australian royal tour princess diana

Relive Prince Charles and Princess Diana's 1983 Royal Tour of Australia and New Zealand, in Photos

The couple's iconic trip features in season four of The Crown .

The Prince and Princess of Wales touched down in the relatively remote Alice Springs. According to a People article from the time, the locale was chosen "precisely because it had never received royalty on such a grand scale."

Diana famously refused to leave her young son behind, as had been the royal custom for overseas tours up to that point.

For the most part, Prince William stayed with his nanny at Woomargama Station, a working sheep ranch where Ronald Reagan had once stayed. Charles and Diana visited with him frequently throughout their tour.

No trip to Australia is complete without a kangaroo, and the royal couple were able to spot one early on in their trip.

As is still the case, a large part of royal tours involves meeting with fans and glad-handing the public.

The royal couple hiked Ayers Rock during their stay in Australia's Northern Territory. ( The Crown cast was spotted recreating this same scene on location in Spain in 2019 .)

The Prince and Princess met with Australian Prime Minister. Bob Hawke and his wife, Hazel, in front of Canberra's Government House.

Diana chose a pink dress by Bellville Sassoon, one of her go-to labels, and a hat by John Boyd for a walkabout in front of the Sydney Opera House.

Charles places his hand on Diana's back as the approach the crowd of local fans.

The Princess wore a bright blue belted gown by Bruce Oldfield to a gala at Sydney's Wentworth Hotel.

The couple dressed to the nines and busted out their royal orders for a state reception in Hobart, Tasmania.

Diana famously loved to dance.

Charles and Diana show a little PDA during an engagement.

The duo wave from a balcony in Adelaide, Australia. Diana is wearing an Arabella Pollen suit and John Boyd hat, which pair well with her stylish bouquet.

The Princess of Wales opted for a red and white color palette during an appearance in Renmark, Australia.

Charles and Diana wave to the crowd during a walkabout in Perth. The Princess's hot pink Donald Campbell dress pairs well with a matching John Boyd hat.

Some of the younger locals get a chance to speak with the royals.

A young girl hands Diana a flower as she and Charles ride through Bunbury's Hands Oval sports ground.

Diana went full '80s in a ruffled Catherine Walker gown and pearls to attend a concert in Melbourne.

The Prince and Princess stage a photo opp in front of a highly photographable model pineapple at the Ginger Factory in Yandina, Australia.

Chloe is a News Writer for Townandcountrymag.com , where she covers royal news, from the latest additions to Meghan Markle’s staff to Queen Elizabeth’s monochrome fashions ; she also writes about culture, often dissecting TV shows like The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and Killing Eve .

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The Crown: What Really Happened During Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s Fateful Tour of Australia

By Elise Taylor

The title of season four, episode six of The Crown is “Terra Nullius,” a Latin phrase that means “nobody’s land.” Creator Peter Morgan no doubt picked it due to the presiding plotline: Charles and Diana’s 1983 royal tour of Australia, which coincides with the country’s growing movement to leave the British Commonwealth. Nearly 200 years earlier, Great Britain used the concept of “terra nullius” to justify colonizing Australia, claiming the land was unclaimed and unpopulated, despite its residing Aboriginal population.

But it also serves as a double entendre: Diana and Charles also find themselves in uncharted territory, a no man’s land. This is their first overseas tour together—and with the monarchy in a perilous position, a successful impression is paramount. Can they put aside their early marital problems, their clashing personalities, for the Crown? Or are they doomed to fail? While, for a brief moment, Morgan depicts the two sharing a moment of true connection, they are soon at odds again. After the tour is done, Charles takes a car back to their country home of Highgrove, whereas Princess Diana hightails it back to Kensington Palace in London. They never found common ground.

The episode chalks up their cracks to a multitude of factors: Diana’s supposed fragility—Charles gets frustrated that she can’t hike up Ayers Rock (now renamed Uluru) without stopping. The presence of Prince William—Diana wanted to bring him on tour and is anxious about their separation, much to the dismay of the royal courtiers and their strict schedules. Then, perhaps most of all, there’s Diana’s explosive popularity, which overshadows Charles’s: “This was supposed to be my tour! My tour as Prince of Wales to shore up a key country in the Commonwealth at a very delicate moment politically!” Josh O’Connor’s Charles screams at Emma Corrin’s Diana.

The Crown , at the end of the day, is historical fiction—the show takes real-life events and dramatizes them. So, in this hour-long tale of a very well-known couple, what’s fact, and what’s fiction?

It’s true that this was a politically sensitive tour: A wave of Republicanism was sweeping Australia, championed by its Prime Minister at the time, Robert Hawke. On March 6, 1983, a mere 12 days before Charles and Diana were set to fly to the continent, a television interviewer asked if Charles would make a good king of Australia. “I don't think we will be talking about kings of Australia forever more,” he replied. Then he said he thought people would eventually vote to have a republic.

By Tatiana Dias

By Kiana Murden

Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and Prince William arrive in Alice Springs, Australia. Diana was the first royal to bring her baby on an overseas tour, breaking traditional protocol.

It’s also true that the monarchy was worried about how Diana would fare. The tour was a grueling one, by any standards: a month long, the couple were set to cover 30,000 miles and make up to eight appearances in one day. And while Prince Charles had been doing this type of work his whole life, it was 21-year-old Diana’s first overseas royal tour. “The Queen is ‘terribly worried’ before the tour because of Diana’s youth and apparent shyness,” wrote the Press Association’s royal correspondent Grania Forbes ahead of the trip.

It didn’t help that the British tabloids had already started to paint her as unpredictable—the Daily Mirror had recently published an exploitative story about rumors of her eating disorder. While the international press waited for the couple to land in Alice Springs, Australia from London, The Sydney Morning Herald ’s Alison Stuart recalled the reporters gossiping: “Would she snap, would she cry, would she collapse from the heat?”

At the beginning, Diana did indeed show signs of fatigue. The Sydney Morning Herald found that during the tour’s first engagement, she looked “uncomfortably sunburned” and that her “eyes were downcast.” Charles apologized and said they were both still suffering from jet-lag. On March 22—three days after they landed in Australia—an Associated Press report described her as red-faced and bare-legged. “I can’t cope with the heat very well,” she said.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana at Uluru. While The Crown suggests Diana struggled due to the heat, reports at the time say her hesitation was due to her rather impractical outdoor outfit.

In The Crown , a scene at Uluru supposedly showcases the princess’s early weakness. Only a few yards up the slope, Diana suddenly stops while the press pack eagerly snaps photos from below. “Charles, I can’t. The heat. I feel dizzy,” Corrin’s Diana exclaims. She leaves him to climb the rest alone. “I think I need to go and sit down.” Afterwards, O’Connor’s Charles snarls to his confidante Camilla Parker-Bowles on the phone: “She’s pathetic .”

Video footage at the time does show Diana hesitating on Uluru. Yet it wasn’t fatigue that caused the pause—rather, it was her outfit. Dressed in a dainty white frock with flats, it wasn’t, well, the most practical of hiking apparel. Especially when there are cameras below capturing your every move.

Here’s an account from the Morning Herald : “As she stepped off the plane at Ayers Rock, she looked down in horror. Her dress, buttoned down the front was immediately blown open revealing her petticoat and knees. From that moment, the Princess made constant but hopeless attempts to keep the dress closed,” they wrote. “When Charles coaxed her to climb part of the way up the rock, she hesitated, not through fear of slipping, but because she knew that coming down would expose her knees and petticoat to the world’s press.”

In reality, except for a few hiccups, Diana executed a remarkable performance in those initial days. “Despite the predictions, Diana, apart from some strain and tiredness, has fared well,” said the Morning Herald at the time. “She might be made of tougher stuff than many think.”

Prince Charles and Princess Diana get ready to dance in Sydney.

As the royal tour really got into the swing of things—and Diana’s sunburn and jet lag likely died down—Charles and Diana thoroughly charmed the country. They dynamically danced at Sheraton Wentworth Hotel, with Diana donning a spectacular turquoise dress. Charles scored a goal at a polo match in Sydney and the crowd erupted into cheers. (As The Crown shows, he did also fall, much to his chagrin.) In Perth, they made headlines when Charles tenderly kissed Diana’s hand in public. “Prince plays the gallant at royal party,” read a headline in the Times of London. And although that scene that shows Charles and Diana playing with baby Prince William on a blanket actually took place in New Zealand, not Australia, they did delight audiences by sharing cheerful tales about their young son. (Yes, William did love his stuffed koala.)

