SECRETS & SCANDALS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY Palace shockers revealed
The mistresses, gay princes and Diana’s secret baby
he world stopped and stared in awe when a rugged Prince Harry tied the knot with American actress Meghan Markle in May. Media outlets couldn’t stop talking about the Queen’s decision to allow her dear grandson to wed a divorced celebrity.
Now, a new book titled Royal Marriages: Diana, Camilla, Kate and Meghan and Princesses Who Did Not Live Happily Ever
After takes a look at the evolution of the royal family, Diana’s tragedy and why Meghan was allowed to have her happy ending.
Speaking exclusively to WHO, the book’s author Susanna De Vries explains that one of the most tragic royal stories was that of Princess Diana who, after being abandoned by her mother with the belief she didn’t love her, yearned for the affection of a man. De Vries makes shocking claims about Diana’s father, Edward John Spencer, after her mother, Frances, left him for another man – Peter Shand Kydd. At the age of 6, Diana watched her mum pack
her bags and leave their family home. “Diana sat on the steps waiting for two days for her to come back without eating,” De Vries tells WHO. “Then the Earl tells his staff to burn everything she’s sent from her mother. So every birthday and Christmas, this little girl waits for something from her mother and becomes convinced her mother didn’t love her.”
It was because of this that Diana was allegedly desperate to find a man who would love her, even if it were someone she didn’t choose herself. The book also claims that the marriage between Diana and Charles was indeed arranged. It is revealed that the Queen Mother assured her grandson that Diana was the perfect fit and would be an ideal wife for him, even though his true feelings lay with Camilla. “The Queen Mother was a great friend of Diana’s maternal grandmother and the two of them plotted this marriage,” the author says. “But Diana’s grandmother, who enjoyed court gossip, was not about to tell Diana that her rival for Charles’ affections was Camilla.”
Like the royals before him, Charles wasn’t allowed to marry for love, and instead had to abide by the laws of marrying someone his parents approved of. “Charles’ dad told him, ‘ You have to get married. It’s no good yearning for Camilla. You have to marry an aristocratic virgin,” says De Vries. “He said, ‘If you don’t marry, the press will soon start saying you’re gay.’ ”
Both Charles and Diana’s families were in support of their union, and organised for Diana to visit Balmoral so the pair could meet, in the hopes they would fall in love. It wasn’t long before Lady Diana became infatuated by her older suitor. “Diana didn’t realise at first that Charles and Camilla were lovers,” De Vries reveals. “But at the time she knows her role is to produce children and she hopes that this will make Charles love her.”
The book goes on to detail Diana’s deceit by several men – in addition to her father – including her lover and English art dealer Oliver Hoare, with whom Diana is believed to have become pregnant, before having an abortion. “He really led her along, that he’d marry her,” she says. “Maybe it was a phantom pregnancy, or maybe she really was pregnant.”
After Charles and Diana’s divorce, it was only then that the traditional marriage rules became relaxed. De Vries explains that because the divorce was so overwhelming for the royal family, followed by Diana’s tragic death, the Queen eventually allowed Charles to marry Camilla for love, after the passing of the Queen Mother who refused to acknowledge Camilla. The pair eventually wed on April 9, 2005.
This new tradition of marrying for love was followed by Prince William and Kate, who said their vows on April 29, 2011, before Prince Harry expressed his love for an American actress in 2017. Buckingham Palace released a Twitter statement on Nov. 28, 2017 that the newly engaged couple would be joined in matrimony in May: “The marriage of
Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle will take place at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in May 2018.”
Although there was some fear about a divorced, biracial commoner joining the royal family, De Vries illustrates that Meghan was a perfect fit to help modernise the royal family further, as well as bringing talent and an educated mind. “She’s studied international relations and she’s studied acting, which is the ideal princess training,” she says. “I think the Queen is clever enough to realise Meghan is an asset.”
The Queen and Meghan now share a special friendship and have been spotted out and about engaging in conversation and laughter. “[Their meeting] was helped by the Queen’s corgis who recognised Meghan as a dog lover,” says De Vries. “The Queen went out of her way to welcome Meghan at the Buckingham Palace staff Christmas party.”
However, in the centuries prior to Meghan and Kate, previous princesses were never allowed to marry for love and were often treated as mail-order brides. “They were never love matches, they were poor 14- to 16-year-old French or German princesses shipped over to England,” De Vries says. “They’d only meet their husbands a couple of days before the wedding.”
Prior to the modern royals, the book details scandals and traditions of the royal family that date back to the middle ages including the ‘rule’ that princes could only marry royal women who were
virgins and that “if they weren’t a virgin, they could be sent back.” According to the author, the importance of this was that if one of the princesses fell pregnant, they couldn’t test the DNA of the baby. “There was no contraception so they were terrified that they might marry off the Prince of Wales to a girl who was pregnant with somebody else’s child,” De Vries says. “So virginity was incredibly important and they used to go and check the sheets to see if there was blood.”
Because heirs had to wed other royals, the book explains that genuine love was reserved for a mistress, which can be seen throughout history. “Your wife was there to be screwed and have children,” says De Vries. “Even Princess Diana knew this was her duty.”
A historical diagram in the book illustrates some of these wives and mistresses, including Princess Catherine of Braganza who married Charles II in 1662. “She falls in love with him after seeing his portrait,” the author says. “But he meets her with his pregnant mistress and when Catherine finds out the truth she faints.”
Even more shocking revelations reveal that homosexual princes were forced to marry women and have children with them, or have their title stripped. “Poor little unhappy Princess Anne of Denmark was trapped in an arranged marriage with a bisexual James the first,” De Vries reveals. “Page 19, look at the photograph with those legs and the high-heel shoes.”
One of the unhappiest endings documented in the book is that of Caroline of Brunswick, who married King George IV – who was also gay – in 1820. “He found her physically repellant. He tried to divorce her but he couldn’t, so he had her locked out of Westminster Abbey,” the author tells WHO. “Eventually she died of cancer six months later and he wouldn’t even let her be buried in England and she was shipped back to Brunswick.”
Now, the royal family have come into line with modern times, with future generations set to have more say than ever before. “When Prince George and Princess Charlotte grow up they’ll be able to marry who they like,” she says. “I wrote this book for people to realise what an amazing social revolution we are living in with the royal family.”