While many might be surprised to learn that King Charles was an accomplished romantic letter-writer, one woman was determined to showcase his skills to the world.
This is according to royal biographer Ingrid Seward who said the late Princess Diana wanted to show the world there was a “great period of love” between herself and the former Prince of Wales.
Speaking during an Oldie magazine launch, Seward revealed that shortly before her death, Diana expressed her wish for the public to see the heartfelt letters from Charles.
“She really wanted people to know that she loved Charles and he loved her. And I always remembered that,” she said.
“And she wanted the boys [Prince William and Prince Harry] to know that.”
The royal commentator claimed that the Princess wanted “the early days of her romance with the heir to the throne to be properly reflected.”
No one is sure which letters the Princess of Wales was referring to. Charles and Diana married in 1981 and went on to have Prince William in 1982 and Prince Harry in 1984.
Princess Diana reportedly told Andrew Morton, journalist and author of Diana: Her True Story, that she and the future King Charles “were very, very close to each other the six weeks before Harry was born”.
Unfortunately, this affection between the then Charles and Diana would not last and the couple divorced in 1996.
Recently her letters were made public and they reveal how the Princess felt during the last turbulent years of her marriage.
Some, known as the Christmas letters, reveal her distress at spending Christmas with the Royal Family at their Sandringham Estate , while others describe her divorce from the then Prince of Wales as “desperate and ugly”.
The Christmas letters are part of a collection of Diana’s “highly personal” correspondence which were given to Lay’s Auctioneer by Susie and Tarek Kassem, two of Diana’s closest friends, who she had met two years prior to her death.
The Kassems had kept the “treasured” letters for over 25 years as they showed “the special and loving relationship they had with the most unique women that they had ever known”.
According to a statement made by Lay’s Auctioneers, “the ownership of these poignant documents is a responsibility that the Kassems do not wish to pass on to their children or grandchildren”.
“They have decided to sell the letters and use proceeds of the sale to support some of the charities that were close to Susie and Diana’s hearts,” the statement read.
The letters went to auction on February 2023 and sold for over AU$ 250,000.00 (£145,550).