Prince Charles and Princess Diana had a tumultuous marriage that ended in a highly publicized divorce. Here’s a complete timeline of their relationship.

• The latest season of "The Crown" shows the fictionalized beginning of Prince Charles' and Princess Diana's tumultuous relationship, and the royal couple's real-life love story was arguably just as dramatic.
• Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer met through her sister, Sarah Spencer.
• At the time, Diana was just 16 years old and Prince Charles was 29.
• Prince Charles and Princess Diana were together for 15 years before divorcing in 1996.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana's relationship, marriage, and eventual divorce have been the subject of public fascination for decades.

Now, the relationship is gaining renewed publicity due to Netflix's "The Crown," which tells a fictional version of the couple's early years in its fourth season. 

Here's a timeline of Prince Charles and Princess Diana's tumultuous relationship, from when the young couple first met to their tragic end.

Early 1970s: Prince Charles dated Camilla Parker Bowles. The pair would remain connected for the rest of their lives, impacting his relationship with Diana.

The pair began dating after reportedly meeting at a polo match at Windsor Castle in 1970. Despite Camilla and Charles' blossoming romance, things fizzled out after the Prince of Wales was deployed in the Royal Navy in 1972. 

While Prince Charles was serving in the Royal Navy, Camilla became engaged to an Army cavalry officer, Andrew Parker Bowles. They married in 1973, but the couple remained good friends with the prince. Prince Charles was even named the godfather of Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles' first son.

Late 1970s: Charles and Diana were introduced through the prince's relationship with Diana's sister, Sarah Spencer, in 1977.

Following his breakup with Camilla, Prince Charles dated a series of women. Among them was Sarah Spencer, the eldest daughter of an aristocratic family with strong ties to the British family and government. 

However, the two were not meant to be. According to Town and Country, Spencer told Time in 1978 that she did not see a future with the royal.

"There is no chance of my marrying him. I'm not in love with him," she reportedly said. "And I wouldn't marry anyone I didn't love whether he were the dustman or the King of England."

However, all was not lost — Sarah's younger sister, Lady Diana Spencer, was introduced to the prince at a shooting party in 1978.

"I remember thinking what a very jolly and amusing and attractive 16-year-old she was," Charles recalled in a 1981 interview with the Telegraph. "I mean, great fun, and bouncy and full of life and everything."

July 1980: Three years later, Diana Spencer and Prince Charles met again, igniting a romantic relationship.

Photographers and journalists started following Diana as rumors swirled that she was soon to be engaged to the future king. 

According to Town and Country, many of Charles' and Diana's first conversations took place over the phone. Less than a year after the couple began dating and after only 13 in-person meetings, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer announced their engagement. 

February 24, 1981: Prince Charles, then 32, and Diana, then 19, announced their engagement.

From the outside looking in, Diana and Charles looked very much like a young couple in love. However, the princess-to-be still had doubts about her future husband. 

"We had this ghastly interview the day we announced our engagement," she said in the documentary, "Diana: In Her Own Words." "And this ridiculous [reporter] said, 'Are you in love?' I thought, 'What a thick question.' So I said, 'Yes, of course, we are,' and Charles turned around and said, 'Whatever love means.' And that threw me completely. I thought, 'What a strange answer.' It traumatized me."

May 1981: Diana Spencer spent time with Prince Charles and the royal family at Balmoral Castle in Scotland months before the couple tied the knot.

Spencer's visit to Balmoral Castle reportedly marked only her third official date with Prince Charles. It was during this holiday that Diana made a favorable impression on the royal family, as chronicled in "The Crown."

July 29, 1981: Prince Charles and Diana were married in a spectacular televised ceremony.

It was then called the "wedding of the century." Roughly 750 million people in 74 different countries tuned in to watch the couple tie the knot, in addition to the 600,000 spectators who lined the streets of London.

According to the BBC, it marked "a highpoint" in the popularity of the British royal family in the 1980s, largely due to Diana's growing celebrity status.

July 1981: The couple's honeymoon foreshadowed future issues.

