Princess Diana and Prince Charles first met in 1980, when Lady Diana was only 19. Before they announced their engagement, Prince Charles was regarded as the world’s most eligible bachelor and he infamously faced pressure from Prince Philip to marry the young Lady Diana Spencer, although a royal biographer argues the Duke of Edinburgh’s words may have been “misinterpreted”. However, more surprisingly, Camilla Parker Bowles also encouraged Charles to propose to Diana, according to royal experts.
Author and former editor of Vanity Fair, Tina Brown, writing in Vanity Fair in 1985, describes how the Prince of Wales faced pressure to marry that was intensified by Camilla and his other close friend Lady Dale Tryon.
She writes: “His family wanted it. The public wanted it.
“Like the last Prince of Wales, he liked to confide in married women, and his two favourites, Lady Tryon and Camilla Parker Bowles, wanted it.
“They had met the blushing little Spencer girl and deduced she was not going to give them any trouble. Better her than another fiery number like Anna Wallace.
“Prince Charles was exhausted. He proposed.”
Princes Diana and Prince Charles announced their engagement in February 1981 (Image: Getty)
Diana and Camilla pictured in the Eighties (Image: Getty)
Prince Charles is godfather to Lady
