August Annotations

Diana – by Sarah Bradford

Sarah Bradford is once again brilliantly articulate in her writing and is sensitive to Diana’s personal story. Diana wasn’t the nicest person in the world, but Bradford gently reminds us of the Princess’ unhappy childhood and how she became emotionally-stunted. It is a story that arouses deep pity for Diana but makes no apologies for her terrible behavior.

It was Diana’s need to be accepted and loved – things which she felt she lacked in her own family – that drove her to perform her camera-ready acts of kindness. In person, Diana worked her charm to draw people to her, trying to please so that they would like her just as much in turn.

Diana’s friends would tell you that she was a kind woman, but if you told her something she didn’t want to hear, she froze you out for years. She was unforgiving as much as she was needy. Such was the temperamental and complex nature of Diana Spencer.

Bradford also keeps her portrayal of the royal relationship even-handed, but makes an important point that, while Prince Charles was no saint, his reactions to his wife stemmed mostly from the fact that he did not understand her inner problems. Diana’s type of emotional instability was never seen before in the Royal Family. Everyone held their stiff upper lip and gave themselves to the country rather than express their emotions, an act that was viewed as being selfish.

In return, Diana did not understand the ‘Country before self’ mantra of the Royals and reacted by behaving outlandishly.

From the crisis of her parents’ divorce to the chaos of her own marriage, the Princess’ journey to sort herself out was rocky indeed. Sarah Bradford lays bare the painful truth of all that occurred.

Turbulent Beginnings

Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and heir to the Spencer Earldom, was a jovial man known casually as ‘Johnnie’. In private however, he drank far too much and had a terrible temper to boot.

That temper was not made any better by the fact that he had two children and neither one was a boy. He and his wife Frances had been longing for a son for many years, and the result of the efforts were two daughters instead: Sarah, the eldest, and Jane. Johnnie would fly into a drunken rage and beat Frances, blaming her for not being able to produce the all-important male heir for the Spencer line. To add insult to injury, Johnnie would then send Frances to have humiliating medical exams to try and ‘cure’ her of the inconvenient tendency to have female children.

When Frances finally did give birth to a boy, the baby’s lungs were so underdeveloped that he died. Johnnie was not pleased. With great effort they tried again, and in July of 1961 Diana made her debut.

When Frances delivered Diana, she was disappointed in that she knew she would have to try yet again for a son. Three daughters were not good enough for Viscount Althorp. Diana herself became well aware of the importance of primogeniture within her family, and admitted that she knew she ‘was supposed to be the boy’. Her feelings of inadequacy took root.

Finally, Charles Spencer, their last child, was born. By this point the Spencer marriage was in tatters, and by the time Diana was six years old, Frances left. She began an affair with a married man named Peter Shand Kydd, the heir to a wallpaper company fortune. Diana, now bereft of a mother and taking the brunt of the stress, was left to look after her little brother Charles. Diana’s sisters Sarah and Jane were at boarding school most of this time and mercifully avoided a lot of the acrimony.

Frances would eventually marry Peter Shand Kydd after he divorced his wife. Happily, Shand Kydd proved to be a kind stepfather to Diana and her siblings. That happiness was a ray of light in a chaotic world where Diana felt pulled in opposite directions by both of her parents, who tried to outdo each other for the children’s affections. She already suffered from their tumultuous divorce, and now the subsequent custody battle was to begin.

Both Frances and Johnnie fought long and hard to gain full access to the children. The bids for sympathy began, to which Diana was a witness. She became schooled in the ways of playing on emotions.

Frances sued Johnnie for divorce, an action that earned the rancor of her mother, Lady Ruth Fermoy. Ruth was vicious when it came to cultivating connections with nobility, and her snobbery knew no bounds. She knew what it meant to marry well, and to leave a titled husband for a commoner was abhorrent.

Ruth was of modest birth, and as she grew older she showed a great aptitude for music. She had a promising career as a pianist and may have made a name for herself, but it was a talent that she would willingly set aside to marry Edmund Maurice Roche, the 4th Baron Fermoy. The much older Fermoy was a Conservative Party politician and, most importantly to Ruth, he was titled.

