Diana spencer

Celebrating Prince Harry's christening at Windsor in 1984, the royal family had a hoot. The baby's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, wore priceless sapphires and a ...

Andrew and the palace denied the claims and the Queen stood by her son. For a hotline to Philip, press one, for Charles press two, for the corgis, press three.” Like his godson Harry two decades later, Andrew was the spare to the heir, a man awash with privilege but no purpose. Why was the Queen so close to a family member who decamped from her orbit as her husband died and she drew close to 100? On the day Prince Charles turned 44 in 1992, Diana was in Paris, taking a 40-minute meeting with President Francois Mitterand, starting to create her role as a glamorous diplomat. Her grandmother was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother. The perplexed Queen, then 93, had hoped the Sussexes wouldn’t step away from royal life completely because “duty” was everything to her, a confidante said in January 2020. Three months later, the willowy aristocrat had a 12-carat Ceylon sapphire on her left hand and a wedding day to turn up for. Early on, Diana was an asset to the Windsors - until she stole the show. Was Diana the Queen’s nemesis or her unlikely doppelganger, both united by devoting their lives to public service and their shared family? She was viewed as a priceless asset for the Foreign Office, judged the glossy. Fresh from her separation from Prince Charles, Diana was planning not just a heavyweight future on the world stage but “plotting her revenge”, claimed the story.