Newlyweds Princess Diana and Prince Charles went on a 14-day cruise aboard the royal yacht, Britannia, to celebrate their honeymoon. However, it was anything but smooth sailing for the royal couple.

According to Stephen Barry's book, "The Diana Chronicles," Prince Charles called Camilla Parker Bowles daily.

Princess Diana also spoke about Camilla's invisible presence on the honeymoon and a gift the prince received from his former lover.

"On our honeymoon, cufflinks arrive on his wrists," Diana said. "Two C's entwined like the Chanel 'C'. Got it. One knew exactly. So I said, 'Camilla gave you those didn't she?' He said, 'Yes, so what's wrong? They're a present from a friend.' And boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy. And it was such a good idea the two 'C's but it wasn't that clever."

June 21, 1982: Prince William was born.

Princess Diana was the first royal to give birth in a hospital — it was custom for members of the royal family to give birth at the palace.

Diana and Charles reportedly disagreed on what their first son should be named. According to Diana herself in Andrew Morton's book, "Diana: Her True Story," Charles originally wanted William to be named Arthur.

March 1983: Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and Prince William arrived in Australia for the couple's first official royal tour.

The tour was a huge success in strengthening the presence of the royal family in Australia.

However, while Prince Charles was initially intended to be the star of the tour, it was Princess Diana's charm, warmth, and image as a doting mother that truly won over the people of Australia.

1983: "Diana fever" swept the world as the princess' popularity grew.

Princess Diana was always eager to meet with people of all ages and backgrounds while traveling and refused to wear gloves when meeting people, which was typically customary for royals.

Nearly 100,000 people cheered for Prince Charles and Princess Diana as they drove through the streets of Tokyo in 1986, exemplifying that Diana's popularity reached far beyond the borders of the United Kingdom.

September 15, 1984: Prince Harry was born.

According to Good Housekeeping and Diana's biography "Diana: Her True Story — in Her Own Words," the princess kept the truth that she was carrying a boy from Charles, who reportedly was hoping for a girl.

July 1986: From the outside looking in, Prince Charles and Princess Diana appeared to have a happy marriage.

The pair were photographed smiling with their two children, Prince William and Prince Harry, at Highgrove Castle in July 1986. The royal family presented a united front and Diana was lauded as a hands-on, affectionate mother.

However, inside, Diana was in turmoil. Struggling with an eating disorder and marital troubles, the princess' mental health was in crisis. 

In the now-controversial 1995 interview with Martin Bashir of the BBC — her brother says she was deceived into speaking with Bashir — Diana described bulimia as a "symptom of what was going on in [her] marriage," and described it as "a secret disease."

"You inflict it upon yourself because your self-esteem is at a low ebb, and you don't think you're worthy or valuable," she said. "You fill your stomach up four or five times a day — some do it more — and it gives you a feeling of comfort."

"I was crying out for help, but giving the wrong signals, and people were using my bulimia as a coat on a hanger: They decided that was the problem — Diana was unstable," she said.

1987: After Princess Diana's bodyguard was transferred to another role due to rumors the two were having a romantic relationship, trouble between the royal couple became more public.

Barry Mannakee was assigned to guard the princess in 1985.

According to private recordings, Diana apparently referred to her married bodyguard as the "greatest love" of her life and that she would have been "quite happy to give all this up and to just go off and live with him."

Months after being transferred, Mannakee was killed in a motorcycle accident.

1986: Prince Charles reportedly started a romantic relationship with his ex-girlfriend and friend, Camilla Parker Bowles.

According to Sally Bedell Smith's biography of Prince Charles, he and Camilla Parker Bowles reportedly began having an affair in 1986, after years of a platonic friendship. 

Parker Bowles' husband, Andrew, reportedly knew about the affair and did little to stop it. Princess Diana also reportedly knew about the affair and cited it as the biggest reason for her marital troubles. 

In response to a question about Camilla's involvement in the "breakdown of her marriage," she said in the BBC interview, "Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

1989: Princess Diana confronted Camilla about the affair at a birthday party.

