Queen Elizabeth II Who 'Bows to Nobody' Made an Exception for This Royal Family Member

She was 'the' Queen Elizabeth. The world bowed down to her and not the other way around. However, the late monarch once broke the rule for a surprising family member and it was none other but the late Diana dubbed 'People's Princess'. The late royal was her son King Charles' wife and her daughter-in-law. Although Diana broke away from the royal family, Her Majesty still respected her. 

When the news of Diana's untimely death on August 31, 1997, reached Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth mourned the loss in a live TV address, calling her an "exceptional and gifted human being." Additionally, to pay her last respects, her Majesty did something that she never did for anyone else as historian Jane Ridley recalled to CNN, "The Queen bows to nobody – ever." But when Diana's funeral rode past the Palace, she was seen "making a bow to her daughter-in-law." 

In her lifetime, Diana couldn't fully fit herself into the royal family. Instead, she defied many rules challenging the British Monarchy unlike any other. Her life as Princess of Wales was subjected to intense media scrutiny, personal struggles, infidelity, and health concerns among other confrontations. While going through all this, she gave birth to two sons- Prince William and Prince Harry and lovingly raised them in her own way.

While she was silently enduring the hardships, the cracks in her tumultuous marriage began to show and by 1992, she separated from the now king. She wasn't an active royal family member years before she tragically died in a car crash in Paris but somehow the connection remained through the kids. According to a book by Andrew Morton, The Queen: Her Life, the now-late monarch was "very supportive" of Diana. 

"Diana always felt that the Queen was a kind of marital referee and that the Queen should really intervene over her husband's relationship with Mrs. Parker Bowles. But the Queen's policy was to hope for the best," Morton told PEOPLE. But towards the end of their relationship, the Queen didn't know how to help devastated Diana come out of her marital miseries. 

In 1992, when Charles and Diana's love triangle with Camilla Parker Bowles reached its breaking point, the late Princess visited her mother-in-law at Buckingham Palace bursting into tears. A lady-in-waiting recalled, "The Queen didn't know what to do. She has always hated this kind of emotional confrontation and, frankly, has never had to deal with it before or since." The least Her Majesty could do was to reassure sobbing Diana that she wouldn't be challenged for the custody of her two boys. 

"My mother-in-law has been totally supportive but it's so difficult to get a decision out of her," Diana spoke about the late Queen while awaiting her fate in the royal family. It took a while but when Her Majesty finally made up her mind, she reportedly wrote a letter to Diana that read that she'd consulted everyone and decided "the best course for you [Diana] is divorce."