Diana’s popularity started to massively eclipse that of her husband. “The Princess of Wales was the woman they’d come to see, and the people of the Riverland weren’t disappointed,” a broadcaster from ABC said on April 6. “The Princess seemed more anxious to meet the people than did her husband. She dispensed tidbits concerning Prince William’s health, the weather, and jokingly inquired of an elderly citizen if she had any whiskey in her picnic basket.” They showed clips of Diana swarmed by crowds, one man holding up a sign that read “Di is beautiful.” On April 15, the Melbourne Herald ran a cartoon that showed a map of Australia superimposed with a heart. “Princess Diana,” read a caption. “A permanent imprint!” Two days later, the Sydney Herald echoed the same sentiment: “Di Thrills the Queen!” said a headline.

Three days later, the Times of London cemented Diana’s smashing success. They printed the headline “The Princess who won the heart of Australia.” The story began: “The month-long tour of Australia by the Prince and Princess of Wales, which ended yesterday when the royal couple flew to New Zealand, was an unqualified success, due in large part to the Princess. She won the heart of Australia.” The Evening Standard took it one step further, saying: ”This tour has set Republicanism back 10 years.” In Sarah Bradford’s book , Diana , she quotes a bodyguard who said her reception in Australia was akin to Beatlemania.

Princess Diana, surrounded by crowds outside the Sydney Opera House.

Sadly, The Crown is right: Diana’s supernova star-power in Australia did make Charles jealous, and caused additional tension in their marriage. In a 1995 interview with the BBC , the Princess recalled that the attention she received during the tour’s royal walkabouts upset him. “We'd be going round Australia, for instance, and all you could hear was, ‘oh, she's on the other side.’ Now, if you're a man—like my husband—a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks. You feel low about it, instead of feeling happy and sharing it.” The press fawning made things worse: “With the media attention came a lot of jealousy. A great deal of complicated situations arose because of that,” she said. It was, in some ways, the beginning of the end.

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Photos show the true story behind Princess Diana's famous Australia tour featured on 'The Crown'

• In March 1983, Princess Diana flew to Australia with Prince Charles and her son, Prince William, for her first-ever overseas tour. 
• The four weeks Diana spent in Australia solidified her reputation as the "people's princess," but created a rift between her and Charles.
• The 1983 tour has come back into focus because it's one of the key storylines in season four of Netflix's " The Crown ."
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories .

"Uneasy, even glum" is how a news report described Princess Diana when she arrived in Alice Springs, Australia, for her first-ever overseas tour with Prince Charles.

For Diana, only 21 years old and just two years into her marriage with Prince Charles, the highly public tour was a "terrifying baptism of fire," Diana's confidant and biographer Andrew Morton wrote for the New York Post in 2017.

But by the end of the tour four weeks later, Diana had solidified her reputation as the "people's princess," charming her way into the hearts of Australians at a time when the monarchy was looking to repair public opinion in the Commonwealth.

The tour is a central focus of season four of Netflix's " The Crown ." Released on November 15, the newest season depicts the lives of the British monarchy from 1979 through 1990.  Episode six, "Terra Nullius," shows how young Diana, played by actress Emma Corrin, eclipsed Prince Charles, played by actor Josh O'Connor, in fame as they traveled around Australia, causing a rift between the royal pair. 

Here's how the real-life tour happened and a look back in photos.

On March 20, 1983, 21-year-old Princess Diana arrived with her husband Prince Charles in Alice Springs, Australia, for her first-ever overseas royal tour.

Source: Beneath the Crown

The royal couple would spend four weeks touring Australia in order to repair public opinion of the monarchy.

In a break with royal tradition, Diana insisted that her 9-month-old son, Prince William, travel with them. Previously, children of heirs had remained in England during overseas tours.

While his parents toured the country, Prince William stayed with his nanny at the family's home base, a sheep ranch in central Australia called Woomargama.

Source: The Age , PM Transcripts

The royal couple's first official stop was at Uluru, a sacred site to indigenous Australians also know as Ayers Rock.

During the visit, Diana expressed her discomfort with the heat and asked for a glass of water. This endeared Diana to the public, Anita Rani explains in an episode of Netflix's "Beneath the Crown," since "royals were not supposed to show such emotions in public."

Newly inducted Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who had publicly expressed his desire to lessen Australia's ties to the British crown on TV, met with the young couple three days later.

Source:  Beneath the Crown

Hawke was skeptical that the royal couple could charm Australians and rebuild public faith in the monarchy, according to BBC's HistoryExtra. What he didn't count on was Diana's likability.

Source: HistoryExtra

Australians quickly fell in love with Diana's easygoing manner and showed up in droves to see her.

"Diana...was accessible to the public, physically and emotionally," Netflix's Rani said. "She's estimated to have shaken hands at least 6,000 times with members of the public on this tour and offered down-to-earth comments to her admirers."

"Mothers, in particular, gravitated towards her, impressed by her refusal to leave William back in the UK," Rani said.

A photo taken one week after their arrival in Australia shows Diana outside of the Sydney Opera House surrounded by throngs of spectators.

Source: Getty

In April, The Times ran an article saying that Diana "won the heart of Australia" and that the tour was "an unqualified success, due in large part to the Princess."

Source: The Times

While Diana's star appeal helped the reputation of the monarchy, it served to "drive a wedge" between her and Charles, who was used to the limelight, Andrew Morton wrote in his 1992 biography "Diana: Her True Story."

Source: Diana: Her True Story

"The crowds complained when Prince Charles went over to their side of the street during a walkabout ... In public, Charles accepted the revised status quo with good grace; in private he blamed Diana," Morton wrote.

The couple did have good moments during the trip. One was during a charity ball in Sydney on March 28 where they shared their first dance together on tour. "They gave the impression that they were very much in love," Rani said of the dance.

But tension grew between them as Diana's fame blossomed. "With the media attention came a lot of jealousy," Diana told the BBC in a 1995 broadcast. "A great deal of complicated situations arose because of that."

Source: BBC

On April 17, Diana and Charles concluded their tour in Australia and flew to New Zealand for two weeks before returning home to London.

While Diana had worked her way into the hearts of Australians, the trip highlighted fissures in her marriage with Charles that would ultimately deepen over time.

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The Crown: Why Princess Diana Burst Into Tears During 1983 Australian Tour

By Julie Miller

Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s 1983 Australian tour—recreated on the fourth season of The Crown —proved to be an inflection point in their young marriage . It was during that six-week visit to Australia and New Zealand when Charles first realized how much the public preferred his pretty young wife to him. And Diana, in turn, realized there was nothing she could do to temper her husband’s jealousy or convince him she didn’t want the spotlight.

At one point, during the real-life tour, the young princess even erupted into tears during a public appearance outside the Sydney Opera House. The photographer who captured the heart-wrenching image, Ken Lennox , has since explained what he saw that day.

“I’m about four feet from the princess and I’m trying to get a bit of the opera house in the background and some of the crowd, and Diana burst into tears and wept for a couple of minutes,” Lennox recalled during ITV’s Inside the Crown: Secrets of the Royals . “Charles I don’t think has noticed [Diana crying] at that stage. If he has, typical of Prince Charles to look the other way.” During that tour, Lennox said that crowds would plainly tell Charles, “Bring your wife over,” rather than fawn over the prince.

“The prince was embarrassed the crowds so clearly favored her over him,” wrote Sally Bedell Smith in her biography , Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life . “For her part, Diana was upset by the disproportionate interest in her, especially when she realized that it was disturbing Charles. She collapsed under the strain, weeping to her lady-in-waiting and secretly succumbing to bulimia. In letters to friends, Charles described his anguish over the impact ‘all this obsessed and crazed attention was having on his wife.’”

Diana biographer Andrew Morton has said that the Australia tour “was a terrifying baptism of fire. . .Just 21, the newly minted royal was petrified of facing the crowds, meeting the countless dignitaries as well as the fabled royal ‘rat pack,’ the media circus who follow the royals around the globe.”

