Reason King Charles wanted Princess Diana, Queen Camilla to be friends

King Charles seemingly wanted Queen Camilla and Princess Diana to become friends.

His Majesty, who married Queen Camilla in 2005 almost a decade after Princess Diana’s passing, wanted the two women to get along well with each other.

In the new book Divide and Rule: Royal Women and Their Battles, author Catherine Mayer notes: "Diana interpreted her rival's overtures of friendship towards her during this period as intelligence gathering.”

"Camilla seems unlikely to have taken on such a mission unilaterally," Mayer explains.

"A more plausible theory, suggested by sources with some knowledge of these events, is that Charles saw Camilla as the person best placed to induct his fiancée into his life."

Mayer adds: "After all, [Camilla] knew [Charles] and his ways intimately. If accurate, this is the detail among all others that comes closest to crossing the line from the disordered impulses common to such situations to something colder."

The author notes: "Even if Charles, at this stage, lacked the emotional intelligence to grasp how misguided the idea was, you might have expected Camilla to demur."