Diana’s cry for help: How the distraught Princess threw herself down the stairs at Sandringham while pregnant with Prince William… and the horrified Queen Elizabeth was the first on the scene

Their wedding in 1981 took the world by storm and millions of people enjoyed what seemed like a royal fairytale.

From the outside, the relationship between Princess Diana and Prince Charles was a match made in heaven.

But in early 1982, the now pregnant Diana was so unhappy that she threw herself down the stairs to get her husband’s attention during a visit to Sandringham, the late Queen Elizabeth’s estate in Norfolk.

The Queen witnessed the aftermath and was “shaking” and “completely shocked,” Diana later told royal biographer Andrew Morton.

In audiotapes obtained by Morton for his biography Diana, Her True Story, she claimed she was sent away by her husband when she initially threatened to throw herself down the stairs.

Princess Diana attends a church service in Windsor on Christmas Day in 1981

The Prince and Princess were staying at Sandringham House, pictured, when the incident occurred in 1982

Charles accused her of crying wolf and reportedly told her, “I’m not going to listen. You always do this to me. I’m going to go horse riding now.”

In response to Charles’ indifference and in an attempt to get his attention, Diana told Mr. Morton, “I jumped down the stairs.”

She said she wanted to get Charles’ attention and make him listen to her.

The couple were staying at Queen Elizabeth’s residence in Norfolk at the same time as the monarch and she happened to witness the incident.

Diana said: ‘The Queen comes out, completely shocked, shaking – she was so scared.’

The princess was four months pregnant with Prince William at the time, but explained: ‘I knew I wasn’t going to lose the baby, [though I was] quite bruised around the abdomen.’

Prince Charles, Lady Diana Spencer and the Queen at Buckingham Palace in March 1981, four months before the royal wedding

The couple, next to the Queen, waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace on their wedding day in 1981

Diana and Charles stand outside St George’s Chapel on Christmas Day 1981

However, the incident did not elicit the response from Charles that Diana had so desired and she told Mr Morton that ‘it was simply a resignation’.

When he returned from riding, the princess claimed he ‘just walked out the door’.

His reaction was influenced by the advice of his friends, who thought Diana should “pull herself together,” Robert Lacey wrote in his book Battle of Brothers.

As Prince William’s due date approached, Charles spent more time with Diana and remained by her side when their first son was born.

He thus became the first male royal to attend a birth.

In a letter to his godmother, Patricia Knatchbull, Charles wrote how grateful he was to be ‘at Diana’s bedside all the time’.

The couple were staying at the late Queen Elizabeth’s residence in Norfolk at the same time as the monarch and she happened to witness the incident as it unfolded

Princess Diana during a visit to Wales in October 1981

Princess Diana, however, struggled with her mental health for a long time. When William was four years old, the princess fainted during a trip to Canada.

She was suffering from bulimia at the time and told Charles that she thought she was ‘about to disappear’, after which she passed out during an exhibition at Expo ’86.

The princess received some help from doctors, but continued to struggle and her marriage to Charles became increasingly troubled.

They eventually separated in 1992, and divorced in 1996.

She told Mr Morton that Charles ‘had told many people that the marriage was so rocky because I was sick all the time.

“They never wondered what it did to me.”