Charles had been pressured by his father, Prince Philip, to propose to Diana, despite that Charles already had serious misgivings.
According to Camilla: From Outcast To Future Queen Consort author Angela Levin, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Diana's grandmother, Lady Fermoy, had a huge part to play in it, as did the fact that Princess Diana was much younger than Camilla and therefore, in theory, more likely to give birth to the heir to the ...
However, the royal family wasn't interested in having Camilla as its princess. For one thing, she was perceived as an “experienced” woman, which was a nonstarter for the royal family back then in terms of a suitable spouse for Prince Charles.
After Lorraine's mention of the producer's late friend Princess Diana, Jemima responded: "I mean [their marriage was] as close to arranged as you could get in that it was an appropriate match chosen by the parents and a sort of committee of family members."
The 22-year-old Sarah said: 'There is no chance of my marrying him. I'm not in love with him. And I wouldn't marry anyone I didn't love whether he were the dustman or the King of England. It was in fact Lady Sarah who introduced Charles to her younger sister at Althorp House - the Spencer family home.
Speaking on an ITV documentary called The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess, Diana's astrologer Penny Thornton says that Diana confessed this to her. “One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding, Charles told her that he didn't love her,” Thornton says.
Cathy asks: If Diana were still alive, could Charles remarry? In a church? Answer: If Diana were still alive, Charles could remarry, because they were legally divorced. But he couldn't do it in an Anglican church.
Both Diana and Charles reportedly wanted to call off the wedding.
As a British subject who was not a peer of the royal family, Lady Diana Spencer was technically a commoner when she married Prince Charles. However, Diana was an aristocrat born into a noble family that had been a part of English history for centuries.
Prince Charles Proposed To Another Woman Before Princess Diana—And She Turned Him Down. Before he got engaged to Princess Diana, Prince Charles proposed to another woman, Amanda Knatchbull.
Camilla may have been at Diana's wedding but she was not welcome at her funeral, which was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world. Still, to many her absence echoed around the ancient hall. The Queen made it clear to Charles that he could not take his paramour to the service.
Camilla was also seen as "earthy," which could mean "wholesome," or more likely could just be a synonym for "common," since she wasn't the daughter of a titled family (unlike Diana, the daughter of an earl). So Camilla was seen as something of an early test run relationship for Charles, but not someone he would marry.
According to the BBC, it was the Queen's stamp of approval. Five years later, Charles and Camilla were engaged after the Queen gave them her blessing. However, Queen Elizabeth didn't attend the legal ceremony, but she did make an appearance at a secondary blessing, which she hosted at St. George's Chapel.
The Queen thought Diana quite suitable for Charles. “She was very much a hit with the royal family—they really warmed to her,” Chernock says.
Born to two wealthy parents on July 1, 1961, Lady Diana Spencer grew up adjacent to the aristocracy. Though she first met Prince Charles at the age of 16, she knew many people in his family: Queen Elizabeth II was her brother's godmother, and she played with Charles's brothers as a child.
As Diana was now the daughter of an earl, she became Lady Diana (a title that was due to her father's status, not a reflection of her own elevation to the peerage). Centuries earlier, the Spencers had grown wealthy thanks to their sheep farming and wool trading.
What were Princess Diana's last words? The firefighter on the scene of Princess Diana's accident revealed the last words she spoke before her death in an interview with The Independent. According to the firefighter, Xavier Gourmelon, the Princess of Wales asked: “My God, what has happened?”
Diana even admitted said she had a "vivid memory" of spotting Camilla in the crowds at her wedding. But looking back, had you ever seen the moment the bride takes in her surroundings inside St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981? Watch the video below to see her "looking" for Camilla… "I knew she was in there, of course.
Did Camilla and Diana really meet for lunch? According to royal writer Andrew Morton, the two women did in fact meet for lunch prior to the royal wedding.
In those tapes, Diana recalled her growing suspicion that Charles and Camilla were still having an emotional affair: she discovered a personalized bracelet that Charles had bought for Camilla shortly before the wedding. Diana wanted to call off the wedding, but her sisters talked her out of it.
apparently the Princess Royal said “you're not Queen, you're the Queen Consort”'.
In December 1993, prime minister John Major announced that Charles and Diana had officially separated and two years later, so did Camilla and Andrew. Following the death of Diana in 1997, Charles and Camilla rekindled their relationship but were not photographed together until 1999.
Though it seems almost comically old fashioned now, the fact that Camilla had a dating history was a major strike against her. "The conventions of the time called for the heir to the British throne to marry a woman who at least appeared to be virginal," writes Bedell Smith.
But throughout Princess Diana and the then Prince of Wales's 20-year odyssey, there were moments of real affection, no matter how fleeting. “We fell in love gradually,” Princess Diana told biographer Andrew Morton.
"One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding, Charles told her that he didn't love her," Thornton said. "I think Charles didn't want to go into the wedding on a false premise.