How Charles and Diana’s marriage unravelled from first day of their honeymoon – thanks to a pair of cufflinks

WHEN a 16-year- old Diana met bachelor Prince Charles at a shooting weekend at her family’s Althorp estate, she was hardly bowled over.

“What a sad man,” was her initial reaction, recounted in her later taped reminiscences.

Charles, then 29, was dating Diana’s sister Sarah as he desperately sought a bride and heir to the throne.

Lady Sarah Spencer seemed no more impressed, telling reporters at the time she would not marry Charles, “If he were the dustman or the King of England”.

Charles was furious when he saw the resulting articles and told Sarah: “You have just done something incredibly stupid.”

Unsurprisingly, the relationship fizzled out soon afterwards.

Yet, something about Diana — a pretty but in her own estimation “podgy” teen — clearly intrigued Charles.

Telling author Andrew Morton the story of that first meeting, Diana said: “My sister Sarah was all over him like a bad rash, and I thought, ‘God, he must really hate that’.

“I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, unsmart lady but I made a lot of noise, and he liked that.”

After dinner Diana danced with Charles and he asked her to show him Althorp’s 115ft-long picture gallery before she was shooed away by Sarah.

Diana remembered Charles being “charm himself”.

She added: “And when I stood next to him the next day, a 16-year-old — for someone like that to show you any attention, I was just so sort of amazed.

“Why would anyone like him be interested in me? And it was interest.

“The next minute, he leapt on me practically, and I thought this was very strange, too.”

Sarah was invited to Charles’s 30th birthday dance in November 1978 at Buckingham Palace at which The Three Degrees performed. Diana was invited too.

The future Princess of Wales remembered, “‘Why is Diana coming as well?’ my sister asked.

“I said, ‘Well, I don’t know, but I’d like to come’.

“I had a very nice time at the dance — fascinating. I wasn’t at all intimidated by the surroundings.”

Then came the fateful stay at the West Sussex home of mutual friend Philip de Pass in July 1980.

Diana remembered: “Charles came in. He was all over me again, and it was very strange.

“I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t very cool’. I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious. I thought this was very odd.”

A ROYAL MATCH

Lady Diana Frances Spencer — the fourth of five children of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp — had spent her life around royalty.

Her grandmothers had both served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

Diana grew up in Park House on the Sandringham estate, which the Spencers leased from the Queen, playing with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward.

Charles recognised that with Diana’s blue blood, beauty and virginal innocence, he might have found his queen.

Two weeks after their meeting in Sussex, Charles invited Diana aboard the royal yacht Britannia for a sailing weekend to Cowes.

Then came an invitation to Balmoral to meet his family in November 1980.

Diana would later note icily: “Mr and Mrs Parker Bowles were there at all my visits.”

Diana was met with approval by the Queen, the Queen Mother and the Duke of Edinburgh, and the courtship continued.

Then finally the wait was over. The Prince proposed on February 6, 1981.

Diana accepted, but their engagement was kept secret for the next few weeks.

“I wanted to give her a chance to think about it — to think if it was all going to be too awful,’’ Prince Charles later said in a joint interview.

Diana then interjected: “Oh, I never had any doubts about it.’’

Describing herself as Cupid, Diana’s sister Sarah said: “He met Miss Right and she met Mr Right. They just clicked.

“They have the same giggly sense of humour, and they both love ballet and opera and sport in all forms.’’

Diana was 19, Charles 32. Asked about the age difference, the Prince said: “Diana will certainly keep me young.’’

Ominously when the couple were asked if they were in love, Diana quickly chipped in, “Of course!” while Charles answered, “Whatever love means”.

Boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy

Charles on his honeymoon row with Diana

Their wedding on July 29, 1981, at St Paul’s Cathedral, was watched by a TV audience of 750million in 74 countries.

Yet the couple barely knew each other. Diana later admitted: “We met only 13 times before our wedding day.”

COUPLE IN TURMOIL

And on the very first day of their honeymoon onboard the yacht Britannia things began to unravel.

Diana noticed Charles was wearing a pair of cufflinks with two entwined letter Cs.

She would later recall: “So I said, ‘Camilla gave you those, didn’t she?’.

He said, ‘Yes, so what’s wrong? They’re a present from a friend’. And boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy.”

It was not the first time Camilla had impinged on the couple’s relationship.

Weeks before their marriage Diana had come across a bracelet inscribed with the letters GF among their wedding gifts.

