midnight, Diana and Fayed left the Ritz Hotel to travel to Fayed’s private Parisian estate.
Speeding through a tunnel, driver Henri Paul lost control of the Mercedes Benz and crashed into a pillar, according to reports. Paul and Fayed were pronounced dead at the scene. Diana died hours later in a Parisian hospital. Her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor.
Reportedly, the black Mercedes Benz was also being trailed by paparazzi photographers eager to snap a photo of Diana and Fayed.
Diana was 36 years old at the time of her death. She and Charles had met almost exactly 20 years earlier.
Held on September 6, 1997, Diana's funeral was televised to an estimated two billion viewers. She was, as she predicted, the queen of people’s hearts.
To this day, Diana remains a beloved figure worldwide. How The Crown will interpret her legacy, and her marriage, remains to be seen—but it's certainly the show's most anticipated chapter.
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