Princes Diana and Prince Margaret had a frosty relationship and were neighbours at Kensington Palace for years. It is believed that the two women never saw eye-to-eye and Queen Elizabeth’s only sibling was hostile towards the Princess of Wales.
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Burning history
Reportedly, Princess Margret burned ‘a decade worth’ of letters sent by Princess Diana to Queen Mother while she was clearing out her room. Not only Princess Diana’s letters but also hundreds and thousands other letters which is ‘horrifying’ for a historian, claims royal author Gareth Russell.
A fellow historian Kenneth Rose, confirmed:
She spent a week going through every drawer, wearing white gloves and stopping only for a picnic lunch, throwing away most of her mother's personal correspondence.
She filled no fewer than 30 black bags with the papers, which William thinks were shredded…
The Express reported that Princess Margaret wrote a letter to her mother and said:
Darling Mummy, I am sitting in your sitting room doing a bit of sorting … I’ve nearly cleared the chaise longue and made an attack on the fire stool.
William Shawcross – the one who wrote Queen Mother’s official biography – confirmed that Princess Margaret herself confessed it to one of the Lady-in-waiting that amongst the letters she destroyed, there were also the ‘private’ letters of Princess Diana sent to the Queen Mother.
Why did she do it?
Gareth Russell delved further into history to realise that it was a common practice amongst aristocrats to burn private letters so that they could never be made public. He said:
Aristocrats did that because they felt that letters sent privately shouldn't ever be [public] — it was a breaking of a code almost. So I think the Queen Mother was fully on board with Margaret doing it.
As such, even the Queen mother had in a way given her approval to Princess Margaret to burn those letters.
Source Used
The Express: Princess Margaret 'burned all of Diana's letters' to Queen Mother
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