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TAKING SIDES IN THE BATTLE ROYAL
As a potent cocktail of jealousy, rivalry and ambition simmered in the royal household, the loyalties of friends, family and staff were tested – as these searingly candid testimonies reveal
PETRONELLA WYATT Writer
‘In 1987, I was in Badminton attending the wedding of the then Marquess of Worcester, or “Bunter” as he is known, and the socialite actress Tracy Ward [ Bunter’s mother, the Duchess of Beaufort, was my godmother]. I was about 17 at the time. There was a lot of gossip at the reception because the Prince and Princess of Wales would be coming to the dance afterwards. Or at least the prince would be; there was some uncertainty about Diana.
‘The Beauforts and their friends were mainly Carlists, as were most of the people I knew who mixed with the royal couple. These included the Duke of Marlborough, John Bowes-Lyon, and old friends of Charles such as Nicholas Soames, Andrew Parker Bowles – the Duchess of Cornwall’s then husband – and young Winston Churchill. By this time Charles and Diana had been married for nearly six years, and their incompatibility had become legend among society. Most of my circle blamed Diana. She was labelled insane, manipulative and hypocritical.
‘At the wedding there was a lot of talk about how she had been annoying the wife of a banker friend, who was also present, by her blatant pursuit of her husband. “Sunny” [the Duke of] Marlborough told me that Diana had had many more affairs than Charles. The received wisdom was that Charles had gone into the marriage with reservations, but had intended to make a proper go of it. I was convinced that at the time of their wedding, the prince was not involved in a sexual relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, who was well-liked by everyone, including myself, and was certainly not some professional home-wrecker. Even so, Diana did have her supporters. The wife of a wellknown business magnifico said the Royal Family had treated her appallingly, “She is a star, their only star, and they have just thrown all that away.”
‘If both Charles and Diana had possessed different personalities the marriage might have been a success, but as the Queen Mother told my father, the late Lord [Woodrow] Wyatt, it had been “a terrible mistake”. The Queen Mother adored Charles. She once described him to me as “very sensitive”. But he was spoilt and used to getting his own way. He needed careful managing, unconditional love and someone to jolly him along in an almost motherly way. Very few people could have done it.
‘Diana was not only not that person, but was even more sensitive than he (not surprisingly, given her youth and inexperience) as well as volatile and histrionic. Her performances could have jerked tears from Caligula’s eyes. I heard on the rare occasions that she went to Highgrove there were always scenes in front of guests. She created tableaux in which she was the wronged heroine. She cried and issued dark threats like some blonde Medea. Winston Churchill told me that she was obsessively jealous and suspicious of everyone. She listened at keyholes (once, a guest opened his door and Diana literally fell into the room), steamed open Charles’s letters, screamed at him for no reason and had temper tantrums with staff.
‘Remember that this was a different generation that believed in discretion and the stiff upper lip. No one talked about depression or mental illness, at least not in any open or constructive way. Charles, who had been emotionally starved by his own mother, was not equipped to cope with the needs of a young woman suffering from what was a serious form of depression and an eating disorder. Sunny Marlborough told me Charles was “aghast” at her behaviour. On one occasion she had cut up all his ties and stabbed at herself with a pair of scissors. He didn’t hate her for it, but he ran from it. At one point she even put on wigs as disguises and followed him about. People thought she had driven him back to Camilla.’
CHARLES RAE Former royal correspondent
‘Charles and Diana were in Canada in October 1991, where William and Harry would meet up with their mum and dad on board the Royal Yacht Britannia, moored in a dock in Toronto. By then, the fairy tale of the royal marriage being happy was already starting to crumble behind the scenes. Every look, every action by either of them spoke volumes.
‘After the royal couple finished the day’s regal duties they headed back to Britannia for a reunion with William and Harry, who had flown out. William and Harry were on the deck with a nanny when the prince and princess headed up the gangplank. Diana was first, and she briefly shook hands with the captain before darting off along the deck like a sprinter heading for a gold medal with arms outstretched and a huge smile on her face. It ended with her completely enveloping both boys in huge hugs and kisses [see left]. Apart from the “oohs and aahs” of the crowd on the quayside, the only other sound you could hear was the motor drives of the photographers’ cameras capturing every nanosecond.
