he Queen’s secret Sandringham service laying Diana’s ghost to rest
AND Charles’s slur at ‘unscrupulous’ French... AND Royals’ fury at plans for Diana memorial... AND Philip’s cruel jibe at Fergie over her affair...
Just some of the explosive revelations by society writer KENNETH ROSE — whose scandalous private diaries are published in a major new Mail series starting today
THE veteran newspaper diarist and gossip Kenneth Rose seemed to know everyone who mattered: royals, aristocrats, prime ministers and more. Yet many of his most sensational stories he kept for his private journals — now published in their second volume following his death in 2014. Here, he writes with unparalleled access and devastating insight as he watches the ingenue Diana Spencer join the Royal Family...
February 24, 1981
Watch the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer being interviewed on TV. there is something sad about a girl of 19 being led into royal captivity.
July 16, 1981
Johnnie [earl] Spencer [Diana’s father] tells me that he wanted to wear his Greys [cavalry regiment] uniform when Diana marries the Prince of Wales, but that Diana herself objected.
She thought it would detract from her own appearance. this is most extraordinary, like something from King Lear.
August 8, 1981
ON THE Royal Wedding, i hear that it was originally arranged that in the carriage procession from St Paul’s back to the Palace, Johnnie Spencer should drive with his former wife (and of course Diana’s mother), Mrs Shand Kydd.
But when told this at a meeting in Buckingham Palace, Johnnie pulled such a long face that the Queen said: ‘oh, all right then, you can drive with me,’ which much to his delight he did.
The Spencers were given 50 seats for St Paul’s. When Johnnie showed Diana his draft list, she crossed out all the family who had not bothered to come to the weddings of her sisters! one day she will be very formidable.
August 18, 1981
[FORMER Master of christ’s college, cambridge] Jack Plumb tells me that the Palace forgot to ask Gordon Richardson to the Prince’s wedding. he should have been there as Governor of the Bank of england; but that was not all. he had lent the Bank to the Prime Minister for her to give a lunch to the assembled statesmen from abroad immediately after the ceremony at St Paul’s.
October 9, 1981
DUKE Hussey [future BBC chairman, married to the Queen’s woman of the bedchamber] has been staying at Balmoral. he reports that rumours of Princess Diana’s boredom are accurate: the Prince goes out at nine to shoot or fish and she does not see him again until seven.
Dukie wonders if he will make a sufficiently good king: he thinks not. the Prince is too immature, and the contrast with the firm style of the Queen will be most marked.
February 6, 1983
I HEAR reports of the school where the Princess of Wales taught infants. She is apparently not very clever and certainly without any of the intellectual resources needed in marriage to the Prince of Wales.
August 17-18, 1985
THE Prince of Wales is a fellow guest with me of John King [chairman of British airways] at Strathnaver [Scotland]. He comes in from fishing in the late afternoon. through the window I see him pause for a few minutes, gazing out on the sunlit hills, looking both alone and lonely.
A very firm handshake. The Prince says that he is a dedicated diarist, who also likes to illustrate it if there is time. ‘It always amazes me that people seem to remember exactly what I said to them years ago.’ I ask him if this prompts him to be discreet. ‘no, I gave that up several years ago!’
Prince charles would love to live in Marlborough house. ‘I grit my teeth with rage whenever I go to some commonwealth event there. But what can one do? Once the people get inside a building, it is impossible to throw them out.’
On the French, charles says: ‘they are individually charming but collectively unscrupulous.’
December 24, 1985
MARIE-LOU DE ZULUETA [wife of a diplomat] tells me a charming story of Prince charles when a small boy. one day he came barging into [comptroller] Boy Browning’s room and heard him talking on the telephone to the Queen. So he asked: ‘Who is the Queen?’
Boy explained that it was his mother, but charles simply did not believe that she could be both his mother and Queen.
the next day, however, he admitted that Boy Browning had been right. ‘how do you know?’ Boy asked.
‘I asked the policeman.’