They stood for Gladys and Fred, their pet names for each other.

It had been ordered by a member of staff on Charles’s orders.

On another occasion, Diana remembered: “We were opening our diaries to discuss various things. Out comes two pictures of Camilla.”

It was on their honeymoon that Diana found she had little in common with her husband, who liked painting, reading non-fiction essays and hunting.

The widening rift was put aside and on November 5, 1981, the Princess’s first pregnancy was officially announced.

Yet the young bride was in turmoil.

She would later recall: “When I was four months pregnant with William I threw myself downstairs, trying to get my husband’s attention, for him to listen to me.

“The Queen comes out, absolutely horrified, shaking. She was so frightened.”

Diana was severely bruised but the baby was unharmed. She added: “I knew what was wrong with me, but nobody else around me understood me. It was a desperate cry for help.”

On June 21, 1982, the Princess gave birth to Prince William. The young family went on tours of Australia and New Zealand, delighting the crowds.

At the same time, Charles and Camilla had continued to meet at fox hunts close to their Gloucestershire homes.

In 1984, pregnant with Prince Harry, Diana suspected that her husband was seeing Camilla at other times, too.

But as the birth approached, Diana recalled: “Charles and I were very, very close to each other the six weeks before Harry was born — the closest we’ve ever, ever been and ever will be.

“Then, suddenly, as Harry was born, it just went bang, our marriage. The whole thing went down the drain.”

Harry, was born on September 15, 1984. By 1985, speculation about the rift between Charles and Diana had reached fever pitch in the Press.

In tapes recorded by a voice coach, Diana revealed that when she quizzed Charles as to why Camilla was still part of his life, he told her: “I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.’’

Diana nicknamed Camilla “the rottweiler’’ and in 1989 confronted her rival.

She later recalled: “It wasn’t a fight. I said to Camilla, ‘I’m sorry I’m in the way.

“It must be hell for both of you but I do know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot’.’’

END OF THE MARRIAGE

Andrew Morton’s 1992 bombshell book, Diana: Her True Story, for which the Princess provided taped interviews, revealed a depressed and isolated woman certain of her husband’s infidelity.

Yet Diana was having affairs, too. She had a five-year romance with cavalry officer James Hewitt from 1986 to 1991.

On a 1992 tour to India, Diana was photographed alone on a bench in front of the Taj Mahal while Charles met business leaders.

It came to symbolise a disintegrating marriage.

In August that same year The Sun published the Squidgygate tape in which Diana’s friend James Gilbey referred to her as “Darling” 14 times and as “Squidgy” (or “Squidge”) 53 times.

On a disastrous tour of Korea in November 1992, the royal couple were nicknamed The Glums.

A month later Prime Minister John Major announced their “amicable separation” to the House of Commons.

Then another bombshell. In 1993, the leaked Camillagate tapes appeared in which Charles and Camilla had an X-rated conversation.

Charles is heard saying: “I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!”

A laughing Camilla replies: “What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers? Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers.”

Charles answers: “Or, God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck!”

In June 1994, Charles confessed to Jonathan Dimbleby in a TV interview that he had been unfaithful to Diana, saying he rekindled his relationship with Camilla in 1986 only after his marriage had “irretrievably broken down”.

Then in November 1995, Diana chose BBC’s Panorama to give her side of the sorry story, telling presenter Martin Bashir: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

The interview proved to be the tipping point. In December, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had sent letters to the Prince and Princess of Wales advising them to divorce.

The divorce was finalised on August 28, 1996. Diana lost the Her Royal Highness title.

Prince William was reported to have reassured his mother: “Don’t worry, Mummy, I will give it back to you one day when I am King.”

In July 1997, Charles hosted a party for Camilla’s 50th birthday at Highgrove.

At the same time, Diana was happy to accept playboy Dodi Fayed’s offer of a holiday in the south of France.

A few weeks later, she was dead.

On August 31 the Mercedes she was travelling in crashed in Paris.

Diana was just 36. William and Harry 15 and 12.

Charles “fell apart” but persuaded the Queen to allow him to journey to Paris to bring his ex-wife’s body home.

Richard Kay, a journalist and friend of Diana, said: “Charles fought harder for Diana than he had ever fought for her in her lifetime.”

Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles, added: “He instantly knew this was a terrible thing, that he would be blamed.”

Charles’s popularity plummeted. With Camilla at his side, many now insisted he should never be King.