Princess Diana told royal biographer Ingrid Seward it was "really important" that people knew she and King Charles loved each other, shortly before her death in 1997. Seward shared the conversation during an appearance on Good Morning Britain.
Seward was speaking to presenters Susanna Reid and Tom Swarbrick ahead of the release of her upcoming book, Catherine & Diana. The biography compares the lives, childhoods, marriages, and public roles of the two royals.
Diary entries from Diana's mother
The book features diary entries from Princess Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, and details how her relationship with the royals soured following Diana's death. Asked whether anyone had seen the diaries before, Seward said they had not.
She explained: "A friend of mine was really good friends with Frances Shand Kydd, and he sent me these with a manuscript and said, 'Do you think anyone would be interested in writing a book about Frances?'"
"Somebody did then write a book, so pipped him to the post, and I put these in a cupboard and forgot about them. I found them just when I was starting to write this book and thought, 'I have to include this' because it's absolutely fascinating."
Reaction to Earl Spencer's claims
During the interview, Tom Swarbrick raised recent controversy surrounding Diana's brother Earl Spencer's book and his accusation that King Charles sounded "giddily elated" when he called after Diana's death. Swarbrick highlighted a quote from King Charles regarding the press in Seward's book.
The quote read: "There's no twitch which she, Diana, can make without these ghastly and, I'm quite convinced, mindless people photographing it. How can anyone, let alone a 21-year-old, be expected to come out of all this crazed and obsessed attention unscathed?"
Swarbrick added: "That doesn't sound like a man who would be giddily elated over the death of his ex-wife?" Seward agreed, commenting that shock puts people into a different sphere and makes them "mechanical".
Love letters in the royal archives
Seward said: "Charles did love Diana and Diana told me this. She told me this shortly before her terrible accident, just by chance, I happened to be at Kensington Palace."
"She said, 'It's really important that people know that Charles and I did love each other, it's really important for our sons, I don't want them to think their father didn't love because he did love me'. Then she said, 'You should see the love letters he wrote to me'."
Seward explained that those letters are currently in the royal archives, and at the time of their conversation, Diana highlighted that nobody would see them for 50 years. As it is now 30 years on, Seward said: "They will be released, and I have seen a little bit, a little glimpse of some of the things that Charles said. He wrote the most beautiful letters to Diana."
Good Morning Britain airs on ITV weekdays from 6am. Seward's book is available to buy from September 24th.
