Charles: Victim or villain?

Yet in London, the anger was mounting. People wanted a public display of grief. ‘They’re up in bloody Scotland,’ was the common cry. ‘They should be here. Those children should be down here.’

The whole Royal Family was well aware of the negative atmosphere building up in the south. They could see for themselves what was going on in the media and there was also a constant stream of news, views and advice coming in from politicians, friends, historians and VIPs from all over the world. But the Prince recognised it was not for him to take the lead. There was nothing he could usefully say which could have helped anyone. He had brought Diana’s body home from Paris; but if he also made a statement about how very saddened he was by her death, the public would have called him a hypocrite.

The Daily Mail headline on Tuesday morning – ‘Charles weeps bitter tears of guilt’ – only exacerbated the problem. It was an obscene headline over a picture of Charles taken some months before which the newspaper swiftly recognised had been a mis-judgement. The Royal Family was appalled, and from that morning onwards stopped putting the newspapers out on display for everyone to read at Balmoral, as they previously had. It seemed that the Prince’s only option was to keep a low profile and look after his sons, but by the middle of the week, when his mother’s advisers still saw no need to put on a public display of emotion, he became more forceful.

Meanwhile arrangements were underway for the funeral, and once again, there was fierce disagreement between the Prince’s office at St James’s Palace and the Queen’s at Buckingham Palace. Robert Fellowes was in an unenviable position. He was torn between duty to his wife, whom he adored, and his employer. Jane was very deeply distressed by the death of her sister and, like the rest of the Spencer family, had very definite ideas about how Diana’s funeral should be handled. While wanting to respect her wishes, Fellowes also had to think of what was the best course of action for the monarchy. The Spencer family wanted a very small, private funeral, and the Queen, inclined to agree to a minimum of fuss, strongly supported this wish to keep it small and for family only. The Prince, however, felt very strongly that Diana should have nothing less than a full royal funeral at Westminster Abbey, and had told Sarah and Jane on the plane coming back from Paris that he thought it would be impossible to do anything else. Although reluctant at first, once they saw the public reaction they began to realise that this was no family affair; they couldn’t keep it to themselves. There were bitter exchanges between the two camps. Even once a state funeral had been agreed upon, Earl Spencer and Sir Robert Fellowes thought that it should only be Spencers who walked behind the cortège. The Prince disagreed, and the question was not to be resolved until the last minute.

There were yet more rows over who should sit on the Funeral Committee, set up on the day of Diana’s death, chaired by Lord Airlie, the Lord Chamberlain, which met throughout the week in the Chinese Room at Buckingham Palace. The Prince of Wales wanted Downing Street represented on the committee, as did Tony Blair. The Queen didn’t, and it was left to Robin Janvrin to persuade Robert Fellowes that they needed help from Number 10.

As the week progressed, the absence of a flag flying at half mast at Buckingham Palace became another issue, upon which much of the public’s anger and emotion was focused. Outside the Palace, the piles of flowers grew ever more mountainous; flags were flying at half mast all over the country, and yet none of the Queen’s men could reach a decision about Palace protocol. The Royal Standard never flies at half mast over Buckingham Palace because the sovereign is never dead. The minute one dies, he or she is immediately succeeded by another: ‘The King is dead, long live the King.’

This was one occasion, however, where it was clear that the people of Britain didn’t give a damn about protocol. They wanted to see some feeling, some indication that the Royal Family was affected by the death of the Princess, and there appeared to be no such feeling. None of them had spoken publicly, none of them had been seen, and the most elementary of gestures, the lowering of a flag, had not been observed. To the press and to the nation this embodied everything that was irrelevant and out of touch about the monarchy in the nineties, and stood in stark contrast to the warmth and compassion of the Princess, which the public had so admired. It caused a furious row internally and, in the heat of the moment, it was suggested that Sir Robert Fellowes might ‘impale himself on his own flag staff’.

Finally Stephen Lamport spoke to Prince Charles. ‘You’ve got to talk to your mother. You’ve got to make her understand. You’re the only person who can do it.’

