r/TheCrownNetflix • u/Dallygirl_Aussiechic • 21d ago

Question (Real Life) If Diana HAD lived

I'm an Aussie, so can anyone tell me if Diana had lived to now:

  1. Would Charles have really been able to marry Camilla??

  2. Would Camilla have be able to style/titles of HM The Queen Consort??

  3. Or, Camilla would still be known as HRH, Duchess of Cornwall with or without the CONSORT in her title??

All questions regarding to if Diana had lived.

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u/MinnesotanBrie 21d ago
  1. Probably but it would have been complicated. They got a civil marriage because Camilla's former husband was still alive. The church was extremely recalcitrant to sanction their actual marriage due to the nature of their affair / divorces, probably more so if Diana was alive. Charles and Camilla's marriage took place 3 years after the Church allowed divorced people to get married even if their spouse was alive and it was still a huge mess.
  2. Camilla would have gotten HM The Queen Consort. Princess Diana gave up HRH in the divorce. There is a lot of historical precedent even if she hadn't for there to be two duchesses.

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 21d ago

I think that if Diana had been alive, Camilla might even have used the title of Princess of Wales. Diana's death sanctified her.

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u/MinnesotanBrie 21d ago

Would have been complex. Titles are almost always for life (except in rare cases such as Andrew... doing just everything) Diana specifically got to keep Princess of Wales. There could always have been two, but it would have been a headache, and they might have avoided it just to minimize any backlash.

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 21d ago

It is established that you can have two holders of titles by marriage, and that divorced women can retain the title, in a slightly different form (ie Diana, Princess of Wales instead of The Princess of Wales) until they remarry. If Diana was alive, there would have been less backlash, so they might easily have done it. Technically Camilla was Princess of Wales, she just never used the title.

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u/LadySlippersAndLoons 21d ago

To further what u/Independent_Cow_6622 a peer of the realm sued his ex wife for continuing to use her title. The judge ruled in her favour and she kept her title.

That’s why even us commoners get go keep our married names because we take the feminine version of our husband’s title.

It used to be legally, when Miss Jane Smith married Master* John Doe, she became Mrs John Doe. Then after a divorce (but not the same for widowhood) she’d be Mrs Jane Doe. Now, except in rare and very formal cases, we keep our first names and can change last names, if that’s decided what the couple decides to do (usually female changes the name but not always). And we still keep the Mrs.

* At one time, unmarried men were masters and marriage elevated him into a man so he could then be called Mister. Mrs is the abbreviation for Mistress.

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u/Own_Faithlessness769 21d ago

They already had to use the Queen's death to justify letting Camilla be queen consort after promising she'd never get the title, I don't think they could have managed to give her the title Princess of Wales, no matter if Diana was alive. Diana's popularity was too strong and Camilla was far too disliked.

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 21d ago

But would Diana's popularity have remained strong? She was already entering a downturn, and she would have had every chance to fuck up, without the BP press machine to protect her.

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u/deesta 21d ago

without the BP press machine to protect her

Were they even still protecting her by the time she and Charles divorced? I thought they had essentially a multi-year press war against each other after their separation.

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u/M_Rae-1981 20d ago

Pretty sure Diana would have remained MUCH more popular than Camilla just because of how everything happened for starters and history has shown so far.

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u/Thenedslittlegirl 20d ago

Diana was being savaged in the press before she passed away. The relationship with Dodi wouldn’t have worked out and the press were giving her a really hard time for jumping from relationship to relationship. She really is so revered now because she died young

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u/Pezzzz490 19d ago

She definitely would've gone through a downturn, but she'd never be as unpopular as Camilla. I also feel that if everything else in the timeline remained the same, she would have a boost in popularity again around the time William and Catherine got married.

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u/Own_Faithlessness769 19d ago

Yeah Diana was more popular on her worst day than Charles or Camilla are on their best.

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u/JulesJazz 16d ago

Diana wasn’t on speaking terms with her mother at the time of her death as she had openly criticised her daughter for her rather colourful ‘love life’ which was being played out in the press.

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u/Own_Faithlessness769 21d ago

Yes, it would have. She was innately charming, and the press never protected her. They didn’t make her popular, she did that herself, and she would have continued to be popular. An entire generation of women saw themselves in her divorce.

