The two bonded over their lack of fondness for the royal protocol. Soon enough, they were on their way to pranking each other, their husbands, and just being young girls enjoying themselves.
The People's Princess was known for her rebellious ways, her kind nature, her hands-on technique in parenting and her charm that could make men fight over her. So it should come as no surprise that she was quite naughty too. So much so, that along with her once-close friend and the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, she played a prank on the Buckingham Palace.
Diana and Sarah's friendship started long before they were members of the royal family. In fact, they were actually fourth cousins. Their mothers went to school together and they themselves had known each other since adolescence. Diana and Sarah, however, only became closer after they reconnected in 1980 when Diana was 19 and Sarah was 21.
The two of them had a lot of common ground between them and they soon became fast friends, according to Town and Country Mag. Their relationship remained unchanged even when Diana became the Princess of Wales. And then Sarah was to join the royal family too, as Prince Andrew's wife making the two sisters-in-law. It was then that they found another common interest — a lack of fondness for the royal protocol. Soon enough, they were on their way to pranking each other, their partners and just being young girls enjoying themselves.
The year was 1986, around the time that Sarah Ferguson was gearing up to be the new Duchess of York and Diana was settling into life at the palace with her husband, Prince Charles. With the two of them being so full of life, they decided to have a bachelorette party or as they called it, a hens party, something that was a first in the royal family.
“On July 15, a week before the wedding, Andrew had his stag do at Aubrey House with the likes of Elton John and Sir David Frost. I desperately wanted to gate-crash, but the fortress was impregnable: high wall, single entrance, guards with major biceps – no go. As a fallback, Diana and I staged a hen-night," Sarah revealed in her book, My Story: Sarah the Duchess of York, according to Express UK.
Only the participants of the prank on the palace knew what the ladies had planned. As Sarah described in her book, this is what happened: "With a few co-conspirators in tow, we donned grey wigs and dressed up in authentic policewomen’s outfits, down to our regulation dark stockings and lace-up shoes. After assembling just outside the Palace, we pretended to arrest one of our friends (chosen for her fabulous legs), who was playing the promiscuous lady."
"The duty police at the gates thought this very strange. They called out the park police, who proceeded to arrest the lot of us – even our protection officer, who played along – for causing a scene outside Buckingham Palace. They ushered us into their police van, [and] Diana and I had no intention of resisting. We thought it hysterically funny."
And throughout the whole thing, Diana and Sarah had managed to go completely unrecognized. So they basically pulled off the prank so well, the two best friends were arrested for real. So how did they manage to get this done? According to the Duchess of York's book, "We’d turned our engagement rings wrong side around, and it had worked, they hadn’t recognized us. By the time we reached the end of the Mall, our cover must’ve worn thin – we heard one of the policemen say, ‘Oh my heavens, it’s the Princess of Wales in drag!’"
According to Indian Business Times, Lewis Louis, the manager of the club, at first glance, thought there was some sort of police raid. However, guests quickly came to the conclusion that these cleverly-disguised royals were just “kiss-o-gram” girls.
Diana, Sarah and their friends were informed that one or two were fine but four was a bit of embarrassment to others. “One of the four apologised for the fact that there were so many of them and promised, ‘We’ll be leaving soon’,” Louis recalled. “They were perfectly disguised and certainly had us fooled,” he added.
They even went back after the misunderstanding was sorted out, to the society club Annabel’s, and later locked Prince Andrew out of the Buckingham Palace gates as he returned from his bachelor party, according to Town and Country Mag.
Of course, towards the end of Diana's life, the blood between the sister-in-laws had turned sour. However, Sarah told Harper's Bazaar, "I really miss Diana. I loved her so much. Diana was one of the quickest wits I knew; nobody made me laugh like her. But because we were like siblings—actually, we were fourth cousins and our mothers, who went to school together, were also best friends—we rowed."
"And the saddest thing, at the end, we hadn't spoken for a year, though I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head... I tried, wrote letters, thinking whatever happened didn't matter, let's sort it out. And I knew she'd come back. In fact, the day before she died she rang a friend of mine and said, 'Where's that Red? I want to talk to her," she emotionally recalled.
Well, at least the Duchess of York has a ton of good memories to remember her friend and sister by and we have another amazing story about an adored princess.
References:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Story-Sarah-Duchess-York/dp/0671575287
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1202619/sarah-ferguson-news-fergie-princess-diana-sneak-out-buckingham-palace-royal-spt
https://www.ibtimes.com/princess-diana-sarah-ferguson-questioned-authorities-over-prince-andrew-prank-2761037
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a22482954/princess-diana-sarah-ferguson-duchess-of-york-relationship/
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/news/a730/sarah-ferguson-divorce-interview/