January 25, 1986
PRINCE Charles tells me that the only thing the Duke of Windsor left him in his will was a collection of kilts: ‘But as my great-uncle was such a tiny man, none of them fit me!’
November 13, 1986
I ASK [Eton provost] Martin charteris whether there is any truth in the rumour i have heard: that the Princess of Wales is having tuition in english literature and other matters at eton from [former provost] eric anderson.
he tells me it is so, although officially it is being denied.
April 27, 1988
RAINE SPENCER [stepmother to Princess Diana] telephones to ask me to lunch at althorp [the Spencer family seat in northamptonshire]. She talks at length about the Prince of Wales’s marriage. She much admires the public qualities of the Prince, especially his concern for the inner cities. But she thinks the Princess of Wales has a difficult life.
‘They don’t look to me like two people in love. They have different bedrooms and she never seems to want to touch him. When he says, “Give me a kiss” she does not respond.’ She has no artistic side to match his, which is a further gulf.
September 30, 1992
JOHN LISBURNE [earl] tells me that the Princess of Wales, visiting a housing estate, when told that there was a shortage of men there, replied: ‘there you are. it’s the
story of our lives.’ That is really irresponsible of her.
December 9, 1992
I HEAR on the wireless the PM making a Commons statement on the impending separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
December 13, 1992
[LAWYER and political adviser] arnold Goodman calls. We talk about the Wales affair. he does not care for Charles’s ‘empty pretensions to be an intellectual’, nor for his unforgiving character.
‘Of course,’ he says, ‘Diana has deliberately and publicly humiliated him — and incidentally made [andrew] Morton [author of Diana: My Own Story, for which she was the anonymous source, explaining her unhappiness and revealing that Charles was having an affair with Camilla], a millionaire. So it is not surprising that he hates her and has not the generosity of spirit to offer a reconciliation.’
how will Diana now behave? Will she lead a quiet and dignified life that could one day lead to a reconciliation? almost certainly not. She wants to make it difficult for Charles to become King, and to ensure that she will be the nemesis.
December 21, 1992
RAINE SPENCER told me how tiresome Johnnie [earl Spencer] found the Prince of Wales when he came to althorp. after two hours talking about rainforests and other environmental themes, he showed no sign of stopping.
So Johnnie said he had to telephone and went out. raine found him lying on his bed and he said: ‘I’m not down to dinner for two more hours of rainforest.’ raine eventually persuaded him to come down for a bit.
January 21, 1993
CALL for Martin Gilliat at St James’s Palace and take him to lunch at Green’s. Outside in the courtyard, vans are unloading the possessions of the Prince of Wales, carried there from Kensington Palace after his separation from Diana. he is to live in David airlie’s [Scottish peer and childhood friend of the Queen’s] house, until now used only for entertaining.
April 5, 1993
I HEAR how cunning the Princess of Wales is. The other day, she discovered when the Prince would be in his new quarters in St James’s Palace, then turned up and told him she had come to see if he was comfortable.
She even insisted on looking at his bedroom, and saying that it needed a small table which she would find for him. The Prince is terrified of her.
Martin Charteris tells me: ‘If the Queen had taken as much trouble over the bloodlines of her sons’ wives as she has over her horses and dogs, she would have avoided a lot of trouble.’
July 22, 1993
AS IT happens, the night of the Prime Ministerial dinner at Spencer house [held a year earlier, given by former prime ministers and their spouses for the Queen and Prince Philip, preceded by a larger reception to which rose himself had been invited] saw the final breakdown of the marriage. The Princess of Wales asked to see the Queen before dinner to tell her she wanted a separation from Charles.
The Queen was in a hurry to dress, so told her the discussion would have to be resumed at the Palace at the end of the evening. In the meantime, the Queen had to sit through dinner with the prime ministers and even talk to me.
amazing how in the circumstances she remained so composed and cheerful. The Waleses, by comparison, were redfaced and agitated.