As a mother, Ruth was just as anxious that her daughters marry well. Enter Johnnie Spencer, whose name was even nobler than that of Fermoy. Ruth was quick to orchestrate a meeting between her younger daughter Frances and Johnnie, who would one day become Earl Spencer. It has even been rumored that many years later Ruth, with her friend Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, arranged the marriage between Prince Charles and her granddaughter Diana.

When Frances divorced Johnnie, Ruth was furious and let her voice be heard in testimony against her daughter in the Spencers’ child custody battle. Ruth herself blamed Frances for “bolting” from her family. The testimony was a deciding factor, the Spencer children would be permanently removed from their mother’s custody. The fact that the four would remain with their father in the regal residences of Park House and Althorp Estate pleased Ruth. Frances moved away with Peter Shand Kydd to the Isle of Seil in Scotland.

Diana and Charles were affected the most. The little boy cried endlessly for his mother in the night, and poor Diana didn’t know what to do, wondering if she had caused it all somehow.

What Diana did learn was that familial ties are volatile. Frances never forgave Ruth, and their relationship became non-existant. Later, Diana’s relationship with her mother proved to be almost as brittle.

A few years later, Johnnie would anger his children by courting Raine, Countess of Dartmouth. Unlike Peter Shand Kydd, the still-married Raine incurred the wrath of all of the Spencer offspring.

Like Ruth Fermoy, Raine was a social climber. She was inspired by her mother Barbara Cartland’s flamboyant romantic ideals, and even though she had obtained the title of Countess through her marriage to Gerald Dartmouth, she was never quite happy with it. Earl Spencer was charming and his title was even more so. A marriage to him meant that Raine would be a “Countess”, rather than a “Countess of”. This seemingly insignificant difference to us was of great importance to Raine – it was higher on the social ladder.

Diana never liked her and did her best to ignore her while Sarah, the most fiery and outspoken sister, made a point to tell the press just how unhappy they were over Raine’s intrusion into their lives. Johnnie’s marriage to Raine was viewed as a betrayal to his children, and the relations between five of them would never be the same again. For many years they did not speak to their father.

Several years later in 1992, Johnnie died. His death occurred during Diana’s separation from Prince Charles and their ensuing media battle. She was devastated, but thankfully the Princess had reconciled with him before his passing. The same could not be said for Diana and Frances.

Frances and Diana’s latest quarrel had been about an interview Frances had given to Hello! Magazine in May 1997. Diana accused her mother of disclosing personal details about her and refused to speak to her, returning many of Frances’ letters unopened. This estrangement would be permanent. Diana died a little over three months later in the Paris car crash.

The Ultimate Triumph for the Spencers

The irony is that Diana, the little girl who felt so inadequate, was the one who made the biggest impact in her family as well as on British history. In fact, she had triumphed where the first Lady Diana Spencer (or rather, the powerful Sarah Churchill) had failed.

The first Lady Diana was the daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland. She, too, had a scheming grandmother in the form of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Diana was pushed to marry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who was the son of King George II. The Prince was indeed willing to marry Diana since the Duchess had provided over 100,000 pounds for her dowry. However, Sir Robert Walpole got wind of this and stepped in to prevent further intrusion into the royal house by Sarah Churchill.

The Diana Spencer of the 1980s married the future king, Prince Charles, and became the Princess of Wales. She was the highest ranked lady in the land aside from the Queen, and even gave birth to two sons in a row, Princes William and Harry. It was a coup for the Spencers and for Diana herself, who was fast becoming a media darling loved the world over.

By this time in her life, though, the Princess was in no emotional state to deal with actual relationships. She suffered over her failure to be the best in Prince Charles’ eyes, and her fractured friendships were being switched on and off as easily as a lightbulb. To feel appreciated, Diana began to live vicariously through the public and the media.

The appearance – or rather, reappearance – of Camilla Parker-Bowles into royal life had made Diana feel betrayed all over again. Prince Charles was hers, just as her father was hers, only this time Diana felt that she was able to fight for him and win. When she couldn’t, she fell apart.

