And in July 1997 when Diana learned about a 50th birthday celebration Charles was giving Camilla at Highgrove she reportedly wept.
The sad part is that it never had to end that way.
Had Diana played by the social rules of her position (though such 'rules' may not have been the rules for others) Charles would never have divorced her. She would have become Queen.
Her mistake was believing her own press. The adulation she experienced from the crowds became part of her 'truth'. She believed she was special, I think. As some have suggested on this thread, she did believe that she was 'more important' than Charles. (Members of the public believed she was 'more important' than Charles). That was her fateful undoing. It is the undoing of so many who find themselves in the public eye, subject to adulation. Without grounding, something twists inside. I've seen it. It happened to Diana, I believe.
In a way, I think becoming the Princess of Wales was her greatest misfortune. Had she married some minor aristocrat she would have had a better chance of surviving adulthood with a modicum of dignity. The real culprit was not Charles and who he may or may not have loved better than she, it was being the center of a phenomenon called 'celebrity' and 'tabloid journalism'.
I am always surprised to realize that people do not understand the timeline of the revelations. Because I have read exhausting books that factually lay out the sequence of events, I have it fairly clear, not blurred by memory's indistinctness. Diana's press was not uniformly adulatory. She faced serious obstacles since journalists were well aware of what was going on. Diana set in motion the Morton book as her defense of herself, and in doing so she spun quite a tale, a tale we now know that was riddled with inaccuracies and mean-spirited and unfounded allegations. She was in a very precarious position. Scandalous revelations were imminent (before the Morton book) and she was aware of that. She felt the walls closing in. Her escapades were starting to leak. It's all there in the written record, both in newspaper articles and books.
If nothing else, Diana had an acute survivor's instinct, and a flair for the dramatic. Throwing Camilla under the bus was a brilliant diversionary tactic. It worked, basically destroying Camilla's marriage. People forget why Diana did the Panorama interview - because of James Hewitt's book (chronicling their love affair) and the fact that Diana had engaged in criminal activity regarding one of the men she was pursuing (a married man). Both situations were quite serious - one was a revelation of a long-standing affair (across years) while still bearing children to the heir, and the other suggesting the commission of serious criminal actions that would have gotten most people a stint in prison. The newspapers were awash with scandal and the tide was turning against her a second time. All of this is not speculation on my part. It's all there in the written record. The time sequence is there for anyone to read.
The Morton book and the Panorama interview were Diana's attempts to get the heat off her. She was wildly successful but at punishing cost to herself and her coveted lifestyle. One could legitimately argue that her breach of the social rules by effectively writing a book (the Morton book) on the BRF's personal lives (albeit involving her) led to the separation, and the Panorama interview where she verbally assaults the readiness of the heir to the throne via innuendo led to the divorce.
As I say, my mother used Diana as a cautionary tale with me, that's why I know as much as I do, though I would never claim to have an exhaustive understanding of either Diana or her world back then. I find her enormously puzzling, though if I posit her as spoiled with an arching sense of privilege it all makes sense. My mother had other theories that I don't subscribe to.
My summation of Diana is that she was a fool. Is that too harsh? She worked hard to land Charles. That's how I see it, and once she 'had it all' she squandered it all. Defies understanding.
Quite a firecracker. She broke his heart.
) Anna was the beauty. The similar haircut must have been from the time and just a fluke. That is what I will believe or else I'd be compelled to ascribe to Diana more cunning than I already do. 
Even I get confused.