‘Meanwhile polite Charles was shaking hands with what seemed like practically the whole crew and when
‘She even put on wigs as disguises and followed him around’ PETRONELLA WYATT, WRITER
he arrived to kiss and hug his boys, his late appearance was interpreted as cold and stand-offish. I don’t believe Diana planned her publicity coup, she really was a devoted mother giving her lads an enthusiastic welcome. But the result the following day was stories and pictures around the world that clearly showed the prince had been wrong-footed and Diana had scored with the media – again! Charles was and is just as devoted a parent as Diana was. The media slaughtered poor Charles for not showing his true feelings in public.’
PENNY JUNOR Journalist and biographer
‘On a royal tour in Wales in 1981, the crowds were hemmed in on either side of the street and the couple took one side each. When people realised they were going to meet Charles rather than Diana they groaned. It became embarrassing to witness. He found himself apologising for not having enough wives to go round, and taking flowers from disappointed people who had brought them for Diana. He made light of it and was clearly delighted there was so much enthusiasm for his wife, but he was the Prince of Wales after all, and after a few days of playing second fiddle you could see the novelty was beginning to wear thin.’
DR JAMES COLTHURST Diana’s close confidant and old friend
‘I remember the first speech I wrote for her. We were having lunch and she threw a speech on Aids across the table, thinking it was vaguely medical and I might be able to help. It was written by the Aids charity and I thought it boring so she said, “OK, you do it then.” So I cobbled one together and her private secretary Patrick Jephson passed it, but she didn’t expect that it would appear in full, reproduced on the front page of two newspapers. But was it a good reception? Heck, no way! Charles had some people around him who just decided this was competition and she got it in the neck when she did well. It was a shame.’
SIMONE SIMMONS Healer
‘Diana had a good relationship with her sister Sarah, and was very generous towards her. The other sister Jane kept her distance because she was working for the other side who saw Diana as always in the wrong [Jane was married to the Queen’s private secretary Sir Robert Fellowes]. Their attitude was, Charles is having affairs so grit your teeth and bear it, he is the prince.’
LORD WYATT The late author and chairman of the Tote in his journals, 1990
‘Lunch with Princess Michael of Kent, she had noticed in Jean Rook’s column in the Express this morning the comment that Princess Diana must be very happy and sexually fulfilled, otherwise her face wouldn’t look so much as if she was in love. Jean Rook said this proved that the Prince of Wales and she must have a very happy marriage and a satisfying sex life. We both laughed because of course they have no sex together at all and there is some other man involved. Marie Christine said it was the one she had been visiting when she arrived at six in the morning at Kensington Palace having been caught speeding. She said it must be awful for Diana to have such a doleful life with the grim and gloomy Charles.’
KEN WHARFE Former bodyguard
‘I’ve never really believed she’d tried to commit suicide. The bulimia, the throwing herself down the stairs were all attention-seeking. There was a period in her life before I arrived when there was the suggestion of bulimia but that was at a mild stage. It seemed to me it was all part of seeking attention. She was too intelligent to continue and go through with these so- called attempts. She wasn’t mentally unstable, she was seriously unhappy. She said she’d spoken to the “top lady” – the Queen – who said, “I can’t help you. You’ll have to speak to my son.” Diana said, “That’s the problem. I can’t.”’
MICHAEL COLE Former BBC royal correspondent, former director of Harrods
‘Sometimes, Princess Diana didn’t need to signal the depth of her distress at being held within an increasingly loveless marriage. Visiting Normandy in 1987, the Prince and Princess of Wales were shown the Bayeux Tapestry by its curator. “He’s telling us the tapestry is 231ft long,” snapped Prince Charles at his wife. “But you’re not interested in that, are you?” It is true that Diana did seem uninterested, perhaps distracted, but her most revealing look was one of hurt, that her husband should call her out for inattention in
front of strangers. That, and a hint of her contempt for him for doing so.’
WINSTON CHURCHILL The late former Conservative MP
‘Diana had, amazingly, been able to put herself over as “one of us” in terms of ordinary people – “one of us” going every day to the hairdresser, every other day for a massage, for this or that kind of therapy. She couldn’t have been more different from “one of us”, but she managed to put this over, aided by her incredible beauty and also by her very keen sense of self-promotion. She was an absolute mistress of the art of manipulating the media.’
