How Diana's death sparked a fallout between Charles and the Queen over her 'monarch not mummy' attitude

Advertisement!

An explosive biography of Camilla - to mark her 70th birthday next month - lifts the lid on the relationship between Prince Charles and the Queen in the days after Princess Diana's death. 

Never was the relationship between the Prince and his mother thrown more starkly into relief than it was on that terrible night, writes author Penny Junor. Junor claims that while the pair were just rooms apart, they didn't go to one another either for comfort or to discuss logistics. 

The comforting was left to Camilla - 500 miles away at her home, Ray Mill, near Chippenham, Wiltshire - and other friends Charles called through what remained of the night. And it was his staff who tried to work out how he could get to Paris as fast as possible to visit his ex-wife in hospital, writes Junor. 

The most obvious answer was to use an aeroplane of the Queen's Flight, but that required Her Majesty's specific permission - and her deputy private secretary was doubtful it would be forthcoming. At 3.45am, the debate became academic. 

A call came through from the embassy in Paris to say the Princess was dead.