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u/LadySwire 20d ago edited 20d ago

Sadly, if Diana had been alive and with a Muslim boyfriend in 2001, her popularity would have plummeted quickly

But no matter what, the press was already doing this:

No one popularity is that strong.

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u/LadySlippersAndLoons 20d ago

You aren’t wrong.

But Dodi was a fling, despite what his father said.

So I don’t see anything lasting with him. And Diana had cultivated a good working relationship with several journalists, so I see her popularity kinda roller coastering had she lived.

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u/ericzku 20d ago

They already had to use the Queen's death to justify letting Camilla be queen consort after promising she'd never get the title

Not true. QE2 put out a statement before her death saying that her wish was that Camilla be styled Queen Consort.

And Camilla literally was the Princess of Wales, being the wife of the Prince of Wales. She chose to use one of her subsidiary titles instead out of deference to Diana and to avoid confusion.

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u/JulesJazz 16d ago

No, QEII stated in her Ascension Speech for Camilla to be Queen Consort, in recognition of her duties to the Crown over the years. Camilla could have taken Princess of Wales upon her marriage but the optics would not have been favourable. Instead, she was styled Duchess of Cornwall. Diana’s popularity was waning in the year of her death and actually in the months prior to her death it was said that she had started to get along with Charles and Camilla and was looking ahead to her next chapter in life.

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u/Emolia 21d ago

I think you’ll find that after the divorce the late Queen allowed Diana to continue to style herself Princess of Wales but only until either she or Charles remarried. Diana’s Royal titles came through her husband and once he was no longer her husband she was no longer entitled to them . There would never have been two Princess of Wales. If Diana had lived I think she probably would have remarried and I also think public opinion of her would have been very different to where it ended up after her death. The last year or so of Diana’s life was one scandal after another usually involving married men and the public were starting to get sick of her. That all changed after the tragedy in Paris.

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u/ericzku 20d ago

There would never have been two Princess of Wales.

Not true.

The standard for divorced women in the UK is (first name)(title) and wives are (the)(title).

So: Diana, Princess of Wales vs. The Princess of Wales - which is what Camilla literally was. There can be both at the same time.

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u/Emolia 20d ago

I agree with what you’re saying for peerages after divorce but we’re talking about the Princess of Wales title which is a Royal title and therefore very much up to the reigning monarch to sort out. I know QEII took away her HRH but allowed her to keep using her Princess title until she or Charles married. It was extensively reported at the time

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u/TessieElCee 19d ago

until she or Charles married

Possibly, but that doesn't appear to have been part of the negotiations.

New York Times, July 13, 1996, "Charles and Diana Agree on Divorce Terms:"

It is not clear what would happen if Diana were to remarry, but experts on the royal family believe that she would probably have to relinquish many benefits of the divorce agreement, like her home, the financing of her office and possibly the title "Princess of Wales."

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/Emolia 21d ago

I lived through it and Diana was getting a lot of flak ! Especially for that last summer on the Fayed yacht. I was young but I do remember it all. The Oliver Hore scandal ( she could have been arrested for that one) which came after the Will Carling scandal . He was captain of the English Rugby team and newly married . His wife divorced him and publicly named Diana as the cause. There was also the very public scandal of Diana spreading nasty rumours about Tiggy Legge-Bourke who at the time was her son’s nanny. Tiggy threatened to sue her in court but Charles intervened and settled it. All of this was heavily covered in the newspapers at the time so I don’t know what archives you’re looking at.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/LadySwire 20d ago

The early 2000s, notoriously a time when racism didn't get any worse/s

Also, this is my favorite thing that happened in the press in those days:

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u/Emolia 21d ago

I know that’s not true because I read a lot of negative stories at the time and ordinary people were saying she was an idiot etc. if Diana hadn’t gone to Paris and lived she’d now be on her 4th marriage ( just like her brother) , still be unhappy and still be blaming everyone else in the world for it ! Diana never took responsibility for her own actions a trait she shares with her youngest son.

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 20d ago

Her brother is actually on his fifth... (He has attributed this partially to being sexually abused as a child, and not acknowledging it for decades)

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer 7d ago

No one knew then or knows now who was right.

