When Princess Diana 'wonderful' gesture was slammed by 'struggling' Princess Anne

Princess Diana and Princess Anne struggled throughout their relationship as sister-in-laws.

According to Ingrid Seward, the tension between the two women “came to a head” even before Diana tied the knot wit Prince Charles.

In her 1995 book ‘Prince Edward’, Ms Seward wrote: “The situation came to an early head at the end of Ascot week in June 1981, barely a month before Diana’s marriage.”

Diana had sensed “Anne’s apathy toward her and wanting to ingratiate herself, she ventured up to the nursery in the Queen’s Tower where Anne was settling in with her son Peter, who was three at the time, and her four-week-old daughter Zara.

"Ma’am, how wonderful to see you," Diana curtsy out of respect.

“Anne is contemptuous of pretension at the best of times.

“When she was struggling with two small children she had no time for it at all.”

Seward continued: “She looked up at Diana — and looked straight through her.

“Diana, confronted by the searing force of Anne’s scorn, fled the room.”

Ms Seward claimed the Princess Royal “was indifferent to Diana from the very beginning.”

She added: “She treated the woman, who by marriage to her elder brother might have become her Queen, with withering disdain.

“She called her ‘a silly girl," added Ms Seward.