'The Crown': Did Princess Diana Make Virginity Vow Before Marrying Charles?

The Crown's Princess Diana has been depicted telling her doctor boyfriend she had to take a virginity vow before marrying King Charles III in one of many eyebrow-raising scenes from Season 5.

Elizabeth Debicki depicts Diana telling her doctor boyfriend Hasnat Khan she dreamed of having a Pakistani husband during a visit to the Badshahi Mosque, in Lahore.

The moment comes as the show tackles an era of the 1990s known as the War of the Waleses when Diana and Charles were initially separated, from 1992, and ultimately divorced in 1996.

Debicki's Princess Diana Says She Was 'Instructed to Dress Modestly'

During a conversation by a hospital vending machine, Khan is shown telling on-screen Diana: "It's a nice idea in theory. In practice you might find traditional Pakistani family values a little challenging."

Diana replies: "You think the family I married into is any different? I was instructed to dress modestly, speak in a lowered voice and walk one pace behind my husband and address him always as 'sir.'

"I was discouraged from expressing opinions or having an education and I had to make a vow that I was a virgin before being considered fit to marry him."

Khan replies: "I'm sorry."

Diana's Virginity Was Debated Before Her Wedding

There was no reference to virginity in Princess Diana's official wedding vows but the subject was debated in the press at the time of their wedding.

Lord Fermoy, Diana's uncle, was quoted in the Daily Star at the time: "Purity seems to be at a premium when it comes to discussing a possible bride for Prince Charles at the moment."

Quoted by the Washington Post in 1981, he added: "Lady Diana, I can assure you has never had a lover. There is no such thing as her ever having had a past."

However, the debate was not confined to Britain and Howard Stern was among those to offer comment on his radio show.

A November 1985 Washington Post article read: "He [Stern] raised questions about Princess Diana's virginity on her wedding day."

Such was the expectation that a royal bride would be a virgin that this, at the time, ruled out Camilla, the queen consort today, as a potential spouse for Charles.

In 2020, Penny Junor, author of The Duchess, told Newsweek that the question of virginity was one of a number of factors that kept the pair apart, along with her romance with Andrew Parker-Bowles, whom she married in 1973.

Junor said: "At that time there seemed to be a need for his bride to be a virgin and a member of the aristocracy and a member of the Church of England. Camilla didn't tick too many of those boxes."

She added: "It was getting harder and harder to find girls who were members of the aristocracy and virgins. We'd had the sixties. It was now getting on for 1980 and they were thin on the ground.

"He met a series of nice girls and for one reason or another they weren't suitable or the press got hold of their backstory."

Questions about Diana's sex life peaked after a story in the Daily Mirror before their marriage said that she had twice met Charles late at night on the royal train in 1980.

Season 5 of The Crown dropped on Netflix on Wednesday, November 9, and charts how Charles' affair with Camilla became public knowledge for the first time through a biography by royal author Andrew Morton, Diana: Her True Story.

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