October 18, 1994
I TALK to King Constantine [of Greece] about [broadcaster and author] Jonathan Dimbleby’s book on Prince Charles. We agree that it cannot do the Prince any good and almost certainly will bring him into public contempt.
It might have been worse had certain political passages not been removed from the earlier drafts, e.g. that the Prince was opposed to cuts in the armed Forces.
November 5, 1994
STAYING at Blagdon [home of Viscount ridley]. Princess Margaret is a fellow guest. She agrees with me that the Prince and Princess of Wales must divorce. ‘But Charles simply won’t listen to
my advice. As I talked to him, I noticed his eyes roaming round the room.’
PM minded very much that the Dimbleby book about the Prince came out during the Queen’s visit to russia.
April 25, 1995
WILLIAM and Caroline Waldegrave [Tory politician and wife] to dine at Bertorelli [Covent Garden restaurant, since closed down].
The friendship of the Waldegraves for Jonathan Dimbleby has cooled considerably since he published his book on the Prince of Wales. he does not realise how much he has damaged the Prince’s reputation. What has our royal Family come to?
June 3, 1995
I STAY for the weekend with [interior decorator] David and Pamela hicks. Princess Alexandra told Pammy that she never argues with Prince Charles, so terrible is his rage. he never consults the Queen. ‘There has been a complete break.’
Prince William is tiresome, always attracting attention to himself. hardly surprising when he is so spoilt by the tug-of-war of his parents and by courtiers, servants and detectives.
November 21, 1995
THE PRINCESS of Wales’s [BBC Panorama] Tv interview seems to have been technically accomplished but horribly indiscreet — an admission of adultery with James hewitt.
December 21, 1995
I GIVE breakfast to [Chief of the General Staff] Charles Guthrie at the hyde Park hotel. The Army does not like the Prince of Wales. When Charles Guthrie was received by him the other day, the Prince complained of overwork, which is absurd.
January 14, 1996
[BARONESS-IN-WAITING to the Queen] Jean Trumpington has been told that the Princess of Wales spent 17 hours recording the notorious [Panorama] Tv broadcast: she did each bit again and again until she had achieved the right degree of spurious sincerity.
May 31, 1996
PRINCESS Margaret says: ‘how glad the family will be to be rid of the wives, Diana and Fergie.’
July 21, 1996
I HEAR that members of the Prince of Wales’s Trust resent being made to go down to meetings at highgrove: not only the long double journey for busy men, but a lot of time wasted being shown the garden and tasting cordials. The main trouble with the Prince is that he hates being told anything he does not wish to hear.
December 4, 1996
IT SEEMS that by the time Dukie hussey retired as BBC Chairman the other day, he was no longer on speaking terms with John Birt, the Director General. one cause was Birt’s failure to tell Dukie that the Princess of Wales was to give her infamous Tv interview in which she admitted adultery — not that Dukie could have stopped it, even if he had wanted to.
August 31, 1997
I AM awakened by the telephone at 6.15. It is NBC from America. ‘have you heard the news? Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed have been killed in a car crash a few hours ago. Will you take part in a programme on her?’ At such a moment only undiluted appreciation will serve. So I decline.
September 2, 1997
SARAH, Duchess of York, asks me whether I am writing to the Prince of Wales on Diana’s death. I am not. Divorce makes it unnecessary.
September 11, 1997
[TORY politician and former high master of St Paul’s School] Peter Pilkington was as horrified as I was by the funeral address of Charles Spencer. ‘I have preached many funeral sermons, but have always made it a rule not to parade division and hatred.’
Peter puts down the mass hysteria, which is still continuing, to a rootless, under-educated urban population.
Not that Peter has a lot to say for Prince Charles. ‘he has compounded his personal failings by too much moralising. on the Duchy of Cornwall estates, he is known for his high rents and expensive organic farming.’
February 3, 1998
DUKIE hussey to lunch at the ritz. We are at one on the spurious reputation for saintliness of Diana.