She constantly accused Charles of an affair, and Charles responded to the allegations as ridiculous. Camilla was his friend, nothing more. However, as we heard the Prince admit in his 1996 interview, he did engage in a relationship with Camilla after his marriage to Diana had broken down. In return, Diana did all she could to win the public’s sympathy.

Things began to spiral out of control for the sad Princess, whose vengeful and immature nature overtook her. She couldn’t comprehend how Camilla, who was Charles’ age and actually shared his interests, could be “better” to him. During this time she slept with several different men to get back at Charles. Many of the men were married, and although she knew it was a hurtful thing to do after seeing the results of both of her parents’ affairs, Diana carried on anyway. She succeeded in upsetting the wives of Will Carling, Oliver Hoare, and arousing suspicions in the Mannakee marriage. These activities were brought to light by journalists, and the public became critical of Diana.

Diana became angrier and more suspicious. She began to accuse Charles of having an affair with Alexandra “Tiggy” Legge-Bourke, nanny to their sons William and Harry. She then turned her fire on the innocent Tiggy, who had already irritated Diana by being so close to her sons and referring to them as “my babies”.

It had been alleged that the Princess was so furious with Tiggy that she started a rumor about the nanny being pregnant and subsequently miscarrying. The ‘father’ was named as Prince Charles. At a staff Christmas party, Diana got her chance to accuse and hurt the innocent girl directly. She sidled up beside her imagined rival Tiggy and cooed, “So sorry to hear about the baby,” and slid away. It was an astoundingly cruel and frighteningly premeditated thing to say. Tiggy instructed her lawyers to take action unless the allegations were withdrawn. They were.

The End Draws Near

Tantrums, confusion, and loneliness hounded Diana until the end of her marriage. She then met Dodi Fayed after her divorce and began a passionate affair. He seemed to lavish on her the right amount of attention she needed. Dodi had been engaged at the time of his meeting with Diana, but he callously dumped his fiancée for the princess. Both Dodi and Diana were labeled needy, and seen to be a good fit for one another.

As the summer holiday with the Fayeds ended, Diana and Dodi stopped in Paris to wine and dine, trying to desperately escape paparazzi. As they were leaving the Ritz to return to Dodi’s apartment for the night, they were pursued by photographers on motorbikes. They never made it back to the apartment, and Diana would not see her sons the next day as scheduled. The hectic and controversial life had come to a close.

It was a lonely life that Diana led, highlighted by the elation of being photographed and being charitable to those in need. She inspired the masses, but it was an inspiration founded on desperation, loneliness, and manipulation. Never has a woman been so admired yet so pitied.
written by: Mandy
© 1998-2007 Mandy’s British Royalty
I Rate It: 4 stars (out of 5)

Mohammed al-Fayed and the Crash Controversy

Courtesy bbc.com

Trevor Rees-Jones told the media, “If I even thought he [Henri Paul] had one drink, he wouldn’t have driven that night.” [source]

So said the bodyguard that was assigned to Diana and Dodi Fayed that ill-fated evening. Rees-Jones was in the employ of Harrod’s owner Mohammad al Fayed - Dodi’s father - and was the only person to survive the crash in the Point d’Alma tunnel in Paris.

Rees-Jones revealed a lot in that simple sentence. Now, he has been tucked away, back to his everyday normal life, fully recovered save for occasional aches. He lives quietly, away from the press and public. To keep him from speaking further, the claim is that he suffers from trauma-induced amnesia. This could very well be true in some aspects. Look at what the poor bloke went through. However, he was coherent enough to state the obvious - Henri Paul was not drunk.

If you see the video footage of Diana talking with Dodi and Henri before setting off, you can tell that Henri Paul is steady on his feet, and looks competent. Trevor Rees-Jones’s statement backs this up. Rees-Jones was the bodyguard, his job was to protect Dodi and Diana. Why on earth would the man let a drunk driver operate a car, then sit in the passenger seat without his seatbelt? As a bodyguard, Rees-Jones does not wear a seatbelt, because he needs to maneuver within the automobile. He certainly doesn’t seem like a suicidal type of person.

