Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth used to have a very complicated relationship. According to reports, the two women had a cordial relationship at the beginning and they had no other choice but to relate to each other because Princess Diana was married to Prince Charles.
In the book Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words, royal author Andrew Morton detailed the kind of relationship Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth had.
“In the early days, Diana was quite simply terrified of her mother-in-law. She kept the formal obsequies – dropping a deep curtsy each time they met – but otherwise kept her distance,” Morton wrote.
Queen Elizabeth Offered To Loan Princess Diana Her Lover’s Knot Tiara
Prior to her wedding to Prince Charles, the queen reportedly reached out to Princess Diana by asking her to wear the Lover’s Knot tiara. But to her surprise, the late royal refused to wear the stunning headpiece to her royal wedding.
Instead, the Princess of Wales opted to wear her family’s heirloom also known as the Spencer Tiara.
While speaking with Express, diamond experts at Steven Stone described the Lover’s Knot tiara and said that Princess Diana must have refused to wear it because it was too heavy for her head.
“The dazzling diamond and pearl tiara was originally designed for Queen Mary back in 1913 which passed on for her granddaughter. Queen Elizabeth II reportedly presented it to Diana for her royal wedding day in 1981, although she respectfully declined and opted to wear her father’s Spencer’s Family Tiara instead. Despite this, the Lover's Knot became one of her [Diana’s] favorite pieces, although it's claimed to have been so heavy that it hurt her head. The fact that it's so heavy it hurt Princess Diana's head indicates that this is a valuable tiara, embellished with the finest quality diamonds and pearls,” a source said.
Kate Middleton Now Owns The Lover’s Knot Tiara
Years later, the queen decided to make some adjustments to the Lover’s Knot tiara. She reportedly had some of the pearls removed before she started using the headpiece frequently.
But even if Princess Diana didn’t wear the Lover’s Knot tiara to her royal wedding, she was still photographed with it on several other occasions.
After her death, the headpiece was returned to the queen’s collection. And in 2016, it was passed on to Princess Diana’s daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton.
Princess Diana Opted To Wear The Spencer Tiara To Her Royal Wedding
According to Town & Country, the Lover’s Knot tiara was created for Queen Mary in 1914 by the House of Garrard using the pearls and diamonds already owned by her family.
Following Queen Mary’s death, the tiara was passed on to her granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. And in 1981, the queen loaned the tiara to Princess Diana as her wedding gift, but she refused to wear it.
Her decision to wear the Spencer Tiara to her royal wedding was accepted by the queen wholeheartedly and this didn’t cause tension between the two female royals.
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Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth’s Complicated Relationship
But over the years, Princess Diana and the queen came face-to-face with more controversies pertaining to the late royal’s marriage to Prince Charles, as well as the controversial interview she did with Martin Bashir for Panorama.
In the book The Duchess: The Untold Story, royal author Penny Junor claimed that the monarch finally lost her patience with Princess Diana following her controversial interview.
“This public mud-slinging wasn’t just harming the monarchy, it was damaging for the young princes,” Junor said.
Royal editor Russell Myers said that the queen spoke to Sir Richard Eyre, the former director of the National Theater after Princess Diana’s Panorama interview aired.
“The Queen spoke to [Sir Richard] about Diana’s interview, unpromoted actually. She said it was a ‘frightful thing to do, a frightful thing that my daughter-in-law did.’We know that this 1995 interview with Martin Bashir rocked the foundations of the Palace,” Myers said.
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