Writing for the New York Post , Morton added:

“When she walked into the media reception in the unglamorous setting of an Alice Springs hotel, she was hot, jet-lagged and sunburned. Yet she was able to charm and captivate the representatives of the Fourth Estate. Only later did I realize that the tour was utterly traumatic. Back in the privacy of her hotel room, she cried her eyes out, unable to handle the constant attention. [...] It didn’t help that Prince Charles, the former top of the billing, was reduced to a walk-on part, the crowds groaning when he came to their side of the road during their many visits. As Diana told me: “He was jealous; I understood the jealousy but I couldn’t explain that I didn’t ask for it.”

The couple’s only happiness during the tour came when the young family was far away from the crowds—visiting nine-month-old Prince William at the cattle and sheep ranch Woomargama, where he was staying with a nanny.

“The great joy was that we were totally alone together,” Charles wrote a friend, according to Smith. At the ranch, Charles and Diana watched William’s first efforts at crawling—“at high speed knocking everything off the tables and causing unbelievable destruction.” The new parents, according to Charles, “laughed and laughed with sheer, hysterical pleasure.”

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— Princess Diana—and the ’80s— Give New Life to The Crown in Season Four — Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin on Playing One of the Most Famous (and Ill-Fated) Couples of the 20th Century — Gillian Anderson Plays Margaret Thatcher, the Perfect Counterpoint to the Queen — After The Crown , Here’s Where to Get Your Princess Diana Fix — Prince Philip’s Impressive “Bullshit-o-Meter,” According to Tobias Menzies — How to Recreate Diana’s Most Memorable Style Moments — From the Archive: Tina Brown on Princess Diana, the Mouse That Roared

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A Look Back At Princess Diana’s First Royal Tour Of Australia

Thirty-five years ago, prince harry’s mother, diana, made her first overseas trip down under to visit ayres rock and bondi beach.

Amid the news Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are expecting their first child together, we imagine how Princess Diana would have reacted; overjoyed, overwhelmed, emotional. The statement would have read Harry’s mother was “delighted”, an adjective used by the Palace to describe every piece of good news.

Like every Royal story, there seems to be some sort of coincidental anniversary or some hidden milestone that gives it a whole new meaning. And Kensington Palace’s announcement that Markle is pregnant is not exempt: Thirty-five years ago, when Prince William was just a baby, Princess Diana and Prince Charles travelled to Australia for their first tour. The Royal couple – and William – spent 41 days travelling to Alice Springs and even dropped by Bondi Beach. It was Diana’s first overseas trip and she was just 22-years-old. It seems almost fitting then for a Royal baby announcement to happen, in our country, on this special anniversary.

On the other hand, it’s quite surreal to look back at this moment in time where Harry didn’t exist yet and Diana had no clue her life would be cut so short. While your timeline is filled with Royal Baby news, here’s a look back at Princess Diana’s time in Australia – her beautiful outfits, her grace and poise and the origins of those familial, caring values she passed onto her son, the Duke of Sussex.

topics: celebrity , Princess Diana , Meghan Markle , prince harry , royal tour , royal baby , Australia

Inside the Australia Trip that Made Princess Diana a Star

Diana said she was a "different person" upon her return.

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• The season's ninth episode, "Terra Nullis," focuses on Charles and Diana's six week-long trip to Australia in 1983.
• Here's the truth behind that precedent-breaking trip, including how Diana refused to leave young Prince William behind.

Technically , Diana Spencer became Princess Diana in 1981, when she married Prince Charles , heir to the English throne. But as season 4 of The Crown shows, Diana's growth into a figure of international adoration and respect—the so-called "People's Princess" —took more time.

"Terra Nullis," episode 9 of The Crown , depicts a turning point in Diana's personal life and public image–and the intersection of the two. Diana's first trip abroad would prove to be a pivotal one: The 22-year-old established herself as an instantly charming presence, fashion icon, and a royal rule-breaker.

Fast forwarding past the couple's elaborate royal wedding, The Crown instead uses the 1983 tour to capture the charged early years of Charles and Diana's marriage. In every scene, a new facet in their complicated union emerges. Charles's shock, and eventual jealousy, of Diana's effortless star status. Diana's longing to be adored by Charles and the crowds. Their commitment to work on their relationship—and how fragile those vows became, when tested by their unique circumstances.

For all these reasons, "Terra Nullis" is this season's stand-out episode. Here's the truth behind the trip that made Diana a star.

Princess Diana won over crowds of Australians.

Charles and Diana traveled to Australia at a tense time in the countries' relationships. Australia had just elected the Labour leader Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke in a landslide, and he wanted to eliminate Australia's ties to the Commonwealth and monarchy—essentially, everything that the Prince and Princess of Wales represented.

"The tour had a serious political goal—persuading the grumpy and increasingly Republican Australian continent that it still wanted a monarchy in the first place," Tina Brown wrote in The Diana Chronicles .

But according to Brown, Diana's vast popularity, which drew 400,000 people in Brisbane alone, "turned the whole mood around." Diana and her charming "lack of pretension" even "mesmerized" Bob Hawke, per Brown. "By the end of Charles and Diana's tour, a poll in Australia found that Monarchists outnumbered Republicans two to one..the twenty-one year old Princess of Wales had proved she was a dazzling new PR person for the British Crown," Brown wrote.

Years later, Diana told biographer Andrew Morton that she was a "different person" upon returning to England. She was a star.

Prince Charles was reportedly jealous of Diana's star power.

Australians rushed to catch a glimpse of Diana. They were less enthused to see Charles. According to Brown, people would "openly [groan] in disappointment."

"Victor Chapman, the press secretary on the tour, got used to late-night phone calls from Charles complaining about the scant coverage of himself in the press compared to the hagiographic acres accorded of his wife," Brown wrote, cheekily.

Charles's letters written from the trip, seen in Penny Junor's book Prince William , give insight into his mindset. "I do feel desperate for Diana. There is no twitch she can make without these ghastly, and I am quite convinced, mindless people photographing it...How can anyone, let alone a 21-year-old, be expected to come out of this obsessed and crazed attention unscathed?"

Breaking with royal protocol, Diana refused to leave Prince William in England.

In The Crown , Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) casually establishes how royal tours normally proceeded: The parents traveled, and the kids stayed home. "We never took the children anywhere. When we took the children to Australia in 1954, we left them at home for six months," Elizabeth says in The Crown .

Diana broke with generations of royal precedent by refusing to leave her son, 10-month-old Prince William, in England while they were away, per E! News. Instead, William stayed at a "sheep station" (a large ranch) in Australia and the couple flew back repeatedly to visit him between destinations.

Yes, Diana spoke about Prince William's stuffed animals on a radio show.

As probably already gathered by this point, Diana was a major hit in Australia. During their stop in Alice Springs, Diana and Charles took a trip to a local radio station. In The Crown , Diana brings up Prince William's whale stuffed animal unprompted, whereas in real life, Charles whispered the idea to her. Brown, in The Diana Chronicles , wrote that Diana's lack of pretension about topics like motherhood is what helped her win over many Australians.

And they climbed Uluru, as Prince William would do with his wife in 2014.

In The Crown , Charles and Diana visit Uluru, a large sandstone rock formation that rises suddenly out of the desert in central Australia, and is sacred to indigenous Australians, per the BBC . As Life's special edition Diana: A Princess Remembered notes, the princess wore "not-so-suitable" shoes for the rigorous climb.

A video captures Diana and Charles scaling the start of the 2,831" rock—though not the part where Diana turns around.

In 2014, in a real full-circle moment, Prince William—who had been a baby on his parents' trip—visited Australia with his wife, Kate Middleton, and their son, Prince George (in line to inherit the throne). The Cambridges recreated Charles and Diana's photo opp before Uluru, taken 31 years prior, per Vanity Fair .

The couple made headlines for dancing.

As "Terra Nullis" shows so well, Charles and Diana's marriage had its triumphs and moments of synergy. One such moment occurred on the dance floor of a charity ball.

A video taken that evening captures their Dancing With the Stars -worthy moves.

They danced multiple times that tour, actually.

Diana spent time with Australian lifeguards, just as Princess Margaret once did.