PHILIP ZIEGLER Former diplomat and author
‘They had set aside a weekend at Balmoral for talking over all the problems. She never came down for lunch, she never came to any meals. And when she did appear, she would run around wearing her wretched booby-bag [ bumbag], with her earphones on, and nobody had a word with her for the entire weekend. Yes, obviously, it could have been handled better if they had realised early enough what they had got on their hands – that there was great potential for danger. But it would have been jolly difficult: she was not an easy girl to be married to, and to get on with.
‘The Queen is alleged to have said on one occasion, “My mother’s a star; my daughterin-law’s a star. Where does that leave me? ” I don’t believe it was a major factor in her behaviour, but she would have been superhuman if she did not have a certain amount of irritation – especially if she really thought of her son as being miserably unhappy.’
SIR BERNARD INGHAM Former chief press secretary to Margaret Thatcher
‘I am not an admirer of Princess Diana. I’ve never been an admirer of her. I think she was a menace, frankly. She was a complex, selfindulgent, madwoman frequently; and I never got any thanks for saying so. It was only based on glamour. I’ve always asked the question, “What would have been the public’s attitude if she’d looked like the back of a bus?”’
DARREN McGRADY Personal chef
‘Charles liked Diana’s dirty sense of humour. That told me there was sti ll some spark of affection between them, I’m sure.’
PETRONELLA WYATT Writer
‘The Queen Mother [who was said to have set Charles up with Diana, the granddaughter of her lady-inwaiting Lady Fermoy] used to come to dinner at my parents’ house in London regularly. She didn’t like to speak of personal matters but her desperation over the Charles and Diana situation had unnerved her. Charles was her darling. “I love him so much,” she would say. He was the son she never had. Naturally she felt responsible when both Charles and Diana became wretched antagonists. “My grandson is so desperately sad,” she confided, with her blue eyes almost welling up.
‘No one hated Diana, except perhaps Princess Margaret. She wasn’t a bit upset when Diana died. Her behaviour at the funeral was extraordinary. I heard from an unimpeachable source that as she and the Queen waited for the gun carriage, she was badgering the Queen about improving the lavatories at Kensington Palace.’
INGRID SEWARD Author and editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine
‘I asked Diana if the Queen Mother had been really manipulative in her marriage. She said the Queen Mother was a tough lady and really manipulative and not nearly as nice as she appeared to be. But she was emphatic that the idea that the Queen Mother and Diana’s grandmother Lady Fermoy organised the marriage was simply not true. Diana said, “It was Charles and I that decided the marriage.” She said she stayed at Clarence House with the Queen Mother and everyone said, “Oh, the Queen Mother will look after you and teach you everything,” but she said the Queen Mother taught her nothing.’
MICHAEL COLE Former BBC royal correspondent, former director of Harrods
‘ Taking her sons on their first bucket-ands-pade holiday to Mallorca in August 1986 as guests of the King and Queen of Spain, the princess was anxious that it would be a success. She had kitted her husband out with a new wardrobe of suitable casual wear and, for possibly the first and only time in his life, Prince Charles looked fashionable. He also looked relaxed. But not so the princess. She looked strained. It was only later that it emerged that lothario King Juan Carlos had made at least two determined but unsuccessful attempts to seduce her. If her husband had noticed, he didn’t show it; or perhaps didn’t care if he did.’
LORD WYATT The late author in his journals, 1988
‘John Bowes- Lyon [the Queen Mother’s nephew] says Charles is currently at Balmoral with his girlfriend. Charles Benson [racing tipster and socialite] says Princess Diana had an affair with the King of Spain. I suppose Diana faces a life of boredom with her husband now that the sex has worn out and she will look for consolation elsewhere. Maybe that won’t matter. It seems she is already doing it.’
