Princess Diana believed her husband, Prince Charles, was given permission by his father to return to his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles, after five years of marriage, according to Diana’s former butler.
In excerpts published Thursday from a new chapter for his best-selling book, “A Royal Duty,” Paul Burrell says the princess felt she had been “sold to the royal family” to “produce an heir and a spare” — a reference to the couple’s two sons.
Burrell said Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997, told him Charles declared during a row that his father, Prince Philip, had agreed he could return to Parker Bowles if the marriage to Diana did not work after five years.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Burrell said that in releasing such details he was defending his former employer, who referred to him as “my rock.”
Earlier this year, Burrell revealed Diana had written a letter about her fears that her husband was planning to kill her, possibly by arranging a car crash.
The prince’s Clarence House office refused to comment.