If you're a lifeguard at Australia's famous Bondi Beach, there's a good chance you may, one day, get to speak to a visiting royal. Diana visited Terrigal Beach in 1983.

In her book Lady in Waiting , Lady Glenconner recalls accompanying Princess Margaret to Bondi Beach during an official trip to Australia in 1975. Unlike Diana, she wasn't as taken with her surroundings.

"One of the things on the itinerary for Sydney was a visit to Bondi Beach, which included a photo call on the sand with the lifeguards. On discovering this, Princess Margaret wasn’t happy. The idea of sinking into the sand during a formal engagement was not something she was interested in," Glenconner wrote, per an excerpt in OprahMag.com . Margaret was eventually persuaded to change into her flat shoes and proceed with the engagement, but was ultimately not pleased: “But weren’t those lifeguards disappointing?” she said.

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Elena Nicolaou is the former culture editor at Oprah Daily. 

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The Crown S4 E6 real history: Charles and Diana’s 1983 royal tour of Australia & the start of ‘Dianamania’

Episode 6 of season 4 of The Crown sees Charles and Diana, deep in the midst of marital troubles, called upon to tour Australia and New Zealand in an effort to stem feelings of republicanism in one of the Commonwealth’s key countries

• Elinor Evans
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Diana’s priorities as a mother become clear and the couple are seen to momentarily reconcile. Meanwhile, the tour is hailed as a huge success. But how historically accurate is all this? Let’s unpick the historical truths of episode 6…

(This article contains spoilers for season 4, episode 6 of The Crown)

Episode six of the new season brings the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, back to centre stage, covering the couple’s 1983 tour of Australia. It was the job of incumbent Australian Labour prime minister Bob Hawke to welcome the young royals to the Commonwealth country as part of a royal tour aimed at shoring up the royal family’s reputation. Hawke is clearly sceptical about Charles’s ability “as a different breed” to connect with the Australian public, and there is a lot riding on the tour. In reality, Hawke did want Australia to become a republic by 1988; in The Crown it’s made clear to Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) and Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) ahead of their tour that if Australia were to strike out on its own away from the Commonwealth, other countries would “fall like dominoes”, in the words of one adviser.

The Queen (Olivia Colman) expresses her hope that the couple will be alright. Yet amid a harrowing depiction of Diana’s struggle with the eating disorder bulimia, and Prince Charles’s visits to the Parker Bowles estate, it seems as though the tour will be anything but.

In the opening scenes of episode 6, the strength of Charles and Camilla’s enduring chemistry is made plain as the pair perform a joke at a dinner party while Camilla’s husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, looks on. Charles and Camilla’s relationship was, according to most records, platonic during this stage of Charles’s marriage to Diana, and royal expert Penny Junor says that he and Camilla were not mixing socially: “If Camilla knew Charles would be at a party during this time, she didn’t go.”

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It is true that Andrew knew about Charles and Camilla’s close connection. And he had been aware of their initial affair in the late 1970s, over which he “didn’t make a fuss,” writes Junor in her biography of Camilla, explaining that Andrew’s own infidelities perhaps made it difficult for him to complain.

Charles and Camilla started seeing one another again in 1986, and Camilla would visit Charles at Highgrove, “although usually in the company of Andrew or other friends,” says Junor. Gradually it turned into a sexual relationship. In some ways this was “a perfect arrangement” because it allowed Camilla to see the prince while Andrew continued his own affair with Rosemary Pitman, says Junor.

• Historian Sarah Gristwood reviews The Crown season 4: “We’ve reached the issue of how fiction influences opinion in the real world”

The royal tour begins

Hearing that Diana wishes to take the baby Prince William on the tour, the Queen expresses disbelief. (During the Queen’s 1954 tour of Australia, five-year-old Charles and three-year-old Anne remained at home in the care of nursery staff and Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The pair were famously greeted by their mother with handshakes upon her return.) In contrast to Queen Elizabeth’s hands-off parenting, Diana hovers over nine-month-old William on the flight to Australia, describing him as “perfect in every way”, making clear her feelings at being separated from her son for two weeks (when William was stationed at a large sheep ranch in Woomargama with his nannies).

Diana tells Charles and his aides she is determined to bring up her son with “a vestige of humanity”.

This is true to history. “I want to bring them up with security,” Diana is quoted in Andrew Morton’s 1992 biography as having said. “I hug my children to death and get into bed with them at night. I always feed them love and affection; it’s so important.”

• Princess Diana: a "modern" mother who ripped up the rule book

Yet this desire to be close to her children (rather than leaving them behind while she carried out her official role), and her very public displays of affection, were incongruous with how the royals had always done things. The drama chooses to show this through royal aide Edward Adeane, who tells Diana: “You married the Prince of Wales, ma’am. And that is an act of service… which you signed up to for willingly and with open eyes.”

This, surely, would have been what Charles had hoped for, too. Penny Junor says: “In the mid-1970s, when asked about marriage, Charles had said that when he marries it must be to someone who understands what she’s marrying into; who understands the job. And because it would have to be a marriage for life (because divorce was out of the question), this is one area where his heart must be ruled by his head, he said.

“Charles understood that his marriage wouldn’t be any old love match, he couldn’t just marry someone he was utterly mad about and live happily ever after. His wife would one day be queen and would have a hell of a lot of royal work to do. She would need to have the discipline to put up with the life she was entering into – no spontaneity, no freedom, no privacy. His wife would have to understand and be willing to accept all these handicaps.”

Read the real history behind more episodes with our S4 episode guide to The Crown:

• The Crown S4 E4 real history
• The Crown S4 E5 real history
• The Crown S4 E7 real history
• The Crown S4 E8 real history

Reception in Australia

In episode 6 of The Crown , Charles and Diana initially seem to flounder when arriving in Australia. A press report from the royals’ arrival in Alice Springs on 21 March 1983 stated that the Princess of Wales “stood holding Prince William with something less than a smile on her face. She seemed uneasy, even glum, and looked at the tarmac with downcast eyes throughout much of the brief airport picture session.”

In the episode, Charles’s jokes to the press fall flat, and Diana makes a gaffe referring to Ayres ‘Dock’, leading prime minister Hawke to see an opportunity to cut Australia “free” of the monarchy. In reality, some of Charles’s less-tactful remarks did make headlines, one notably in Sydney: the Prince of Wales upset animal lovers when he joked during a speech that Prince William was being given “warm milk and minced kangaroo”. In The Crown the Queen says trip was always designed to be Charles’s tour, and Philip bemoans the fact that his wife sent the “B team” for something so important, putting the tour’s objective in peril.

Later in the episode, Diana and Charles appear distant and divided – in reality, royal press officers assured reporters and photographers that any signs of distress were due to jet-lag and adapting to the heat – and Charles continues to rely on Camilla as a close confidant (though both maintain there was nothing more between them than close friendship during this time). Yet things come to a head when Diana becomes insistent that the tour is paused so she can see William (who had been stationed in Woomargama with his nannies).

In reality, royal press officers assured reporters and photographers that any signs of distress were due to jet-lag and adapting to the heat

The royal tour of Australia was a challenging time for the young princess, who had suffered postpartum depression after William was born and was still battling an eating disorder . “I find I can't stop playing with him,” Diana had said at William’s first press conference in Australia, and she insisted that she and Charles should return to Woomargama to see him as much as possible.

This prioritisation of her child over royal duty, often viewed as a departure from royal protocol, would continue; Diana later shifted her official responsibilities so that her schedule matched that of her children as much as possible, and in her official calendar the princess had all the everyday details of her sons’ lives marked in green ink.

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A royal reconciliation?

The drama chooses to depict a confrontation between the couple behind closed doors at the sheep station, used as a touchstone for a number of issues facing them: the most prominent being Charles’s connection with “her” (Camilla). Though Charles insists that his relationship with Camilla remained platonic until his marriage had “irrevocably broken down”, the drama has Diana citing love letters, a photograph in Charles’s wallet, and the ‘G’ & ‘F’ bracelet . These are all real accusations levied by Diana in Andrew Morton’s biography, which also mentions the cufflinks that Charles wore on their honeymoon, engraved with two interwoven Cs. Charles reportedly dismissed Diana’s reaction to them, saying they were “a present from a friend”.

