Ok, Let's break it down.
Princess Michael, married to a first cousin of the Queen's, lived next door to Diana in Kensington Palace, formerly a German Baroness, and a Catholic.
This is from Wikipedia. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but I will-- she's a Nazi from back in the day and her best friends were David and Wallis.
"Early life and ancestry
Princess Michael was born Freiin (Baroness) Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz[1] on 15 January 1945[2] in Karlovy Vary, then part of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and officially known as Karlsbad in the German-populated Sudetenland, now in the Czech Republic. She was born at Jagdschloss Inselthal, the family estate inherited from her Austrian maternal grandmother, Princess Hedwig von Windisch-Graetz (1878–1918), the eldest daughter of Alfred III, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, who served as the 11th Minister-President of Austria and was President of the Imperial Council from 1895 to 1918.[3][4][5]
Marie‑Christine was born into the Reibnitz family, an ancient (uradel) German noble house from Silesia whose lineage can be traced back to 1288 with Henricus de Rybnicz.[6] The ancestral seat of the family was Burg Läusepelz, today Rybnica in present-day Poland.[7] On her paternal line, she descends from the Burggrafen of Dohna, Herrand III von Trauttmansdorff, and the Nostitz family, lineages that also appear among the ancestors of Queen Elizabeth II.[8]
She is the younger daughter of Freiherr Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz (1894–1983) and his second wife, Countess Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walburga Bernadette Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár (1911–1988),[1] the daughter of Count Friedrich Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Saint Petersburg at the outbreak of the First World War.[9] Through her mother, Marie‑Christine descends from the House of Lobkowicz and numerous other Austrian princely families, connections that link her by blood to her husband, Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III.[10][11][12] She is also descended from Henry II of France and his wife, Catherine de' Medici, and from Henry II's longtime mistress and rival of Catherine, Diane de Poitiers, a connection she has noted in her historical writing.[13][14][15] Through this line, she also descends from Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish Baroque painter and diplomat who was knighted by both the Habsburg and Stuart monarchs.[16][17]
Marie‑Christine's father was a member of the Nazi Party and served as a cavalry officer in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War.[18][19]"
She famously said, "They bred Diana like a racehorse."
This is the first fact that should probably be understood clearly as the essential basis of the Queen's relationship with Diana.
I should add that according to an imminent historian, the Queen was never intimidated by any woman, except Diana. She was intimidated by Diana, among all the women on earth.
She didn't like Diana, certainly.
They weren't "enemies" in the beginning.
It's not a secret their relation lost control and slid sideways.
To put everything is some perspective, at the time Diana famously visited the hospital and shook hands with AIDS patients, the Queen had specifically told her not to do it, and even though Diana felt hurt by this, Diana shrugged it off and the rest is history.
Diana couldn't be bossed.
For Diana's part, she loathed the Windsors, the whole lot of them, except her husband.
She once famously wrote they were akin to a viper's nest and said the Queen Mother was the head viper.
Thank you for reading forum!
And now a word to kids today...
Don't be distracted by shiny objects in a story more that full of them. Start from the engagement of Prince Charles and Lady Diana and work forward until you feel you understand the characters' perspectives and then you will be able to piece together a realistic narrative. You weren't there. The media started out telling a ridiculous fairytale. The media are still at it. Nobody is blaming you. But today's pedantic thought is don't take things out of context.
