The Queen and Di - Softcover

Seward, Ingrid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006530834 ISBN 13: 9780006530831

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

Synopsis

The complex relationship between the Queen and her daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales is examined for the first time in detail by bestselling author Ingrid Seward.

The book charts the sometimes touching and often fraught association between two powerful women from the moment Diana stepped over the Queen’s threshold at Balmoral as a weekend guest in the 1980s to her death in 1997, and shows how the monarchy was affected by the tragedy.

The author tells how the Queen tried to welcome Diana into the royal fold and how – too scared, young and psychologically troubled – Diana failed to grasp the hand of friendship. Explosive and revealing, this book describes how the Queen mostly stood alone in her defence of Diana, although in the end she came to fear her – and her effect on the Queen’s grandchildren William and Harry and on the institution of monarchy.

Through a meeting with the Princess a few weeks before her death, the author provides an astonishing insight into the Camilla Parker Bowles set-up and the views and opinions of one of the most adored and vilified women of the 20th century.

About this title

Review:

Ingrid Seward has been watching and writing about the royals since her appointment as editor of Majesty magazine in 1983. Her previous publications have covered most of the significant members of the royal family, from Prince Edward to her celebration of the Queen Mother in The Last Great Edwardian Lady. In The Queen and Di Seward claims to offer a sensitive account of the relationship between the Queen and Diana from the latter's arrival at Balmoral in the early 1980s as a guest of Prince Charles, to her untimely death in 1997. In fact the book is a rather elegant piece of extended gossip on Diana and her fraught relations with all the Windsors, which spills the beans on everything from the sexual indiscretions of virtually the entire family, to the Queen's consumption of "far more Martinis than was advisable" following Diana's death.

The Queen and Di is also a rather misleading title for a book that is in fact a subtle denigration of Diana and a defence of the Queen and the workings of Diana's most hated institution, the Palace. Seward is at pains to stress that the Queen "had tried to accommodate Diana within it--bending its rules, excusing her indiscretions, making allowances for her illness, overlooking her outbursts, taking note of her grievances, ignoring the way she tried to claim centre stage and ordering her staff to treat her with respect and courtesy at all times." There are some extreme claims--including the diagnosis of Diana's "Borderline Personality Disorder"--and moments of surreal hilarity, such as the picture of Diana running through the Palace chanting "I've got Brenda's rocks" on the eve of her wedding, after being presented with Queen Mary's jewels by the Queen. The Queen and Di is an unwitting portrait of a household in terminal decline, and a young woman who accidentally accelerated its slide. --Jerry Brotton

From the Back Cover:

'"Devastating... the untold story of how Diana spurned the Queen's hand of friendship and started a spiral of mistrust that turned the two women into enemies"
DAILY MAIL'

The complex relationship between the queen and her daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales is examined in detail for the first time by bestselling author and royal biographer Ingrid Seward. 'The Queen & Di' charts the sometimes touching and often fraught association between two powerful and determined women from the moment Diana stepped over the Queen's threshold at Balmoral as a weekend guest in the 1980s to her death in 1997, and shows how the monarchy was affected by the tragedy.

Chronicling the parallels in their lives as well as their contrasting styles and differing conventions of their times, Seward provides new insights into the behind-closed-doors scenes of Buckingham Palace as Diana's fairytale marriage began slowly to unravel and events spiralled out of control. The author reveals the lengths to which the Queen went in her efforts to understand her daughter-in-law – her unstinting generosity and support, her encouragement and forbearance – often standing alone in her defence, until she was finally driven to distraction and plunged into despair; she shows, too, how Diana, too scared, young and psychologically troubled, failed to grasp the Queen's hand of friendship in return, and how, in the end, the Queen came to fear her – and her effect on the Queen's grandchildren William and Harry and on the institution of the monarchy.

Through a meeting with the princess a few weeks before her death, Ingrid Seward provides an astonishing insight into the Camilla Parker-Bowles set-up and the views and opinions of one of the most adored and vilified women of the twentieth century.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0006530834
• ISBN 13: 9780006530831
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272