The gulf between Charles and Diana is emphasised, with both parties bemoaning the fact they feel misunderstood and unappreciated, and both saying they are in need of praise and encouragement – characteristics upon which many differing biographical views seem to agree. “How awful incompatibility is,” Charles wrote to one friend, according to Sally Bedell Smith’s 2017 biography of the prince. “How dreadfully destructive it can be for the players in this extraordinary drama.”

Yet as the pair reconnect, the drama emphasises how the couple’s children offered common, and often happy, ground. Describing this time with William and Diana in a letter to a friend, Charles said: “The great joy was that we were totally alone together,” and how he and his wife “laughed and laughed with sheer, hysterical pleasure” at William’s antics as a baby.

The drama depicts the strength of this reconciliation in Charles failing to return a phone call from Camilla. Stuart Higgins, an editor at The Sun who had a close friendship with Camilla in the 1980s, believes there was a definite “cessation” in her relationship with Charles and that Charles made an effort with Diana. But he also noted that there was no sense Camilla was ever “out of contact”. In Jonathan Dimbleby’s 1994 authorised biography, much was made of the fact that Charles and Camilla had “virtually no contact” between 1981 and 1986, but they still hunted together and mixed in the same circles during this time.

The start of ‘Dianamania’

Post-reconciliation, in The Crown Charles and Diana are seen to continue the tour, and as they greet crowds as a pair all seems well. Arthur Edwards, one photographer present on the tour, said: “They just looked at each other like they wanted to go and rip the clothes off each other. They were so much together and in love.” As shown in the drama, the couple did famously dance together at a charity ball in Sydney, and Charles “prided himself on his ballroom prowess”, writes Bedell Smith. Meanwhile, “the British press reported on how the royal pair were working to reinvigorate the historic ties of friendship and political unity that existed between the UK and Australia,” says Dr Ed Owens, a historian of the British monarchy.

“Diana proved a real hit with the Australian public and media,” Owens adds, “and was noted not only for her fashionable dress style, but also for the informal way she interacted with crowds by exercising her famous ‘common touch’.”

Yet as Charles and Diana take on separate engagements, it becomes clear that Diana is the real star – the 1983 tour is often regarded as the birth of ‘Dianamania’. “Hundreds of people fainted, flowers and flags were thrown at the couple, and police became seriously concerned about crowd surges. Police numbers were increased by 25 per cent,” the Telegraph reported, while in Melbourne the couple drew crowds of 200,000.

Before Diana, Charles had been the main draw. After one walkabout in California during his tour of the USA in 1977, writes Bedell Smith, his hands were “swollen to twice their size and covered in bloody cuts from the diamond rings of his fervent admirers who had grasped him so tightly.” Yet, once married to Diana, the picture changed. Though the prince often made light of the crowds’ preference for his young wife, says Penny Junor – he once “quipped that all he was good for these days was collecting flowers for his wife” – it was a new and uncomfortable experience for him. When crowds chanted for Diana, the prince said: “You will have to make do with me.”

The drama chooses Princess Anne to voice how the public’s preference for Diana will make Charles feel: “This was meant to be his grand debut, his moment in the sun, as future king,” she says. Her prediction is not wrong; “In those moments, the form of their public life together was set,” writes Bedell Smith. “Diana’s umbriferous presence disquieted Charles, a feeling that would soon become full-blown resentment.”

The final straw for Charles in The Crown comes when Bob Hawke makes clear that it is Diana, not the prince, who can claim credit for derailing his hopes of making Australia a republic. “No offence, but if it had just been you [on the tour] I might have got my wishes!” he jokes, before telling the prince “That superstar [Diana] may have just set back the cause of Republicanism in Australia for the foreseeable future.” True to history, the Telegraph reported that the couple’s popularity had set back the cause by “two decades”.

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A couple divided

In The Crown , upon their return to the UK, it becomes clear the tour has driven a wedge between Charles and Diana. They are seen going their separate ways – Diana to Kensington Palace, and Charles to his beloved Highgrove. Ed Owens says that “the private tensions that emerged during the tour took fuller form on the couple’s return to Britain, where the Prince of Wales (and other members of his family) expressed concerns about the way he, as next-in-line to the throne, was consistently outshone by his wife.”

Diana herself told Morton that though the tour was “basically a great success”, when crowds favoured her over Charles “he wasn’t used to that and nor was I. He took it out on me. He was jealous; I understood the jealousy but I couldn’t explain that I didn’t ask for it.”

The episode ends with Diana requesting an audience with the Queen, asking for the monarch’s support, telling her mother-in-law: “I don’t know who to turn to anymore.” While this meeting is further example of The Crown writer Peter Morgan speculating what happens behind closed palace doors, the Queen’s avoidance of overt emotional displays and confrontation, and Diana’s need for approval are certainly well-chronicled. In Morton’s biography, Diana said of the tour: “I was thrown in the deep end […] No one ever helped me at all. They’d be there to criticise me, but never there to say: ‘Well done’.”

The drama chooses this moment, with Diana splashed across the front pages of newspapers splayed over the Queen’s table, to show that Diana had a new and different understanding for what the public wanted from the royal family and of how to connect with the modern world. But the Queen dismisses Diana’s appeal for love and approval – a misjudgement that cuts Diana further adrift.

Diana later described the 1983 tour to Andrew Morton as a “make-or-break time for me” – a sentiment echoed at the end of the episode by the royal women gathered at Buckingham Palace. The Queen Mother’s brutal assessment that Diana will eventually “bend” under the pressure (or “break”, Princess Margaret quips) is testament to the increased isolation Diana felt.

But Diana returned from the tour, in her own words, “a different person… more grown up, more mature”. It seems the predictions of The Crown’s royal women may be off course.

Discover more real history behind The Crown here

NEXT EPISODE: The Crown S4 E7 real history: Princess Margaret’s decline and a royal secret revealed

Elinor Evans is deputy digital editor at HistoryExtra

With thanks to Penny Junor, royal biographer and author of 10 books on members of the royal family; and Dr Ed Owens, a historian of the modern British monarchy and author of The Family Firm: Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public, 1932–53 (University of London Press, 2019)

Elinor Evans is digital editor of HistoryExtra.com. She commissions and writes history articles for the website, and regularly interviews historians for the award-winning HistoryExtra podcast

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What Princess Diana and Prince Charles's 1983 Tour of Australia Looked Like in Real Life

Yes, little Prince William was there too.

Though the trip proved to be a diplomatic success, The Crown 's interpretation of the tour highlighted personal road bumps for Charles and Diana. He resented the public's adoration for her, while she was jealous of his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana also had to go through lengths to be able to bring a nine-month-old William with her and Charles abroad, rather than be apart from him for the six-week trip. Her decision, which raised the queen's eyebrows on the Netflix series, ultimately established a new precedent in the family. As we've seen with modern royals, Duchess Kate and Prince William went on tour with Prince George and Princess Charlotte, while Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry have taken their young son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, abroad as well.

Flip through the photos here to see how The Crown 's depiction of the events compare to the real thing. And see how well the show did re-creating some of Diana's most memorable looks from the voyage.

March 20, 1983

Princess Diana carries a baby Prince William as she and Prince Charles arrive at Alice Springs, Australia.

March 21, 1983

The couple visit Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, in Uluru National Park in Australia's Northwestern Territory.

Charles and Diana walk together at Uluru.

Charles and Diana meet schoolchildren in Alice Springs.

March 22, 1983

Diana boards a plane in a white blouse and blue skirt as she leaves Alice Springs.

March 25, 1983

Diana waves while she and Charles visit victims of bushfires.

Diana sports a baby-pink number with a matching feathered hat in Canberra, Australia.

March 30, 1983

Charles and Diana attend a reception in Hobart, Tasmania. She wears a red Bruce Oldfield dress with the Spencer family tiara.

Diana wears a blue, ruffled Bruce Oldfield dress while dancing with the Prince of Wales in Sydney.

While visiting Newcastle, Australia, with Charles, Diana wears a light pink dress by Catherine Walker and a hat by John Boyd.

Charles and Diana arrive in Hobart, Tasmania. The princess wears a Bellville Sassoon suit and John Boyd hat.

April 6, 1983

While driving through Memorial Oval in Port Pirie, Australia, Diana wears a Jan Van Velden suit and a John Boyd hat. Charles smiles at the crowd in a gray suit.