According to archived recordings from National Geographic and the documentary, "Diana: In Her Own Words," Princess Diana approached Camilla at a party after becoming suspicious of her involvement with her husband. 

According to the recordings, Diana went downstairs where she found her husband speaking with Camilla and another friend. After her husband and the friend left the room, Diana told Camilla, "I'd just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on."

Diana then recalled Camilla defending herself by saying that Diana had "all the men in the world." However, when asked "what more could she want," Diana replied by saying, "I want my husband."

November 1992: Details about Prince Charles' affair with Camilla were leaked to the Daily Mail in a scandal dubbed "Camillagate."

As Insider previously reported, an "intimate transcript of a 1989 phone call" between Prince Charles and Camilla was released to the public in November 1992. The call was scandalous and sexual in nature, with Prince Charles reportedly joking he would like to be transformed into a pair of Parker Bowles' "knickers" or her tampon.

"I'll just live inside your trousers or something," he said. "It would be much easier."

December 1992: Prince Charles and Princess Diana separated, and they carried out their royal duties apart from each other.

In December, a short time after Camilla and Charles' intimate phone transcript was released, Prime Minister John Major confirmed that the Prince and Princess of Wales had formally separated from one another.

Both royals continued to go on royal engagements, though they now did it alone. 

June 1994: Prince Charles publicly admitted to having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and Princess Diana wore her famous "revenge dress."

In June 1994, Prince Charles admitted to having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles during an interview with documentary filmmaker Jonathan Dimbleby.

Though the documentary was initially intended to improve public opinion of the prince, he ended up admitting to his infidelity, saying he was "faithful and honorable" to Diana during their marriage "until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried." 

Dimbleby's biography of the prince, "The Prince of Wales: A Biography," later confirmed that Camilla Parker Bowles was the woman involved with Prince Charles during his marriage to Diana.

The same night the documentary was released, Princess Diana attended a Vanity Fair party wearing what would be called the "revenge dress" — a form-fitting, off-the-shoulder LBD by designer Christina Stambolian.

January 1995: Camilla Parker Bowles filed for a divorce from her husband, Andrew Parker Bowles.

Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles announced they were getting divorced in 1995, amidst the media firestorm of Parker Bowles' and Prince Charles' affair.

August 1996: Charles and Diana officially filed for divorce after 15 years of marriage.

Princess Diana received a generous divorce settlement, the right to continue using her title of "Princess of Wales," and retained her apartments at Kensington Palace. However, the "people's princess" had to relinquish the title of "Her Royal Highness" and any future claims to the British throne.

In her interview with Bashir, Princess Diana admitted she never saw herself ruling the United Kingdom, but wanted to remain "a queen in people's hearts."

The late 1990s: Princess Diana was romantically linked to multiple men in the tabloids.

Following her divorce from Prince Charles, Diana was linked to a number of male suitors, including surgeon Hasnat Ahmad Khan, singer Bryan Adams, and, lastly, Dodi Fayed, the son of an Egyptian Billionaire.

August 31, 1997: Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris.

In the early hours of August 31, 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were involved in a car crash that killed them both and driver Henri Paul in Paris, France. According to the Telegraph, Fayed and Paul were both killed on impact, while the Princess of Wales, then just 36, died due to injuries sustained in the crash at a French hospital a few hours later.

Following her death, Prince Charles traveled to Paris to bring her body back to England. He also reportedly halted plans to formally announce Camilla as his partner.

There was an immense public outpouring of grief for Diana, "the people's princess," following her death.

At her funeral, her brother, Earl Spencer, said in his eulogy, "For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today."

April 9, 2005: Prince Charles and Camilla officially married after years of courtship.

After moving into Clarence House together in August 2003, the couple announced their engagement roughly two years later.

More than 30 years after the couple met at a polo match, Prince Charles and Camilla married in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. 

In 2007, Camilla chose not to attend a royal memorial service recognizing the 10-year anniversary of Princess Diana's death, saying she believed her "attendance could divert attention from the purpose of the occasion which is to focus on the life and service of Diana." 

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