Dated July 31, 1981, the letter is from Diana to Mark Simpson, a footman at Buckingham Palace, whom she appears to be thanking for helping her early transition into life in the Royal Family.<\/p>\n
The letter reads, \u201cDear Mark, I just wanted to thank you for all your kindness + patience you\u2019ve showed towards me since I moved into B.P. My stay was made so much easier by your company as it was so terribly lonely + we had so many laughs for that I\u00a0can\u2019t thank you enough. Do hope you were able to enjoy Wednesday + that you liked my dress? I\u2019m off to Britainia tomorrow, what with all those men around. I will have to keep a watchful eye on Evelyn! The bad news is that I haven\u2019t eaten any cereal \u2014 sob. How am I going to cope without my bowls of cereal\u2026.[smiley face]. A large thank you for being you \u2014 Much love, Diana.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just days after marrying the then-prince in a lavish London ceremony that was watched by upwards of 700 million people around the world, Diana makes no mention of her new husband and instead discusses feeling \u201cterribly lonely\u201d in her new home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a couple of days after she got married. She\u2019d been living in Buckingham Palace as she was transitioning from being a normal person to being a royal and the future queen,\u201d Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien\u2019s Auction, told People<\/a> about the letter.<\/p>\n \u201cSo she had to learn from the Queen Mother and the Queen about curtsying and all that. But she had fun with Mark Simpson, the footman. And he was about the same age, a little bit older than her,\u201d Nolan adds. \u201cAnd she talks here, it speaks of how she was lonely when she was in the palace.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter shows early signs of distance between Diana, who turned 20 weeks before her wedding, and her 32-year-old husband Charles.<\/p>\n The couple would go on to welcome sons William and Harry in 1982 and 1984, respectively, before separating in 1992.<\/p>\n Before you go, click here<\/a> to see the best photos of Princess Diana playing with William and Harry.<\/strong><\/p>\n Princess Diana, William Harry Prince Philip<\/p>\n Best of SheKnows<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for SheKnows’ Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A letter Princess Diana sent two days after marrying King Charles III in 1981 speaks volumes about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,2633,7730,7731,52078,1760,518,64925,64926,1412,65254,7710,519,18563],"class_list":{"0":"post-153316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-buckingham-palace","10":"tag-charles","11":"tag-charles-iii","12":"tag-juliens-auctions","13":"tag-king-charles","14":"tag-king-charles-iii","15":"tag-mark-simpson","16":"tag-martin-nolan","17":"tag-princess-diana","18":"tag-royal-collection","19":"tag-royal-families","20":"tag-royal-family","21":"tag-sheknows"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114616353654441845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Princess](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/a6c48afbeb949f5bdc2063cf07d7717f.jpeg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n