As Princess Diana struggled with her position in the Royal Family, she revealed intimate details about her life to biographer Andrew Morton. This series of audio tapes shared with the author formed the basis of his bestselling 1992 book, Diana: Her True Story, which was released just six months before Diana and Charles announced their separation. At the time, Princess Diana denied collaborating with Morton, but there was one member of the Royal Family who didn’t buy it.
In his new biography of the late Queen—serialized in the Daily Mail this week—Hugo Vickers explored how Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip reacted to the breakdown of their eldest son’s marriage. When it came to the release of Morton’s tell-all, Vickers wrote that “it seems almost incredible that so many people accepted Diana’s denial of any involvement in the book.”
However, he continued that Diana’s father-in-law was convinced she had authorized the biography. “One person who wasn’t fooled, though, was Prince Philip, who read the book on flights to and from Canada in July and clearly detected her hand in it,” Vickers wrote. “Feeling that too much had been revealed, he was not impressed.”
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Prince Charles and Princess Diana are pictured with Prince Philip on their wedding day.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Princess Diana and Prince Philip are pictured at the 1986 Epsom Derby.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words
Diana and Charles then held “a sticky meeting at Windsor” with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip to discuss the state of their relationship, with Vickers writing that the late Queen “maintained her neutrality.” But Prince Philip wrote Diana a series of letters between June and October 1992 in hopes that his son’s marriage could be saved.
In the letters, which Vickers has read, Philip offered counsel to the struggling princess, and she replied to one that “it was clear that he ‘really cared.’” However, Prince Philip became concerned after he saw “one or two phrases from his correspondence with Diana popping up in the press.”
“This made him worry that every time there was a private discussion between Charles and Diana, details would appear in the Daily Mail,” Vickers wrote.
Although Princess Diana denied collaborating with Morton, the biographer eventually revealed that he had, in fact, received audio tapes from the princess. “Within a month of Diana’s death, Andrew Morton exposed to the world the full extent of her cooperation with his book,” Vickers wrote, adding, “Prince Philip had been right all along.”