How It Ended A Book S Intimate New Details

As the royal system absorbed the gravity of the crisis, the views of the Queen and her immediate family gradually filtered through the palace hierarchy. The chill towards Diana was now apparent. A whispering campaign against her began in earnest. Trusted visitors to Buckingham Palace caught the first whiff of the intrigue. “The Queen knows that Prince Charles has his faults, but he is the heir to the throne and has her total support. Whatever happens she will stand by him,” said one member of the inner circle.

Newspapers were told by Charles’s friends that Diana was a “megalomaniac who wants to be at the top of the pile. She wants to he seen as the greatest woman in the world. Her behavior is endangering the future of her marriage, the country and the monarchy itself.” Diana gradually discovered who was trying to poison her name. At first she was disbelieving but as the evidence mounted she had to accept the fact that close friends of the Prince, who had also seemed sympathetic to her, were in fact briefing the media on an almost daily basis. During one terse conversation with her husband, Diana said scathingly: “Why don’t you save yourself a phone call and ring the papers direct?”

In August, this campaign of character assassination took a more sinister dimension with the release of an illegally taped telephone conversation allegedly between the Princess and an affectionate admirer who called her “Squidgy.” With further details of the conversation published, it was the Princess who was suffering acutely as she pondered her future within the royal family. Diana seriously considered packing her bags and leaving the royal family and public life forever. Several friends who spoke to her have confirmed that she felt “destroyed” by the coverage. “If this is the price of public life, then it is a price I am no longer willing to pay,” the anguished Princess told one friend, who said afterward that Diana had never sounded so depressed or hopelessly forlorn. During this crisis Diana found a sympathetic ally in the Queen, whose understanding and helpful attitude did much to encourage Diana to soldier on in the face of the media onslaught.

Amidst the frenzied speculation, a suspicion developed that there was a conspiracy among Prince Charles’s friends, the Palace Establishment or even MI5, the British security service, to discredit the Princess of Wales. Perhaps the most sinister development occurred when Diana was confronted by senior members of the Queen’s Household months before the “Squidgy” scandal and informed of the existence of tape recordings of her telephone conversations. Baffled and bewildered by this latest twist of events, she sought out a friendly ear within the royal household to find out exactly what was going on. Although she received sympathy for the “awfulness” of her position inside the royal family, the courtier confirmed that the tape did exist. Now all her fears about bugged telephone calls at Kensington Palace, which had caused her to have her rooms swept for listening devices, seemed to be well founded.

The issue of the Wales’ marriage had to be addressed. In a meeting at Balmoral between the Queen, Prince Philip and the Prince and Princess of Wales, a deal was discussed. The British people are still coming to terms with the uncomfortable reality as opposed to the cosy mythology .of monarchy. And the monarchy, which has survived a thousand years precisely because of its adaptability-after all, Henry VIII was hardly an advertisement for happy family life-now faces a reexamination of its basic functions.

The fairy-tale is no more. While the Wales’ marriage may have been preserved and Diana may continue in her royal duties, the jury is out and it is by no means certain that the verdict will be favourable to the monarchy. ..L1.-