Henri Paul was not drunk, but what was the cause of the crash? Speed was obviously a factor. The paparazzi were berated for taking pictures and causing the Mercedes to speed away in the first place. Then, at the scene of the crash, people believed them to be sensation seekers, snapping away without adequately assisting the injured people. Some took pictures, certainly, and one sought help. But what about the others?

The so-called blood alcohol level found in Paul may have been something that a “photographer” was responsible for. Were they ALL actual photographers, or were some more sinister? The driver’s body, following logic, would’ve had a non-existant blood alcohol level. Suddenly it turns out he had a level of almost 4 times the legal limit after an autopsy was performed. His body could’ve been tampered with either at the scene or between the accident time and an autopsy. So I believe that this accident was really no accident at all. Something was purposefully done.

Are the right people being held accountable however? Mohammed Al Fayed blames Prince Philip and calls him racist, but that’s just mere convenience.

“You’ll get slitty eyes” by being in China, Philip says, among other anecdotes. Things that an eighty-five year old man raised in the colonial era says out of ignorance, not genuine malice. For the Harrod’s boss, this makes the Duke an easy target. Easy, but not correct. Philip is an excuse for Fayed to vent his long-held frustrations over being denied British citizenship.

Al Fayed, with his well-known crooked payoff of British MPs, has most likely made many enemies. Enemies that would not think twice about harming someone’s family. That’s the world he moved in, and his son paid the price.

Unfortunately, King Harrods trod upon the wrong toes, and it came back to haunt him. It is going to take time to find out which enemy struck down his son and the princess. Hopefully his racist hatred for the British Royal Family will not cloud his judgment much longer, and he can find the real assassins.

Written by: Mandy
(c)2006 www.mandysroyalty.org

Great Britons:
Diana’s Role In History Questionable

Diana, whose need for attention was astounding, will forever be remembered only because photographers needed to do their jobs.

Without the son of Queen Elizabeth II, Diana would be an unknown. Because Prince Charles married her, she was then able to access great wealth and privilege, even more so than in her own family. Diana then had the time and money to employ people to make her look the part of a princess. All she was concerned about was an impression and a ‘look’; a mere outer shell. She obsessed over her photos in the newspapers, not her role as a supportive consort.

Looking back at her pre-Windsor days, her fashion sense was naught. So it is quite obvious that her acquired status gave her access to those who were skilled in design and fashion, who thus created an ‘image’ for her. Diana’s hair was dyed consistantly blonde, and her makeup done by only the best makeup artists. The jewelry, stunning clothes, and the makeup that made her face pretty resulted in a glamourous person. But what does that do for humanity? She was not responsible for knowing what was going on in government affairs, nor did she have to help govern Britain. Diana didn’t have any discipline or respect for tradition, and cringed at anything that would educate her about her role. To do so would mean adhering to protocol, and she was far too selfish to do that.

Instead, she made up her own agenda: whatever she could do to “out media” Charles and the Royal Family. The Queen makes an important trip, so Diana shows up somewhere with a new hairstyle. Charles demonstrates his prowess at the cello, Diana strolls across the room, plunks down at a piano, and does her best Bach impression. Charles wants to explain his relationship with Camilla openly and honestly, and Diana throws herself into a short, plunging black dress that left the media gasping for more. The Royal who? The Prince of where? This result left Diana delighted.

The point I am making is this: don’t drag the Monarchy through the muck simply because you don’t agree with them or can’t get along with them. Don’t make them out to be the Bad Guy just because you don’t want to understand their ways. You can live a life of glamour on your own, but leave the monarchy to the mature.

And calling Diana the Queen of Hearts is a bit extreme. This leaves Princess Anne and many other ladies - royal or not - out in the cold. As if Diana is the only one who takes up arms for charity? How insulting. Again, it was only part of her agenda to out maneuver the Royals and get her face in the papers. To grace those actions with the title of “Queen of Hearts” when her heart wasn’t in the right place to begin with is incredibly ignorant.