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were entirely taken aback by the reaction to Diana’s death, and were not pleased at being told how to behave in order to appease public opinion. The Queen was so often castigated for being a remote mother who always put the country before her children. Now, on the one occasion on which she was putting her grieving grandchildren first, she was being castigated for not being in London when her country needed her. After discussing the matter with David Airlie, the Queen was persuaded that a public sign of grief was required and agreed on the Thursday that a Union Flag would fly at half mast from Buckingham Palace.

That same day the family ventured out of the gates of Balmoral for the first time since the morning of Diana’s death, as a means of gently preparing William and Harry for the funeral that was to be held two days later. The Prince of Wales had asked Sandy Henney, his press secretary, to come and have a chat with them. She had been in London for most of the week and witnessed what was going on there. She had felt the mood, and was one of the many people who had been feeding information up to Scotland all week, saying, ‘You can’t read about this, you can’t even see it on television. There is real hatred building up here, and the public is incensed by your silence.’

She took the children aside. ‘Mummy’s death has had the most amazing impact on people,’ she said. ‘They really miss her, and when you go down to London you will see something you will never ever see again and it may come as a bit of a shock. We want you to know about it so you will be ready for it.’

Flowers had been piling up outside the gates of Balmoral, although in nothing like the quantity at Buckingham Palace, St James’s or Kensington Palace in London. So the following day, when the children expressed the desire to go to church again, the Prince of Wales took the opportunity to give them a taster of what was awaiting them in the capital, and let them walk amongst the bouquets, reading the messages.

About sixty members of the press were waiting outside the gates of Balmoral that day, yet they uttered not a single word as the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Peter Phillips, the Prince of Wales, William and Harry climbed out of their cars to look at the flowers and tributes. The only sound to be heard, apart from the clicking of the camera shutters, were the voices of the royal party. Five days after their mother’s death, the country had its first view of the boys, and it was a touching scene. All three Princes, father and sons, were visibly moved by what they saw and taken aback by the messages attached to most bouquets.

‘Look at this one, Papa,’ said Harry, grabbing hold of his father’s hand and pulling him down. ‘Read this one.’

Captured on film, the gesture sent shock waves around the world. The Prince of Wales did seem to have a heart after all. He actually held his son’s hand, something no one could ever have imagined before. He also seemed to have aged.

Of all the criticism Diana threw at the Prince during their bitter war of words and television, that he was unfeeling and cold was the one that hurt him most. It was demonstrably untrue, as anyone who has seen Charles with his children knows very well. Diana knew it too, and later regretted her words.

The sight of the Prince of Wales and his sons did much to soften the public mood, and when the Queen made a surprising live television broadcast that Friday evening before the funeral, the mood softened further. The fact that it was only the second time during her reign that she had broadcast to the nation other than at Christmas – the first being during the Gulf War – made it an additionally impressive gesture.

‘Since last Sunday’s dreadful news we have seen, throughout Britain and around the world, an overwhelming expression of sadness at Diana’s death.

‘We have all been trying in our different ways to cope. It is not easy to express a sense of loss, since the initial shock is often succeeded by a mixture of other feelings: disbelief, incomprehension, anger – and concern for all who remain.

‘We have all felt those emotions in these last few days. So what I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.

‘First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.

‘I admired and respected her – for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.

‘This week at Balmoral, we have all been trying to help William and Harry come to terms with the devastating loss that they and the rest of us have suffered.

‘No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.

‘I for one believe that there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary and moving reaction to her death.’

The Queen’s words were delivered in the nick of time.

The decision about who should walk behind the cortège was not made until the very last moment. The Prince of Wales wanted to walk as a mark of respect to the Princess, who despite everything had been his wife for fifteen years, and he wanted his sons to walk too. He felt intuitively that this was something they should do for their mother and that it would aid the grieving process. Earl Spencer, backed by Sir Robert Fellowes, had been against it. He had wanted to walk behind his sister’s cortège on his own. There was a bitter exchange on the telephone between the Prince and the Earl in which Earl Spencer hung up on the Prince of Wales. Over dinner on the Friday night, when the whole Royal Family was together at Buckingham Palace, the Duke of Edinburgh put an end to the argument by saying that he would walk too. The next morning Earl Spencer was told what was going to happen, and the three men and two boys all walked together.

