ROYAL’S CRY
Queen: Someone must have greased the brakes
QUEEN ELIZABETH immediately suspected foul play in the 1997 car crash that killed Princess Diana, according to a new book.
“Someone must have greased the brakes,” said the queen after the Paris car crash that killed Diana, her boyfriend and a chauffeur, biographer Ingrid Seward writes in her book “The Queen’s Speech.”
The British monarch publicly expressed grief, calling Diana “an exceptional and gifted human being."
But the queen’s immediate response to the crash revealed just how “complex” her relationship with Diana had turned, according to an excerpt published Saturday in the Daily Mail.
The book portrays the British ruler as the doting mother-in-law who showered Diana with attention at her lavish 1981 wedding to Prince Charles. Diana is depicted as the frosty one.
“The Queen’s Speech” will be published by Simon & Schuster and will be available Aug. 27.
The queen was initially fond of Lady Diana Spencer, whom she had watched grow up, according to Seward. “She is one of us,” the queen wrote to a friend .
But even before the wedding, Diana grew anxious around Elizabeth.
“The queen made a great fuss of her future daughter-in-law, trying to demonstrate that she was interested in Diana for her personal qualities and not just for what she represented, as the wife to the heir of the throne,” Seward wrote.
“But Diana ran out of things to say to her.”
Diana became so nervous about a one-on-one lunch with the Queen that she “made excuses, even inventing nonexistent friends to avoid the invitations.”
Elizabeth continued to look out for Diana, even as she turned cold to the queen, Seward said.
The queen wanted to give Diana a break from the relentless press coverage, but Diana “resented any shift of focus away from her” in the media, Seward wrote. And their relationship grew even more strained as Diana’s marriage to Charles dissolved.
When a book came out divulging a “catalogue of marital grievances,” Diana denied cooperating with the writer.
“Don’t you realize? She’s mad, mad and mad?” Charles reportedly ranted to the queen over the phone shortly before his separation from Diana in 1992.
They formally divorced in August 1996.
The queen told a staffer, “I think you will find it’s all for the best.”