Newly Unearthed Princess Diana Letter Reveals What Really Went Down on Her Honeymoon With Charles
Diana reportedly penned a letter to former classmate Katherine Hanbury, sharing intimate details of her wedding.
It has been almost three decades since Princess Diana's unfortunate passing, and over four decades since her royal wedding, but anything and everything related to her still piques public interest. Now, a rare window into her private thoughts came to light through a handwritten letter Diana wrote in September 1981, which is going into an auction.
Diana reportedly penned the letter to her former classmate, Katherine Hanbury, wherein she shared with her friend the intimate details of her wedding to the then-Prince Charles, specifically highlighting her honeymoon. The letter is expected to fetch between £4,000 and £6,000 ($5,394-$8,090) in auction. The collection also includes rare photographs from Diana’s school days alongside classmates who would grow up to be famous faces themselves.
As per the Telegraph, in the letter, Diana wrote to Hanbury stating, “It's wonderful being married—I think it's safe to say that after two months...!” She described it as “a case of playing with grown-ups!” The Princess added, “We had a blissful honeymoon with endless sun and luckily calm seas… We are now up in Scotland until the end of October, which is a big treat for us—I adore being outside all day & hate London!”
Elaborating more on the content of the letters, books, and manuscripts, a specialist at Gorringe’s Fine Art & Interiors, Albert Radford, shared, “This intimate archive offers a rare glimpse of Diana, Princess of Wales, before duty and fame had the final say.” He continued, “Through our client’s recollections from West Heath Girls’ School, Diana comes across as deeply unassuming and domestically minded—someone whose real ambition was simply to have a family and take pride in ordinary things.”
Radford explained, “She remembers Diana volunteering to clean the house of the headmistress, and it is memories like this and the collection that has come to light that present the real young Diana in a way that is completely at odds with the public persona that was created by others.” Further explaining Diana's situation back in the day, he added, “She appears here as a young woman suspended between love and history—hopeful, unguarded, and not yet entirely claimed by the institution that would come to define her. In these small, fragile traces, innocence lingers—along with a quiet, stubborn belief in something as simple and elusive as love.”
