Moment Diana ‘first started to dream about marrying’ Prince Charles REVEALED
PRINCESS Diana starting dreaming about marrying Prince Charles when he showered her with attention after a shoot at her family estate in 1977, it has been claimed.
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Diana was 16 years old and home from boarding school when Charles came to Althrop for the shoot. And she was left feeling “amazed” by the Prince’s attention, according to royal author Andrew Morton. The moment marked the beginning of Diana’s dreams of marrying Charles, Mr Morton claimed.
Writing in Diana: In Her Own Words, Mr Morton said: “It was while Charles was shooting at Althorp, the Spencer family’s estate in Northamptonshire, in the autumn, that he first consciously met Diana, who was just sixteen and home from boarding school.
“She said later, ‘I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, unsmart lady but I made a lot of noise and he liked that and he came up to me after dinner and we had a big dance… for someone like that to show you any attention - I was just so sort of amazed.
“Why would anyone like him be interested in me? And it was interest.’
“That was the moment when she first started to dream about marrying the Prince of Wales.”
Diana’s romance with Charles was sparked three years later by a conversation they had about his great-uncle in 1980, according to Mr Morton.
Mr Morton explained that Diana “touched a deep chord” when she spoke to Charles sympathetically about the tragic death of Lord Mountbatten, who was killed by the IRA in 1979.
At the time, Charles was under high pressure to settle down as he reached his thirties.
The Prince had previously dated a string of women, including Camilla Parker Bowles in the early 1970s and Diana’s sister Lady Sarah Spencer.
Charles and Diana went on to announce their engagement in February 1981.
They married in a fairytale ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in July that year.
However, Charles and Diana split in 1992, with Charles admitting he was not faithful to Diana in a 1994 documentary.
And in her explosive Panorama interview in 1995, Diana said there were “three of us” in her marriage to Charles, in reference to Camilla.
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The pair divorced in 1996 at the request of the Queen following years of tensions.
A year later, Diana died in a tragic car crash in Paris.
Charles married his true love Camilla in 2005 at the Guildhall in Windsor, with Camilla becoming the Duchess of Cornwall.