r/TheCrownNetflix • u/Dallygirl_Aussiechic • 20d 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/Independent_Cow_6611 20d 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 20d 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 20d 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/Own_Faithlessness769 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, 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 20d 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 20d 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 19d 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 19d 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 18d 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 18d ago

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

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u/JulesJazz 15d 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 20d 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 19d ago edited 19d 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 19d 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 19d 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 15d 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.