April 7, 1983

In one of her most iconic looks, a pink polka-dot ensemble by Donald Campbell and hat by John Boyd, the Princess of Wales greets fans in Perth, Australia.

Diana smiles at the crowds gathered in Perth.

April 8, 1983

The princess greets a well-wisher during a ride at the Hands Oval sportsground in Bunbury, Australia.

April 14, 1983

Diana wears a red polka-dot ensemble at the opening of the Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne.

April 17, 1983

Dressed in a blue hat and red printed dress, Diana waves goodbye as she and Charles board the plane to leave Melbourne.

April 18, 1983

The Princess of Wales greets a Maori woman at the Eden Park stadium in Auckland, New Zealand.

April 20, 1983

Diana wears a dress designed by the Emanuels, who made her wedding gown, to a state banquet in New Zealand. She's joined by the prime minister of New Zealand, Robert Muldoon, and Charles.

Diana and Charles play with William on the gardens of the Government House.

Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 percent chance she's listening to Lorde right now. 

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The best moments from Prince Charles and Princess Diana's 1983 tour, 37 years on

By Annabelle Spranklen

Royal tours might be off the cards for a while but that won’t stop us looking back at some of our favourites. This year marks 37 years since the Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales embarked on their six-week tour of Australia and New Zealand with a 10-month old Prince William in tow, touching down in Alice Springs airport on the 20th March, 1983 and arriving in New Zealand on 17th April.

At the time, The Prince and Princess of Wales had been married just two years and to the public, their fairytale life was very much still intact. It was Diana who pulled the crowds, always more popular than her husband during walkabouts. The Queen’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth Anson, revealed in an interview that it was something Charles realised early on in their marriage during a trip to Wales, when he apparently told aides, ‘They’ve come out to see my wife, they haven’t come out to see me.’

The couple’s 1983 tour ran like a tight ship, everyday there was a packed itinerary which included photocalls, charity balls, receptions, polo matches, church services and Maori ceremonies.

At 22-years-old, it was Diana’s first overseas trip and the first tour that William had ever been on. Diana had allegedly gone against royal protocol which was that children were usually left in others’ care while they were travelling and had refused to leave him behind - a decision that her daughter-in-laws, the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex, would later follow.

During the tour it was estimated that the royal couple shook approximately 2,000 hands per day leaving Diana’s red and sore every evening. The vast amount of public appearances meant the young princess’s wardrobe was being closely watched like never before - and she didn’t disappoint.

In fact, this tour is noted as being one of Diana’s fashion greats and one that saw her debuting some of her most iconic styles - the romantic, pretty Princess Di that encapsulated the new era of a young royal mother and her family. Hardly surprising that the fourth season of The Crown is set to heavily feature this tour, starring Emma Corrin and Josh O’Connell as the couple.

To mark the 37th anniversary, we look back at some of the best moments of the 1983 tour Down Under.

Diana, Princess of Wales visiting a war memorial in Canberra, Australia.

Diana, Princess of Wales and the Prince of Wales posing in front of Ayers Rock near Alice Springs, Australia.

Diana, Princess of Wales in a dress designed by Benny Ong at Ayers Rock, Australia.

The Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales dancing together at a charity ball in Sydney, Australia.

Diana, Princess of Wales and the Prince of Wales at the Crest Hotel in Brisbane, Australia. The Princess wore Saudi Arabian sapphires with a dress designed by Victor Edelstein.

Diana, Princess of Wales wearing a pink Donald Campbell suit at the Perth Hockey Stadium in Bentley, Australia.

Diana, Princess of Wales wearing a pink Catherine Walker dress and a hat by John Boyd in Newcastle, Australia.

The Prince And Princess Of Wales meeting school children during a trip to Alice Springs, Australia.

By Harriet Johnston

By Isaac Bickerstaff

Diana, Princess of Wales wore a Victor Edelstein gown and the Spencer Tiara to a state reception in Brisbane, Australia.

Diana, Princess of Wales wearing a dress by The Emanuels at Parliament House in New Zealand with Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.

The Prince and Princess of Wales visit an RAF base in Christchurch, New Zealand. Diana is wearing a Catherine Walker coat and John Boyd hat.

Prince William, Diana, Princess of Wales and the Prince of Wales at Government House in Auckland, New Zealand.

Diana, Princess of Wales arriving in New Zealand wearing Catherine Walker with a hat by John Boyd.

Diana, Princess of Wales during a walkabout in Dunedin, New Zealand.

The Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales during a visit to Manukau, near Auckland, New Zealand. Diana wore a Jan Van Velden suit with a hat by John Boyd.

Diana, Princess of Wales in a Donald Campbell gown at a gala ballet performance in Auckland, New Zealand.

Diana, Princess of Wales at farewell banquet in Auckland, New Zealand wearing a cream taffeta and lace gown by Gina Frattini and the Cambridge Lovers' Knot tiara.

What Charles and Diana's 1983 Tour of Australia Looked Like In Real Life

As depicted on the show, Charles and Diana vow to make their turbulent marriage work during the tour, though things between them crumble soon after. According to The Telegraph , the royal trip did cement global “Dianamania” as she wowed the crowds with stunning fashion and her endearing presence. But it's not totally clear whether things were just as bumpy between the Prince and Princess of Wales behind the scenes as The Crown suggests .

Ahead, a look at the couple's real-life Australian tour, from the couple's famous dance to their photo-op with William.

March 20, 1983

The couple lands at Alice Springs Airport for the first stop on the six-week tour.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are joined by their 10-month-old son Prince William.

March 21, 1983

The couple poses in Uluru, otherwise known as Ayers Park, in Alice Springs, Australia.

Prince Charles leads Princess Diana around Ayers Rock during a royal photo-op.

Diana and Charles attend an official welcome ceremony at a school in Alice Springs.

Diana looks on as Charles delivers remarks to the crowd in Alice Springs.

Diana and Charles are greeted by schoolchildren during their visit.

March 24, 1983

The Prince and Princess of Wales meet Prime Minister Bob Hawke and his wife Hazel in Canberra, Australia.

March 25, 1983

The couple waves to a crowd in Cockatoo at an event honoring victims of bushfires in the area.

Diana walks alongside Prime Minister Hawke during a stop in Canberra, Australia.

March 26, 1983

A young girl offers Diana a flower during an event in Adelaide.

March 28, 1983

Charles and Diana ride through a crowd of Australians outside the Sydney Opera House.

Diana bursts into tears during the ride through Sydney.

Charles and Diana attend a charity ball in Sydney.

The couple dances during the ball, a rare romantic moment depicted in The Crown 's fourth season.

The pair continues their dance, which is set to Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" on The Crown .

March 29, 1983

Charles and Diana wave to a crowd in Newcastle, Australia.

The couple stands inside a vehicle moving through Newcastle.

Princess Diana gazes down at a floral arrangement while wearing a pink Catherine Walker dress with John Boyd hat.

Charles and Diana appear to hold hands during a public event in Australia.

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'The Crown' : How Princess Diana and Prince Charles' Australia Tour Predicted Their Doomed Marriage

Princess Diana and Prince Charles first overseas trip help launch the new princess into international stardom — and prompted Prince Charles' jealousy

Stephanie Petit is a Royals Editor, Writer and Reporter at PEOPLE.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles ' first overseas trip help launch the new princess into international stardom — and prompted Prince Charles' jealousy over his wife's popularity.

Season four of The Crown , now streaming on Netflix, tackles the couple's 1983 tour of Australia in the episode "Terra Nullius" — and the importance of keeping the country in the Commonwealth.

Tensions between Diana (played by Emma Corrin) and Charles (Josh O'Connor) began before the plane even touched down, according to the royal drama. Prince William , then just 9 months old, became the first royal baby to accompany his parents on a royal tour (a tradition since followed by William and Kate Middleton as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with their own children .) In the show, it was Princess Diana who insisted they bring their son along — "no baby, no me."

The move to travel with their son warmed the hearts of Australians. "Bringing William was what made it really different. There was a huge amount made of Diana being a breath of fresh air and [so] modern. It was enormous," said Jane Connors, author of Royal Visits to Australia .