For this she was included as a Great Briton? How embarassing for Britain’s time-honoured traditions and past noble peoples. At least it is somewhat comforting to see that Winston Churchill just triumphed over the late glamour girl. Without the clothes, jewels and heartwarming stories of trips to the candy shops for sweets, how much interest could Winston generate? But win he did, and I am glad. He had heart.

The reality of the Princess and her life was summed up rather succinctly by Theodore Dalrymple’s article, “The People’s Princess”:

[Burrell's] revelations so far would have damaged the reputation of the Princess in any age but our own. Those who never admired her always thought her vain, witless, shallow, scheming, egotistical, vulgar, tasteless, sentimental, manipulative, hysterical, and altogether lacking in culture, character, and intelligence (though not without a certain low cunning): but even they never suspected the extent of her promiscuity, which required her butler—actually, her procurer—to smuggle lovers into the palace in the trunk of his car, to be greeted, Danielle Steele–style, by the Princess in a fur coat and jewels, only. Her much publicized psychological travails resulted not so much from the complexity as from the emptiness of her personality.

That is why no revelations about her conduct will make any difference to those who adhere to her cult: a cult to which it is so easy and gratifying to adhere, because it requires nothing in return. Her deep inner emptiness reflects that of modern man, who distracts himself from it, just as she did, by feverish sensation seeking. Thus she was indeed the People’s Princess, but not quite in the sense originally meant: her epithet flatters neither her nor the People.

©2002 Mandy’s British Royalty

Washing Off The Muck

Why people seem to believe that Queen Elizabeth hampered Burrell’s trial out of deceit and treachery is beyond me. She tried to stop it ‘to avoid embarrassing revelations’, as some have claimed, thinking the embarassment must be about her or Charles personally. The only REALLY embarassing thing I see is Diana’s many love affairs.

Di’s activities tarnished her reputation, from my perspective. Emerging details from Burrell and others only helps to further dispel the myth that she was some doe-eyed innocent. Her image had already taken a beating with James Hewitt, Will Carling, and Oliver Hoare. Then came revelations about Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani heart surgeon she had desparately been chasing.

What was already known within the aristocracy - that Diana was highly sexed, spoiled and conniving - is now being broadcasted to the British public at large.

The Queen is probably fed up with the accusations and wants Diana’s ghost laid to rest. She cares a great deal about her grandsons William and Harry, and therefore tries to protect them from any further damaging news about their mother. Not only that, but she doesn’t want to have Diana’s scandals attached to her monarchy. Charles was technically an adulterer with Camilla, but he was truly in love with her and wanted to be with ONLY Camilla. This is not a scandal. Diana and her sexual escapades ARE scandal.

This is simply my own personal theory. I do not feel that the Queen is a vindictive person, so therefore halting the trial was not done to hamper justice. If she wanted to cover up something, this was certainly not the way to do it, was it?

Things aren’t made any better by Burrell giving ‘exclusive’ interviews and taking a tour of New York as a quasi-celebrity.

What about the alleged rape though?, I hear you ask. That could’ve been embarassing. Perhaps that’s what they wanted to ‘hide’. But, how would the Queen know about it? The alleged rape involved people in Prince Charles’ staff, so how would she know? Or how could Charles know every single thing taking place within his staff?

It has been alleged that Charles was told, yet still did nothing. When told of the accuser’s past false claims and cries of “wolf”, he decided that the problem would work itself out between the two parties. I am not sure. However, it is ridiculous to hold the family or Charles responsible as if they are the ones who committed a crime.

All of this scandal happening because of other people, and it’s the Queen and the monarchy that gets blamed. MPs are calling for her to be stripped of her powers, and for what? Is this how you thank someone for working so tirelessly for your country for 50 years? Diana blows through London and sets a record of royal backstabbings, and undoes all of the serious dedication and work by George V, VI, and The Queen. Now everyone else, out to make a buck, is taking up the same reigns.

Even in death, the family is still harrassed by her in some form or another. Whether it’s snippets of a Diana book, a dress tour, or Earl Spencer - living in SOUTH AFRICA - complaining that he never sees his nephews. It never ends.

