Royal Biographer Ingrid Seward has detailed the late Queen's relationship with Princess Diana, and how she sought comfort from the monarch at her "low points" in her marriage to King Charles.
Seward has revealed details of King Charles's upbringing and his relationships with both Diana and Queen Camilla in her latest book, 'My Mother And I'.
The memoir also details the King's relationship with his late mother and how he had "always longed to be hugged by her".
Seward told GB News that Princess Diana was a "complex character" and "wasn't understood" by Queen Elizabeth until later on, before her tragic death in 1997.
Ingrid Seward says
GBN America / Fox Photos / Stringer
Princess Diana's rocky relationship with the then Prince of Wales was well documented in the media at the time, as well as his ongoing close relationship with Camilla, who is now Queen.
Seward told GBN America that King Charles "fell in love" with Camilla when they were first introduced in their early 20s, but he was sent away to the Navy to "help his career".
Princess Diana became increasingly unhappy in her marriage to the King as he remained "heartbroken" following Camilla's marriage to Andrew Parker-Bowles.
Diana famously told BBC's Panorama that there were "three of us in this marriage", and that she "really couldn't compete" with Camilla or the true love between them.
Princess Diana used to 'cry to Queen Elizabeth' at the Palace about her marriage to Charles
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Seward claimed Queen Elizabeth was "very hard to approach" and "didn't like any sort of moral conflict".
This resulted in her distant relationship with Princess Diana, who Seward claimed used to "come to cry in her sitting room" and complain that Charles "hated her", which the late Queen "didn't know how to deal with it".
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Seward told host Nana Akua: "She was used to conflict but not moral conflict. Later on, the Queen felt that had she been more able to cope with Diana, she might have been able to help a bit more with the marriage.
"And Charles then used to ring out and say 'you don't understand my wife, she's impossible', and he would scream down the phone at his mother - that was probably the low point of their relationship.
"The Queen then began to understand the complexities of Diana's character and have a lot more sympathy for her son."
The biographer also revealed that the late Queen "hated divorce" and was "horrified" at the idea of Charles and Diana splitting in that way.
Ingrid Seward says Princess Diana was a 'complex character' for the late Queen to deal with
GBN America
Seward revealed: "She was head of the church, defender of the faith and she was horrified at the idea of divorce.
"But eventually it came to that, after Diana given that interview to Panorama, and she saw no way forward because Charles and Diana's war of the worlds was overtaking every other news story. And that's really not what a head of state wants."
Nana agreed, recalling her memories of the extensive coverage of their relationship breakdown: "They'd go to an event and Princess Diana would be in the shadows looking miserable and glum, and the cameras would be on her wondering why she was like that.
"She never seemed happy when they were together and it never looked good."