Early in the arduous six-week tour, Princess Diana — already battling bulimia — was portrayed in The Crown as weak from the Australian heat and jet lag. During a scene at Uluru, she leaves Charles to climb Ayers Rock without her after saying she felt "dizzy." However, she bounces back as the tour continues, dazzling all who see and meet her.

At first, the Prince of Wales is pleased by his wife's efforts and approval by the large crowds who came to see them — but it's not long before he begins to feel like second fiddle.

During a speech, Prince Charles talks about how "lucky" he is to have Diana as a wife, only for Princess Diana to make a face and draw laughs from the crowd. "That's the thing about ladies: you never quite know what they get up to when your back's turned," he remarks.

The Crown shows the couple getting into a fight over Charles' embarrassment.

"This was supposed to be my tour! My tour as Prince of Wales to shore up a key country in the Commonwealth at a very delicate moment politically," O'Connor’s Charles erupts at Corrin's Diana. "Thanks to you, people are laughing in my face."

Can't get enough of PEOPLE 's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton , Meghan Markle and more!

The real-life Princess Diana spoke about upstaging her husband and his jealousy during her famous 1995 interview with BBC1's Panorama.

"We'd be going 'round Australia, for instance, and all you could hear was, 'Oh, she's on the other side.' Now, if you're a man — like my husband — a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks. You feel low about it, instead of feeling happy and sharing it," she said.

Host Martin Bashir clarified that the public was expressing a "preference" for Diana over her husband.

"Yes, which I felt very uncomfortable with, and I felt it was unfair because I wanted to share," she said.

Diana added, "With the media attention came a lot of jealousy. A great deal of complicated situations arose because of that."

Related Articles

Prince Charles and Princess Diana's 1983 Australia Tour Marked the Fracturing Of Their Relationship

The Crown accurately depicts the jealousy lurking beneath the surface of the royal couple.

The Crown launches into Dianamania with the sixth episode of Season Four, as it follows Prince Charles and Diana on their 1983 royal tour of Australia and New Zealand. They embarked on their first overseas tour as a couple with young Prince William in March, and as the Netflix series shows, the tour launched Diana into superstardom and solidified Charles’ resentment of her. Here's how the actual tour compares to Peter Morgan’s adaptation in the episode entitled “Terra Nullius.”

However, the 21-year-old new mother was having a difficult time, as shown in the show—she was "jet-lagged, anxious and sick with bulimia," wrote Andrew Morton of the tour. We see Diana turn back mid-hike at Ayers Rock in Episode Six to Charles’ dismay, which did really happen. However, this was likely because of her impractical front-buttoned white dress and heels, per the Sydney Morning Herald . “When Charles coaxed her to climb part of the way up the rock, she hesitated, not through fear of slipping, but because she knew that coming down would expose her knees and petticoat to the world’s press,” they wrote of the incident.

Still, the tour was likely as rocky for Charles and Diana’s relationship as The Crown depicts. There are accounts of Diana crying at a public appearance outside the Sydney Opera House, which a photographer who was present, Ken Lennox, described in the documentary Inside the Crown: Secrets of the Royals , per Vanity Fair :

I’m about four feet from the princess and I’m trying to get a bit of the opera house in the background and some of the crowd, and Diana burst into tears and wept for a couple of minutes. Charles I don’t think has noticed [Diana crying] at that stage. If he has, typical of Prince Charles to look the other way.

While the show accurately depicts some moments that the couple seemed to be genuinely in love, such as their dance at a charity ball in Sydney, Charles’s jealousy of the mad adoring crowds over Diana did in fact amplify the wedge between the couple.

“The prince was embarrassed the crowds so clearly favored her over him,” wrote Sally Bedell Smith . “For her part, Diana was upset by the disproportionate interest in her, especially when she realized that it was disturbing Charles. She collapsed under the strain, weeping to her lady-in-waiting and secretly succumbing to bulimia. In letters to friends, Charles described his anguish over the impact ‘all this obsessed and crazed attention was having on his wife.’”

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In a 1995 interview with the BBC after their separation, Diana affirmed this herself. “We'd be going round Australia, for instance, and all you could hear was, ‘oh, she's on the other side.’ Now, if you're a man—like my husband—a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks. You feel low about it, instead of feeling happy and sharing it,” she recalled. “With the media attention came a lot of jealousy. A great deal of complicated situations arose because of that.”

Charles and Diana’s royal tour did, however, have a powerful impact on the public opinion of the monarchy in Australia, as depicted in the episode. The popularity of the monarchy had been in decline in Australia in the '70s, and Republican Prime Minister Bob Hawke did not hide his stance that the country would be better off as an independent nation. While he may not have directly expressed this to Charles as he did in the episode, after the royal tour The Evening Standard stated that the public’s extreme fawning over Diana “ha[d] set Republicanism back 10 years.” And when, in 1999, the country held a referendum to vote on the possibility of becoming a republic, the people voted against it.

And the most crucial factual detail that The Crown snuck into the episode—Charles really did fall off that horse in the polo match.

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Royal tour fashion favourites: Diana, Princess of Wales in Australia, 1983

Royal tours are always a source of excitement, not just for the interesting locales and fun engagements, but the stand-out style moments. This summer, Royal Central is looking back at some of the best tour fashion moments from over the years.

While the Cambridges took their first overseas tour just two months after their wedding, it was closer to two years after the royal wedding of a century when Prince William’s parents headed to Australia on their debut tour as a couple in March 1983.

Much has been written about this fateful tour over the years, and it was dramatised in an episode of The Crown , dissecting the early breakdown of the Wales’s marriage. The 21-year-old Princess of Wales had never been on a royal tour abroad, and much was riding on their popularity with Australians. But Diana came out shining, and so did her style.

Our team is sharing their favourite looks Diana wore on her first-ever tour.

Kristin Contino, Chief Reporter

It was hard to choose just two outfits from such an iconic tour. Diana fever was certainly alive and well in Australia that spring, and she didn’t disappoint in terms of style factor. I’m fairly sure I would have been combing the magazines to copy her outfits if I had been in my teens or 20s at the time, and funnily enough, many of these styles are now back in stores.

The pink-and-white polka dot dress Diana wore in Perth is one of those classic eighties Diana looks that I adore. Taking a cue from Her Majesty, who likes to wear bright colours to be seen in a crowd, the Princess of Wales wore a cheerful fuschia dress designed by Donald Campbell. Paired with an equally pink John Boyd hat and white pumps, the look was fun and feminine. Years later, we’ve seen the Duchess of Cambridge wear a bright fuschia polka dot dress, drawing many comparisons to the mother-in-law she never met.

We see plenty of “Diana’s best looks” slideshows these days, but I feel like this Jan van Velden dress doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The pussy-bow neck, wide white belt and matching hat equals eighties perfection. The springy pale yellow shade with a white floral pattern paired so well with the floaty skirt and worked for everything from a school visit to a ginger factory that day. I remember having a Barbie with a similar dress/hat in the later eighties and loving it; I would definitely wear this outfit today.

Jessica Storoschuk, Reporter

The Australia tour was a big tour for the still young Princess of Wales. The Prince and Princess of Wales brought along a young Prince William with them, and Diana was immediately popular. 

This red Bruce Oldfield dress is one of my favourite Diana looks. She wore Oldfield’s designs for nearly a decade, and I think he really knew how to design for her. The ruffle details throughout are still fairly 1980s, but overall the silhouette and colour would work now with a few tweaks. She paired the gown with the Spencer tiara (which she wore several times on the tour), the Prince of Wales feather diamond necklace, and the Royal Family Order of the Queen. Unfortunately, Diana stopped wearing Oldfield’s designs after her split from Prince Charles, and Oldfield’s business suffered greatly. (He did return to royal favour, dressing the Countess of Wessex for the 2011 royal wedding.) 

This blue Catherine Walker suit also highlights another one of Diana’s fashion relationships. Walker started desiging for Diana when she was pregnant in 1982 and would continue to design for her until her death in 1997. The suit is made out of lighter silk with pleated detailing on the bodice. While I think that a lot of Diana’s wardrobe in the 1980s is markedly of its time, I think that this is another piece that could be worn now with a few adjustments. (She also wore a teal, dress version of this suit on their visit to New Zealand on the same tour.) 

