Princess Diana Refused to Let This Royal Family Member Down Despite Her “Personal Unhappiness”

Rachel BurchfieldTue, August 11, 2026 at 12:42 PM UTC

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Princess Diana at Sandringham on December 23, 1990.Credit: GettyThe Gist -

Even at the lowest points of her marriage to Prince Charles, Princess Diana refused to let down one member of the royal family: her mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth.

In a new interview, Diana’s former bodyguard Ken Wharfe explained that, despite her “personal unhappiness,” the late Princess of Wales never shirked her royal duties.

“Her commitment was to Her Majesty the Queen,” Wharfe said.

Even at the lowest points of her life as a working royal, there was one member of the family that Princess Diana refused to let down: her mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth.

Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth watching polo.Credit: Getty

In a new interview with Marie Claire, the late Princess of Wales’s former bodyguard Ken Wharfe—who worked for the princess from 1988 to 1993—said that even when Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was collapsing, she would never shirk her royal duties.

“At that particular time, despite the unhappiness of her marriage, her commitment was to Her Majesty the Queen,” said Wharfe, who was protecting Diana during the tumultuous period leading up to and after Charles and Diana’s 1992 separation.

Princess Diana in May 1990.Credit: Getty

Even through that turbulent period, Diana “was in a position where she was loyal to the workings of the British royal family and would never let them down, despite her personal unhappiness,” he said on behalf of Casino.org. Even on days when Diana would say to him, “I don’t think I can do today, Ken,” she would always ultimately come through and keep her commitments, even though Wharfe would give her an out like, “Well, okay, you don’t have to. What do you want to do about it? We can find a reason not to do it. You can be ill, or we can come up with some excuse.”

“But the answer would always be, ‘Well, I can’t let my mother-in-law down,’” Wharfe added. “So there was a real sense of duty on her part.”

Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, and Prince Charles.Credit: Getty

Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana in November 1982.Credit: Getty

Despite rumors that the relationship between the queen and Diana was frosty, it all boils down to the two just being very different women. The queen approved of Diana; Lady Diana Spencer had been brought up within close royal circles, with her father, Johnnie Spencer, serving as an equerry to the queen. Both of Diana’s grandmothers were ladies-in-waiting to the Queen Mother, and as a child, Diana and her family lived at Park House on the Sandringham estate. Diana grew up playing with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Prince Edward, who were far closer in age to her than Charles.

The queen and Prince Philip attended the wedding of Diana’s parents, and the monarch even served as the godmother to Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer. The Spencer family moved so closely in royal circles that, before Charles and Diana’s courtship began, the Prince of Wales dated her older sister, Sarah, for a time. As royal biographer Ingrid Seward put it, while the queen “never directly addressed the question of his [Charles’s] marriage, but by nod and nuance, she made it clear she approved of Diana.”

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Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, and Lady Diana Spencer at Buckingham Palace.Credit: Getty

Charles and Diana ultimately married in 1981, and by the end of the decade, their marriage was in trouble. During this time period, the relationship between the two women was polite but formal, “governed by the fact that she [Diana] was married to her older son and a future monarch,” Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton said. “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.”

As the Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage soured, Seward wrote that Diana would often turn up unannounced at Buckingham Palace to meet with the queen. “At first, the queen took a tolerant view of these unscheduled visits,” she said. “Diana was usually in a lot better mood when she left than she was when she arrived.”

Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth.Credit: Getty

Eventually, though, the queen “came to dread the meetings,” Seward continued. “After one session a footman said, ‘The princess cried three times in a half an hour while she was waiting to see you.’ The queen replied, ‘I had her for an hour—and she cried nonstop.’”

Yet, Morton told People, the queen “was very supportive of Diana. Diana always felt that the queen was a kind of marital referee and that the queen should really intervene over her husband’s relationship with Mrs. [Camilla] Parker Bowles. But the queen’s policy was to hope for the best.”

Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and Queen Elizabeth.Credit: Getty

The queen, Seward said, “was desperate to help Diana, but she just didn’t know how.” Charles and Diana separated in 1992, eventually finalizing their divorce in 1996, one year before Diana’s death on August 31, 1997. At the worst of times, Morton said that Diana found “perhaps a rather unlikely ally at the palace in the queen, whose understanding and helpful attitude did much to encourage Diana to soldier on.”

“There has been so much written incorrectly about the queen being a bit of a dictator, demanding Diana behave a certain way,” royal correspondent Victoria Arbiter told The Independent. “Diana and the queen shared a warm relationship. The queen found emotional problems difficult—that’s her generation.”

Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana in March 1989.Credit: Getty

“She certainly gave [Diana] support behind the scenes and felt very fondly towards Diana, whom she had known since she was a little girl,” Arbiter added. “Diana had tremendous respect for the monarchy and, by extension, the queen.”

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