It was a long walk from St James’s Palace, where they joined the cortège, to Westminster Abbey, with every bite of the lip and tremble of the chin exposed to the world’s media and the millions of people lining the route. Some threw flowers, some cried, some wailed. It was an ordeal that called for huge courage from the boys, and they did their mother – and their nation – proud. They walked slowly and steadily, struggling at times to hold back tears, but their composure never wavered, until they were inside the Abbey, when at times the music, the poetry and the oratory were too much for them. But by then the cameras were off them, forbidden to focus on the family. The boys displayed maturity beyond their years, which touched everyone. It was an ordeal for the Prince too, worrying as he was about whether the boys would be all right, but at the same time knowing that so many of the people weeping for Diana blamed him for her death. Fears that he might have been booed by the crowd were unfounded.

There were millions of people in London that Saturday and many millions more watching all over the world. Many of those in the capital had walked the streets for much of the night, or held candle-lit vigils in the park – even Diana’s mother had been walking quietly amongst the mourners. Some had brought sleeping bags and had been soaked through by torrential rain the afternoon before. They did not care. United in their grief, strangers talked to strangers, as they had seventeen years before, when the Royal Wedding united them in joy.

Earlier in the week, around the royal parks and palaces the atmosphere had not been so good humoured, and felt almost intimidating at times, but by the morning of the funeral, the sun shone gloriously and although emotions were still very raw, there were tears but there was laughter too.

The funeral itself was immensely moving, and a masterpiece of organisation – the British doing what they do best: the precision timing, the military professionalism, the ceremonial pageantry, but mixed with a refreshingly human touch so perfect for Diana. Tony Blair gave a rather ham reading of 1 Corinthians 13, and Elton John sang a specially re-written version of ‘Candle in the Wind’ which left not a dry eye. An American film cameraman outside Kensington Palace, watching on a television monitor, said that in the silence before Elton John began to play, a sudden gust of wind, in an otherwise perfectly still morning, whipped through the millions of flowers laid at the gates, rustling the cellophane wrappings. It then disappeared just as suddenly as it had come, at the very moment Elton hit the opening chords. At the same time a small grey cloud hung over Buckingham Palace, leaving this hardened cameraman distinctly unnerved.

The denouement of the service, which no tabloid editor had been allowed to attend, was Earl Spencer’s tribute to his sister. Grievously insulting to the Royal Family sitting just feet away from him, it was applauded by those within the Abbey and cheered loudly by the thousands listening on the sound relay outside.

‘Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world she was the standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.

‘There is a rush to canonise your memory; there is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double.

‘Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected.

‘And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness, of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom.

‘She talked endlessly about getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don’t think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling.

‘My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that, of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this – a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.

‘She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate, and I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.

‘And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.’

It was a deeply moving tribute, bravely delivered as the Earl struggled against his own tears. But the last sentence was a shocking kick in the teeth to the Prince of Wales; it was thoroughly insensitive of the Earl to have criticised William and Harry’s father and grandparents – indeed, one half of their relatives – in front of them on the day they buried their mother.

What really offended the Prince, however, was being forced to sit and be lectured about parental responsibility by a man who had a disastrous marriage of his own: four young children, a wife who had been ill-treated for years, and a history of adultery – all of which became very public during a bitter divorce some months later. What is more, Spencer had the gall to bring his latest mistress, Josie Borain, to the funeral. She sat beside him in the Abbey and accompanied him – on the royal train with the Prince of Wales – to the Spencer family home in Northamptonshire, Althorp, for Diana’s interment immediately afterwards. Diana was buried on an island in the middle of a lake in the grounds, not in the family crypt as she had requested. It was thought that the small village churchyard would be unable to cope with the number of people that might come to visit her grave.

Charles Spencer and Diana had not been particularly close in recent years. The relationship had been up and down, as it was with most of her family. She was particularly upset that after her divorce her brother told her she could not have a particular cottage she wanted to move into on the Althorp estate. Charles, who had inherited Althorp after their father’s death in 1991, said she couldn’t have the cottage she wanted because it was near the gates of the estate and he was worried about the media interest she would attract. He had offered her others to choose from but Diana had set her heart on this particular cottage and felt badly let down.

