Prince Charles 'Felt He'd Been Very Pushed Into Marrying' Princess Diana, Royal Biographer Reveals
A royal rush?!
Prince Philip Revealed: A Man of His Century biographer Ingrid Seward revealed that Prince Charles blamed father Prince Philip for his marriage to the late Princess Diana.
The Prince of Wales, 71, "felt he'd been very pushed into marrying" his now-former late wife, according to Seward. "Charles told some of his friends that he felt pressurized into marrying Diana because Philip said, 'You've either got to marry her or let her go. You can't string a … young girl along. She's only 19. You can't string her along. And all the press is saying, 'Oh, this is going to be the next queen.' You've got to take a stand and say that this is not going to work, or you marry her.'"
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The writer explained Charles was scared of the Duke of Edinburgh, now 99, and probably thought: "'Well, OK. I'll marry her if that's what you want me to do.'" Prior to Charles being linked to the Princess of Wales, Seward said there had been discussion that Diana would be better suited with Prince Andrew — Charles' younger brother.
"I think some of Diana's friends thought that Andrew would be more fun for her than Charles because he was very much her age and he was full of fun and everything else," Seward noted. "But Diana wasn't interested in Andrew. It was Charles she was interested in."
After Diana and Charles tied the knot, the Duke of York, 60, married Sarah Ferguson in 1986 — the two later welcomed daughters Beatrice, 32, and Eugenie, 30.
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"Diana had been around the royal family ever since she was a little girl because her father and her family lived on the Sandringham Estate and her father was what's called an inquiry to the queen. So, he sort of was in the royal household,” Seward added. Diana would go with her father, John Spencer, to the house at Sandringham and "watch movies and things with Prince Edward and Andrew."
Charles and Diana wed in 1981. They welcomed sons Prince William, 38, the following year and Prince Harry, 36, in 1984. The former couple separated in 1992 and were divorced in 1996. Eight years after Diana's tragic death, her ex-husband married Duchess Camilla in 2005.
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Princess Diana — who was widely known as "The People's Princess" — died in a car crash in Paris at the age of 36. Her funeral, which was watched by over two billion people, was held in London on September 6, 1997. She left behind sons William and Harry, who were 15 and 12, respectively, at the time.
While neither Harry nor William often speak about their late mother, the red-headed Prince admitted her death is still "a wound that festers" for him.
"I think being part of this family, in this role, in this job, every single time I see a camera, every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash, it takes me straight back," the Duke of Sussex previously said in the BBC One documentary Football, Prince William and Our Mental Health. "So, in that respect, it's the worst reminder of her life, as opposed to the best."
Prince William — who shares three children with wife Kate Middleton — also opened up about the difficulty of raising his own family without his mother there to see them grow up.
"When you’ve been through something traumatic in life, that is, your dad not being around, my mother dying when I was younger, your emotions come back in leaps and bounds because it's a very different phase of life, and there's no one there to kind of help you," he shared.