I’ll bet Diana didn’t bank on her legacy harrassing her sons though. Or did she care to think about that?

©2002 Mandy’s British Royalty Amended 10.28.03

Spencer Speaks:
Insults Royal Family and Nephews

Earl Spencer’s latest remarks against the Royal Family are quite tasteless. This man has proven time and again that he is merely a limelight hog and one who likes to - how do I say it diplomatically - ‘embellish the truth’. Not only is he making unwelcome comments towards the Royals, this time he takes a shot at William and Harry.

When his sister died, Spencer declared he disliked the media and that the paparazzi caused her death. He said the family needed privacy. Soon after, he appeared on American TV!

Charles Spencer has written two books about Althorp, opened a big memorial to Diana on the grounds, went on American TV shows ‘Oprah’ and ‘Larry King Live’ soon after her death, and has always been ready and eager to take a shot at Charles or the Royal Family. Spencer is not some wounded English gent as he likes to portray, just as his sister was not a shy ‘English Rose’. He has spoken his mind and done so in the most public ways possible, proving once again how contradictory the Spencers can be with the media.

The latest comments demonstrate Earl Spencer’s thoughtlessness.

Princes William and Harry ‘may not be encouraged to stay in touch with their mother’s side of the family’, according to their uncle, Earl Spencer. ‘I haven’t seen William for a while,’ he concedes.
But then the Earl continues: ‘I have seen Harry very regularly. There are also text messages, e-mails…they are two young men who have very full social diaries and an active life with their father’s family and I understand all that.’

Perhaps when their uncle has lived all this time way down in South Africa, it is very difficult to see him! And with their busy lives of school and royal duties, perhaps they don’t really have time to see grandmother Frances Shand-Kydd, who lives a reclusive life on the Isle of Seil in Scotland? As for their aunts, Sarah McCorquodale and Jane Fellowes, William and Harry do see their Spencer cousins so I am sure the two women are somewhere near. As you can see, even Earl Spencer himself admits that the boys have very full schedules. So why act as though ‘The-Cold-Hearted-Windsors’ are keeping them from you?

He [Spencer] believes William will be allowed to marry who he chooses. ‘I think he’s got it in him to choose who he wants to marry. I don’t think he’ll be told.’

‘Got it in him’ meaning his Diana genes? Well sir, when it comes to the future of the Monarchy, one must carefully choose one’s mate according to their heart, but also the suitability of the person to the institution. We have been made painfully aware of how wrong things can be if a royal personage marries someone who cannot handle life in the monarchy.

Earl Spencer also suggests he was tricked into allowing the young princes to walk behind Diana’s coffin en route to the Abbey. He said, ‘I was told that they wanted to do it and that they would like it if I were there; I now know that’s not true. I thought that was where tradition and duty went too far against human nature.’

Such dramatics. The Earl is probably annoyed because he wanted to be the only one who walked with the cortege. He was tricked into ‘allowing’ them? Allowing whom? They are all her family. Her sons have a place in her procession to honor her. Spencer even said that ‘I think there is a much greater finality if you see somebody’s body’ [ after they die.] To come to terms with her death and finalize everything, taking part in the ceremonial laying to rest is the most logical thing. William and Harry’s participation in the event should not even be a question.

‘Champagne Charlie’ need not tell the Royal Family, especially Prince Charles, how to live their life and how to conduct themselves. The Earl has had scores of mistresses, one particular flavor-of-the-month seated in the congregation at Westminster Abbey during Diana’s funeral whilst Spencer lectured about humanity. He is also a man who publicly humiliates people, saying once that his estranged wife could ‘buy herself a house on the Isle of Dogs’.

I find it amusing that the Earl always seems to have something to complain about every year around this time, right between Diana’s birthday or the anniversary of her death.

‘I won’t give another interview about this stuff,’ he says. ‘I think the time has come for me to put a line under being the man who made the speech at his sister’s funeral.’

I guess when the summer of 2003 rolls around, we’ll see if he is going to do just that.

©2002 Mandy’s British Royalty”