Ironically, in burying Diana on the island, the Earl has turned the estate into a Mecca. He has created a museum in memory of his sister in the old stable block at Althorp, where all the hundreds of books of condolence, her dresses and various other bits of memorabilia are housed, and where videos of her, both as a child and a Princess, play constantly throughout the day. Visitors are taken around a small section of the house and then herded out to the lake, and to the shrine to the Princess that has been built on the water’s edge. Some of her words are inscribed on it, and some of his from his funeral tribute.

There is a rumour, however, that Diana is not there. A very select group was invited to attend the burial, and many people believe that her body is actually in the family crypt at the churchyard in the village of Great Brington, alongside the remains of her father, the eighth Earl, and the grandmother she so adored, Cynthia Spencer, who had been her guide, she always felt, in the spirit world.

THREE

The Young Prince

‘I’ve fallen in love with all sorts of girls …’

Charles

Nothing could have been further from the truth than the Daily Mail’s claim that Charles had wept ‘bitter tears of guilt’ as he walked the lonely moors in the immediate hours after Diana’s death. He wept bitterly for the loss of the girl he had once loved, whose life had been so sad, he wept bitterly for his children, whose grief he knew would be unimaginable. He was terrified about having to break the news to them. But there was no guilt, either about Diana’s death or about his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. He knew that he was not responsible in any way for what had happened in that Parisian tunnel. Although he had failed, he knew that he had done everything in his power to make his marriage to Diana work; and he knew that no headline writer could ever begin to understand the reasons why.

If the Prince of Wales felt at all guilty, it was because of all the emotions he felt about Diana’s death, the principal one was relief. Relief that the pain and the suffering was now over, that his children would no longer be torn in opposite directions, confused and upset by their mother’s bizarre behaviour, and that he would no longer be spied upon – she had always tried to find out what he was doing, who he was seeing, where he was going – but be free to get on with his life. He wept bitterly because of the sheer tragedy of it all. Their life together had begun with such promise and such joy, but had ended in such acrimony and anger. But mostly he wept for William and Harry, whose lives would never be the same again, who would never have the comforting arms of their mother around them and who would carry that loss for the rest of their lives. No one, he knew, would ever be able to take away their pain.

He understood. He knew the numbing, hopeless, gnawing emptiness of grief. He had known it when Lord Mountbatten was murdered. Learning to make sense of living without this mainstay in his life had seemed impossible. How much worse for William and Harry, still so young and vulnerable, to lose their mother.

So he cried for them, and he cried for his failure to help Diana. He had tried desperately, but she had been beyond any help he had been able to provide. And he cried for the failure of his marriage – as he had done many times before. He cried for all the people they had let down, and for all the lost hopes that they both had cherished in the early days, to create a secure, happy and loving home for each other and their children.

He had wanted this, just as much as she had. They had both passionately believed in the importance of family. He wanted Diana to be the person with whom he might share his life and interests, who could be friend, companion and lover. Sadly, neither he nor Diana knew what a happy home was. Neither of them had grown up with a normal loving relationship to observe, on which they might base theirs; and both were crippled by low self-esteem and lack of confidence, and a desperate need to be loved.

By 1980 the pressure on the Prince of Wales to find a wife had been intense. Guessing who it might be had been an international obsession during the seventies, which reached the height of absurdity one summer’s day when the Daily Express announced his imminent engagement to Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg, whom he had never even met. Dubbed Action Man, Charles cut a very dashing figure, particularly on the polo field, and he had had a string of attractive girlfriends, some suitably aristocratic, others glamorous and highly unsuitable starlets. The press followed every romance with fascination, especially the French and German magazines, and it was they who began the long-lens paparazzi style of photography that came to make everyone’s life such a misery.

The Prince had never been short of pretty female company, but he was always handicapped because of his position. No one ever behaved normally in his company, and there was always a danger that he was attractive to women for no better reason than because they wanted to be seen with the Prince of Wales. When this was the case he was never the best person to spot it. He had always been shy and awkward and, with little opportunity to gain experience, he was ignorant about women and how to treat them. He had been to ordinary schools and university, and he had done a spell in the Navy, but most of his life had been spent in a rarefied atmosphere. With a handful of exceptions, men and women alike bowed and curtsied when they met him and called him ‘sir’. Even Diana called him ‘sir’ until they were engaged. It is as much a mark of respect for the title as it is for the individual, but it is enough to keep a very strong barrier between him and the real world.