Prince Philip tried to talk to Prince Charles about his marital difficulties and the effect they were having on the institution he was born to head. It was meant as fatherly advice, but because of the distant nature of their relationship, the two found it uncomfortable to exchange confidences and their conversations usually ended with Charles looking at his watch and making an excuse to leave the room. Thwarted in his own efforts to introduce some sense into an increasingly senseless situation, Philip asked his wife to bring her considerable authority to bear. The Queen consistently refused to do this, much to Philip’s exasperation. Often so intimidating to those outside her own family who overstepped the mark, the Queen was unwilling to confront those within it.

Left to her own devices, she would have let the situation drift. The Queen Mother had made a habit of contracting a diplomatic illness whenever she came under stress (she contracted pneumonia on her honeymoon and spent the week of the abdication crisis in bed with flu). Her daughter’s natural inclination was to ignore the situation and hope it would go away. It was a policy that had hitherto served her well. What was more, the Queen Mother had warned her against becoming too involved in the problems of her offspring and their families. When the Queen had turned to her hoping for sympathy, she got none. On one occasion when they were discussing the children’s problems, the Queen Mother looked up from her game of patience. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why you care any more. It’s another generation . . . just let them get on with it.’ She then dealt herself another hand.

But the truth was that the Queen was alarmed by her daughter-in-law. She was not scared of Diana as a person, but she was deeply suspicious of Diana’s Hollywood glamour and the way she used it to manipulate public opinion. Although she regarded Diana as hard working, she doubted if she had any real sense of commitment to the institution which had elevated her to public prominence in the first place. Diana dismissed the monarchy as ‘old-fashioned’ and behind the times, while to the Queen those were its very strengths. The monarchy is hierarchical and the Queen, as its head, was mistrustful of the way Diana ignored the parameters of her position.