Jess Ilse, Senior Royal Reporter and Editorial Assistant

This icy blue ruffled Bruce Oldfield gown is classically Diana. It’s also a look that would work today, styled the same. Diana knew how to dress like a princess and used it to great success in Australia (she’s pictured here at a charity ball in Sydney). I love this colour for her and the silver accessories.

This elegant bubblegum pink gown, paired with the Spencer Family tiara, is sheer perfection. It was designed by Victor Edelstein and showed Diana as bright and vivacious. Diana used the colour pink in all its forms, pastel, bubblegum, and hot pink, wonderfully throughout this tour.

Lydia Starbuck, Associate Editor

I was really young when this tour took place, but I still remember seeing photos of Diana on the front of papers or on the news that I didn’t want on the TV (yes, kids, once upon a time, a whole family shared one TV). Just about everything she wore on this epic tour became famous and remains memorable almost four decades on. Diana-mania was at its height, and while her sense of style was still taking shape, there were hints of all the hallmarks of a fashion supremo in the making.

My first pick is an outfit that was already iconic when Diana wore it in Canberra as the tour really hit its stride. The long-sleeved version of her wedding day going away outfit was instantly recognisable. Designed by Belville Sassoon, it is the epitome of the new romantic style that Diana had embraced as she put together her royal working wardrobe in her earliest days as part of the House of Windsor. The pink tussore silk two-piece features a mid-calf length skirt, puffed shoulders on both the short and long-sleeved jacket and the famous white-collar, finished with a bow. The flamboyant feathers on the matching hat by John Boyd were an early indication of Diana’s very individual flair for fashion.

In some ways, this tour altered Diana’s royal life forever. The ‘Shy Di’ celebrated by the papers found a new confidence that was hard to ignore. And at times, that shone through in her wardrobe. This blue and white print dress, designed by Donald Campbell, seems to point to the bold patterns and innovative mirroring that would dominate Diana’s wardrobe in the late 80s. The contrast of backgrounds across the top of the print on this mid-length dress is offset by that Diana staple, a string of pearls, and another striking hat from John Boyd.

Brittani Barger, Deputy Editor

Diana’s fashion was on trend for the 1980s, and like her daughters-in-law after her, people wanted to look like her. It is hard to pick an outfit on this tour that one of my colleagues has not already chosen. I did like Diana in pink, and she wore a very 80s Catherine Walker gown while attending a concert in Melbourne. It was pink with circles in silver on the bodice and skirt and featured the 80s puffy sleeves. While it may not be a go-to fashion look for now, but it was a really pretty look on the young princess during the Australian tour.

My other choice is the red and white polka dot ensemble Diana wore to visit Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne. It was another Catherine Walker design (a go-to designer for much of her life) and featured a white wide-brimmed hat with red trim. I will admit the white tights were a bit much with the red shoes, but just looking at the dress and red jacket, Diana pulled it off.

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No-nonsense, practical and more popular than King Charles: Princess Anne's busy royal life

Analysis No-nonsense, practical and more popular than King Charles: Princess Anne's busy royal life

There was a moment in February this year when Princess Anne stepped out in a familiar purple checked coat.

It was a regular day for the Princess Royal, back-to-back engagements including visits to a therapy group and a shawl factory in Nottingham in England's Midlands.

The velvet coat — the hue of Scottish heather — had belonged to her late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, a favourite worn in private and twice in public. It's not a dressy piece, Her Majesty was seen teaming it with trousers and her trademark headscarf, while Anne opted for a skirt and knee-high boots.

Of course, this is the sort of thing we all do. A poignant way to keep a loved one close while also recycling old and, in the late Queen's case, extremely well-made clothes (the piece was designed by Elizabeth II's dressmaker Angela Kelly). It's also very Princess Anne, quietly respectful, no-nonsense, practical — and one reason she continues to poll as the UK's most popular royal from the King's generation.

The 2024 Ipsos poll , which annually measures attitudes to the Royal Family in Britain, showed Anne three percentage points ahead of her brother the King, with the Wales family members topping the poll. This was one percentage point higher than Anne's figures the previous year and a recognition of how vital she is to Charles' reign.

A hardworking royal

The Princess Royal is regularly described as the most hard-working royal, based on the tally of her annual engagements — 457 in 2023 according to the Court Circular, compared to 425 carried out by the King. While this is not an entirely accurate workload analysis — much is done by King Charles and Queen Camilla aside from engagements — it does give a clear indication of just how much of the often mundane public service toil Anne takes on.

Since the King stepped back from public-facing duties to undergo cancer treatment, Anne has been even more in evidence. Last week she carried out six engagements — more than any other royal — and next week there are a further nine scheduled.

There's no great fanfare to Anne's work, which usually sails under the radar. She's rarely trailed by a media pack and travels with a tiny staff retinue, often just security and one aide.

I have interviewed Princess Anne twice, including at a photo shoot on her Gatcombe Estate farm, and travelled with her on her last major visit to Australia to open the Sydney Royal Easter Show in 2022.

In person, she is warm, down to earth and eager to get on with the job. She has a quick, dry sense of humour and hits the ground running, never fading. "It's quite frenetic but for quite short spaces," she told me. "There will be quite a lot of flying in between. You just learn to pace yourself. I can now sleep in any form of transport, which does help."

At the Easter Show, she strode through the grounds checking out the animals and meeting local farmers. She was completely in her element.

The royal juggle

It's no surprise, this is very much Princess Anne's manner. "I've never been a city girl. I may have been born within the sound of Bow Bells but definitely never my scene," she told me for an Australian Women's Weekly interview to mark her 70th birthday, in which she talked with fervour about her own farm in Gloucestershire.

"London was to me school days ... weekends were at Windsor ... where there was a farm, mostly dairy but there were pigs and chickens as well. My background ... was always on the farm."

Fitting in royal work with running her farm is a juggle, but like her mother and the King, the public service side of her job is non-negotiable. "We as a family see ourselves as there to support [the monarch]," she said in a 2023 interview with CBC in Canada, ahead of her brother's coronation. "What we do, we hope, contributes to the monarchy and the way in which it can convey continuity … service and understanding the way that people and communities want to live their lives."

Anne was very close to both parents and from her mother says she learned that the job is all about "the way you treat people, with respect for individuals". On engagements, she is happiest chatting with regular folk who I've noticed warm to her quickly. "You just find people with stories to tell," she says.

Her daughter Zara Tindall, who lives nearby on Aston Farm on the Gatcombe Estate, says she can't see her mother ever slowing down or retiring. She's probably right, but Princess Anne is on the record criticising the reduced number of working royals now available to call on, something that has become more apparent with the family's current health issues.

"I think the 'slimmed-down' [monarchy] was said in a day when there were a few more people around to make that seem like a justifiable comment," she told CBC in 2023. "I mean, it doesn't sound like a good idea from where I'm standing."

The comment caused a few raised eyebrows, but there is no sign that the King is about to call on the likes of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice or recall Prince Harry and Meghan from the US to swell the ranks with an injection of youth.

'A very mixed blessing'

When the Queen was crowned, Princess Anne was second in line to the throne. Today she is 17th behind many non-working royals and both of her younger brothers.

At the end of 2022, Anne and her brother Prince Edward were added to the list of Counsellors of State who can be called on to fill in for the Monarch if he is ill or overseas, but the succession line remains with Prince Harry and Prince Andrew and their children ahead of the Princess Royal.

Some Brits have told me they would feel more comfortable seeing Princess Anne higher up, but it will never happen. In a hierarchical monarchy, the outmoded gender rule that put male heirs ahead of females was changed when the Succession to the Crown Act was passed in 2013, but it doesn't apply retrospectively.

While it must be galling, Anne has taken this gender inequality on the chin, saying she's always felt she was treated as "an honorary man" in other parts of her life — notably in her chosen sport of horse-riding in which she was an Olympian.

The Princess Royal did however famously ensure that her own children were not given titles. This allowed them independence to make their own way and not be indentured to a life of royal work as their mother had been.

"I think even then [when I made the decision] it was easy to see that it [a title] was a very mixed blessing," Princess Anne told me when I interviewed her in 2020. "And in my case because I was female, no advantages at all, really."

Juliet Rieden is a royal commentator.

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