She wanted to watch an operation at the royal Marsden hospital, of which Dukie was chairman. Dukie was absolutely against it, but how to put her off?
The solution was to find a patient who would refuse to give permission for any spectator to be present. This the administration managed to do and the news was broken to a sorrowful Diana.
June 4, 1998
PRINCESS Margaret tells me about the proposed memorial garden to Princess Diana in front of kensington Palace: ‘of course we don’t want it. After all, she lived at the back of the house, not the front.
‘It will be quite enough of a memorial to restore the grass in front which all these people trampled the week she died. And certainly no 300ft fountain in the round Pond!’
July 12, 1998
The Queen Mother tells me she is not in favour of a memorial to Princess Diana in kensington Gardens.
July 21, 1998
PRINCE eddie [the Duke of kent] to lunch at Le Gavroche. he is utterly furious about the plans for a memorial garden to Princess Diana in kensington.
August 15, 1998
THE Prince of Wales has written to the Chancellor of the exchequer approving the proposed memorial garden to Princess Diana in kensington Gardens.
Why should the public be deprived of part of that lovely park to soothe the Prince’s conscience? I make a point of sitting there for some time this afternoon: utter peaceful delight.
October 21, 1998
SPLENDID news: the grandiose Government plan to spend £10million making a memorial garden to Diana in kensington Gardens has been abandoned because of fierce opposition from local residents and no enthusiasm from other parts of London and the country. So we shall be spared a Diana Disneyland.
August 5, 2000
ON PREVIOUS visits to Wales, the Prince of Wales has been lent the flat in Powis Castle which Lord Powis leases from the National Trust. The other day, however, Lord Powis told the Prince that he could not stay for the royal Welsh Show if he brought Camilla. So the Prince had to stay elsewhere.
January 2, 2001
PRUE PENN [the Queen Mother’s lady-in-waiting] tells me that at Sandringham in the summer, the Queen invited her to attend a little service in one of its rooms conducted by the local parson. The only other person present was the Queen Mother.
Some of the servants had complained that the room was haunted and did not want to work in it. The parson walked from room to room and did indeed feel some sort of restlessness in one of them.
This the Queen Mother identified as a ground-floor room which had been turned into a bedroom for George VI during his last months. So the parson held a service there, not exactly of exorcism, which is the driving out of an evil spirit, but of bringing tranquillity.
The congregation of three took holy Communion and special prayers were said, I think for the repose of the king’s soul in the room in which he died.
The parson said that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere may have been because of Princess Diana: he had known such things before when someone died a violent death.
December 4, 2002
I LUNCH at the Savoy with John riddell [former private secretary to Prince Charles]. We talk about the mess that the royal Family continues to be in, after the breakup of Charles and Diana’s marriage and her tragic death. Both of whom led separate lives almost from the moment of marriage.
John tried to jolt the Prince out of his self-absorbed life by telling him that he ought to learn how ordinary people live by talking to Diana more; she, after all, had lived an unsheltered life with her friends in a London flat. Charles replied: ‘I prefer to talk to [author and philosopher] Laurens van der Post.’
February 13, 2005
I ASK edward Ford [extra equerry to the Queen, and her former assistant private secretary] whether he will give a royal bow to Camilla once she becomes the Duchess of Cornwall. he says: ‘I shall look at my shoes, as if they need cleaning.’
December 23, 2005
PRINCE EDDIE [the Duke of kent] tells me about the royal Family Christmas lunch. ‘I was lucky enough to sit next to Camilla. She is one of the best things to have happened for years. I like her down-to-earth good sense, total lack of airs, warmth, friendliness and sense of humour.’
EXTRACTED from Who Loses, Who Wins: the Journals Of Kenneth rose, Vol II 1979-2014, edited by d.r. thorpe and published by Weidenfeld on November 14 at £30. © the Estate of Kenneth rose and d.r. thorpe 2019. to order a copy for £24 (offer valid to 16/11/19; P&P free), visit www.mailshop.co.uk or call 01603 648155