KEN WHARFE Former bodyguard
‘The first overseas trip I did was in 1988 when Charles and Diana went to Mallorca to stay with the King and Queen of Spain
THERE WAS STILL A SPARK OF AFFECTION, I’M SURE
at the Marivent Palace. There wasn’t enough room for me in the palace and I was staying in a hotel. On the second day, once the prince had gone off on the king’s yacht Fortuna, my phone rang. Diana had stayed behind with the queen and she said, “Can you come up and see me?” So I did and there was Diana waiting at the gate in an orange bikini. She said, “Come and have a tea at the swimming pool.” The Queen of Spain was there and we were introduced. She disappeared and then Diana said, “I thought you ought to know a bit more about me as it will probably make your life a bit easier.” I didn’t know what she was going to say. She asked, “Do you know about Camilla?” I said I did. She replied, “I thought you would.” Then she asked, “Do you know about James Hewitt?” and I said I did. She said, “I just want you to know that Camilla has always been a problem for me. The relationship has been ongoing ever since I married him in 1981.” Then she said she and the prince hadn’t slept together for years. She was embarrassed. For anyone to have to say that to someone outside of her circle must have been difficult.’
MICHAEL COLE Former BBC royal correspondent, former director of Harrods
‘A press conference was called the
morning after the ball at the White House in 1985, when Diana danced with John Travolta. Before it began, it was announced that Diana would not be speaking, only her husband, and reporters were forbidden to ask anything about the previous evening. I had managed a brief interview with Travolta back at his hotel and could not see the purpose of a press conference if Topic A was off the agenda. “Could the Prince of Wales tell us how the princess is finding her first visit to America?” I asked, defying what I considered to be a stupid ban, contrary to the First Amendment of the American Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech. “And in particular how she enjoyed dancing with John Travolta last night?” The prince’s displeasure was evident. “Well,” he said, almost twisting his face in anger. “She would have to be an idiot not to have enjoyed dancing with John Travolta, wouldn’t she?” Precisely. So why hadn’t they let her say so in a perfectly normal way? That’s all we had wanted.’
PATRICK JEPHSON Former private secretary
‘Charles and Diana were in Abu Dhabi in 1989. They were having coffee with their host but Diana was excluded from the conversation. Eventually Diana was asked what she would be doing on the visit and Charles said, “Shopping, darling?” The host was not trying to make Diana feel stupid or small. It was her husband. We were all embarrassed by it, as was the host. I took it as a deliberate attempt to undermine her confidence particularly at the start of a royal tour where, not unnaturally, she was feeling quite apprehensive.’
SARAH BRADFORD Also known as Viscountess Bangor, royal biographer
‘I don’t believe Diana dominated Prince Charles. A few years into their marriage Charles was already making no attempt to involve Diana in conversations as they had so little in common and at some point, probably 1983, Charles and Camilla began to get in touch again. But Diana was still desperately in love with him – even if she was a bit scared of him – and wanted to get everything right. At fittings with her couturier Jasper Conran, Diana would break down in tears saying, “Please make me look sexy for my husband.” She was so terrified of losing him to Camilla but, ironically, her tormented behaviour had only succeeded in turning him away from her.’
PENNY THORNTON Astrologer
‘I had no idea until she talked to me about what was going on with her and Charles how serious things were. She was in pieces. She was actually at the end of her rope, she was ready to walk. She told me she needed Charles’s support and she would go to see him and he’d be in his study and she’d be told by the personal secretary, “I’m sorry, you can’t see him now, you’ll have to make an appointment.” She was a fragile person as we know, needy and emotional, and she couldn’t even reach him.’
KEN WHARFE Former bodyguard
‘William and Harry were very much involved in everything that happened at Kensington Palace and Highgrove and this was sometimes frowned upon by the prince, who really couldn’t believe that the downstairs staff were part of their life. He was of the opinion that the chef’s place was the kitchen, the policemen in their room, the chauffeur in the garage. He believed they shouldn’t be part of the children’s everyday life. This was alien to Diana. Having met her late father, Earl Spencer, I know what he wanted was for everyone to be part of this big family. Prince Charles was too royal to want that to happen, but in the end I think he relented because it was a bit of a lost cause for him.’
‘It emerged King Juan Carlos had made two attempts to seduce her’ MICHAEL COLE, ROYAL CORRESPONDENT INTERVIEWING TEAM LISA SEWARDS, JANE SLADE, MOIRA PETTY, ANDREW PRESTON, MARY GREENE, JACKIE MODLINGER, JESSICA MOORHOUSE, DEBORAH AND GERALD STROBER