Queen Elizabeth II claimed that the brakes of the vehicle involved in Princess Diana’s 1997 car crash in Paris were greased, a new book has revealed.
According to Andrew Morton’s ‘The Queen’, the monarch made the remark before finding out that the princess had died. The book has been serialised in the Daily Mail newspaper.
“Early reports suggested that Diana had suffered only a broken arm and walked away from the accident in a Paris underpass. Her mother-in-law’s initial response to the news was extraordinary: ‘Someone must have greased the brakes’”, it reads.
Morton argued that Her Majesty’s reaction “shocked and puzzled her staff, who'd rarely heard her use such colloquial language”, adding, “Was the Queen implying that Diana had been a target?”
The author then described “a rare show of affection”, during which “the sovereign and her son physically consoled one another, perhaps sensing that this event was going to be emotionally unprecedented”.
“The Queen ordered a pot of tea but never touched a drop as she, Prince Philip and Prince Charles paced the tartan-carpeted corridor, wondering what should be done. When news of Diana's death came through, Charles wept, saying over and over: ‘What have we done to deserve this?’” the biography asserts.
According to the book, Prince Charles’ “first instincts were about how the public would blame him for the tragedy—an assumption that was largely accurate”.
Princess Diana was involved in a car accident in a Paris tunnel in August 1997 along with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul. Fayed and Paul died instantly, while Diana sustained severe injuries and was treated at the scene before being rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest. She died in the early hours of 31 August 1997.
Two separate investigations into the crash were conducted by French and British police. Both revealed that Fayed’s driver Paul was responsible for the tragedy, purportedly driving too fast in order to escape paparazzi, as well as being under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
However, Fayed’s father Mohamed Fayed, an Egyptian businessman and billionaire, claimed the crash had been planned by British spy agency MI6 and Queen Elizabeth’s late husband, Prince Philip. Other conspiracy theories suggest that Diana’s ex-husband Prince Charles was involved in the murder plot.