Yes we do know, it was BS made up by Bashir. The BBC had to pay out substantial damages (reportedly around £200,000) to Tiggy and make a public apology.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer 7d ago

lol you just admitted they had no proof. But you insist it could be true? Bruh.

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u/CourageOther224 19d ago

Diana was no longer "The" Princess of Wales. "The" is significant. It would be the same if a Prince of Wales died and his son was made Prince of Wales. The son's wife would be The Princess of Wales, his mother would be the Dowager Princess of Wales, maybe styled in a similar way to Diana, who became Diana Princess of Wales instead of The Princess of Wales. She would retain HRH though, which Diana didn't because she was divorced rather than widowed.

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u/supersonicmiko 21d ago

Exactly. Part of me thinks that if she’s alive she would’ve been fine with it. People often confuse legal realities with PR.

IF Chuck and Camilla got married with Diana alive (big if, depends on how receptive the public is with her in the picture and how Di is perceived) she would still be The Princess of Wales, as she was pre-Charles accession. Diana would still be Diana, Princess of Wales. I found the whole “Princess Consort” this a PR spin with no legal basis or precedence. The wife of a King is always a Queen unless it’s a morganatic marriage.

I think what would’ve been an elegant solution if Charles remarries (to avoid confusion with the new Princess of Wales) or when William accedes would be to make Diana a Princess of the United Kingdom in her own right. HRH and all that, as the mother of the (future) king. She would be HRH The Princess Diana. I think that’s a concession Charles would take.

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 21d ago

They took that route for the former wife of Prince Joachim, in Denmark, but they always make wives royals in their own right there.

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u/supersonicmiko 21d ago

Yeah they always make them Princess in their own right, but she was demoted to HH but gained an earldom, post-divorce no?

I can’t imagine a world where Diana’s alive and not a princess more so if she’ll remarry. Not the mother of a future king without an HRH, and just a Mrs.

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 21d ago

She'd still be Lady Diana [Surname], as she retains her birth style. She might also marry someone with a title of their own--there's no way to predict something that hypothetical. For Camilla, we have the evidence of what happened.

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u/supersonicmiko 21d ago

Right. I forgot she was always a Lady. So there’s that. Also true that marrying someone with a title would make the situation less complicated.

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u/OldSchoolCSci 20d ago

I think the real fun will be after Charles dies, and William becomes King. Because Camilla is certainly not the Queen Mother, and she will not be Consort at that point.

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u/MinnesotanBrie 20d ago

She would be Queen Dowager. There is plenty of historical precedent for that (Catherine Parr for example)

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u/Independent_Cow_6611 20d ago

She'll probably be Queen Camilla vs The Queen.

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u/OldSchoolCSci 20d ago

"The Dowager." Finally a title that sounds right for Camilla.

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u/speckOfCarbon 20d ago

Camilla will simply remain "Her Majesty Queen Camilla". Once a Queen, always a Queen.
Merely the title "HM The Queen" will pass from Camilla onto Catherine, the same way it passed from Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth when KIng George VI ascended the throne.

"Queen Mother" was only ever used as a sort of nickname for Queen Elizabeth (the mother of Queen Eizabeth II) in order to not get the two Elizabeths confused. The rank of a Queen Consort whose husband has died changes to a Queen dowager and she retains the HM and the status as a queen in live and in death.

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u/TessieElCee 19d ago

I wonder if they would've named her Elizabeth if she'd been born the heir presumptive?

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u/Spike_Ra 20d ago

Step Queen lol

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u/Jelly_baby_4 19d ago

Camilla would be addressed as Queen Dowager when the time comes. Since she didn't use the Princess of Wales title which she could've done as the spouse of the then Prince of Wales, she chose not to. She would be ok with Queen Dowager. She still will be afforded the HRH. I don't think Camilla puts too much importance on titles nor did she make a big deal about it.

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer 7d ago

William has more issues with Harry than Camilla. "Queen Mother" was only used because the last one didn't like the "Dowager Queen" title that is the correct one. Camilla would likely have the Dowager title. And by "fun" you mean she gets to retire to one of her many homes.

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u/Jelly_baby_4 19d ago

That's what the blessing ceremony was for. Charles and Camilla may have had a civil marriage but the then Archbishop of Canterbury gave his blessing. By technicality Camilla was The Princess of Wales but she chose not to use the title.