THE HANDSOME PRINCE HAD FOUNDS HIS fair maiden, and the world had its fairy tale. For all her aristocratic breeding, this innocent young kindergarten aide felt totally at sea in the deferential hierarchy of Buckingham Palace. Weight dropped off, her waist shrinking from 29 inches when the engagement was announced to 23 inches on her wedding day. It was during this time that her bulimia, which would take nearly a decade to overcome, began.
On Diana's first night at Clarence House, the Queen Mother's London residence, no one from the royal family, least of all her future husband, thought it necessary to welcome her. The popular myth paints a picture of the Queen Mother clucking around Diana as she schooled her in the arts of royal protocol. In fact, Diana was given less training than the average supermarket checkout clerk.
For a girl used to the noise and chaos of an all-girls apartment, Buckingham Palace felt like anywhere but home. Diana found it a place of "dead energy" and grew to despise the smooth evasions employed by courtiers, particularly when she asked them about her fiancé's relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. [A former girlfriend, who married a cavalry officer in 1973 after Charles dithered over proposing, Camilla, the mother of two teenagers, remains a close member of the Prince's social circle.]
Outwardly, Diana appeared relaxed and ready to have fun. At Prince Andrew's 21st-birthday party in 1981, there wasn't the slightest sign that a few days earlier, she had opened a parcel that had arrived at Prince Charles's office. Inside was a gold chain bracelet with a blue enamel disk and the initials "F" and "G" entwined. The initials stand for "Fred" and "Gladys," the nicknames used by Camilla and Charles, which Diana had been made aware of by friends.
Work in the office came to a halt when Diana confronted the Prince. In spite of her angry protests, Charles insisted on giving the token to the woman who had haunted their courtship and has since cast a long shadow across their married life.
On the Monday before her wedding day, while Prince Charles, without his senior bodyguard, had gone to present Camilla with her gift, Diana had lunch with her sisters and discussed her predicament. As she seriously considered calling off the wedding, they made light of her fears. "Bad luck, Duch," they said, using the family nickname "Duchess" for their younger sister. "Your face is on the tea towels, so it's too late to chicken out now."
On the eve of the wedding, Diana's mood was much improved when Charles sent her a signet ring and an affectionate card that read, "I'm so proud of you and when you come up I'll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look 'em in the eye and knock 'em dead."
During dinner that evening with her sister Jane, Diana ate everything she could and then was promptly sick. She has since told a close friend: "The night before the wedding I was deathly calm. I felt I was the lamb to the slaughter. I knew it and I couldn't do anything about it."
As she walked down the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral on the morning of July 29, 1981, Diana's heart brimmed over with love, her fears vanished, and she thought she was the luckiest girl in the world.
When the new Princess emerged from St. Paul's to the cheers of the crowd, she convinced herself that the bulimia that scarred her engagement was simply an attack of prewedding nerves and that Mrs. Parker Bowles was consigned to history. She was proved bitterly wrong.
The relationship between Prince Charles and Camilla continues to this day and could still be the catalyst that changes the course of British royal history. In Diana's mind, the unworkable emotional triangle has engendered a decade of anguish and anger. A mutual friend, who has watched this unhappy saga unfold, now concedes, "My heart bleeds for the whole misunderstanding, but it bleeds most for Diana."
After three days in seclusion, the royal couple took a leisurely honeymoon cruise to the Mediterranean on board the royal yacht Britannia. Prince Charles brought along his fishing tackle together with half a dozen books by his friend and mentor, the South African philosopher and adventurer Sir Laurens van der Post. It was his idea that he and Diana should read the books together and then discuss Van der Post's mystical ideas at mealtimes.
But Diana wanted to spend time getting to know her husband. On board the royal yacht, with its 21 officers and 256 men, they were never left alone. Evening meals were black-tie affairs attended by selected officers. While they discussed the day's events, a Royal Marine band played in an adjoining room.
When Diana wasn't sleeping, she frequently visited the kitchens. The staff was amused by the way she consumed endless bowls of ice cream or asked for special snacks in between meals. The honeymoon gave no respite to her bulimia. In fact her illness became much worse, as Diana would make herself sick four, sometimes five times a day.
The ever present shadow cast by Camilla merely served to fuel the flames. Reminders were everywhere. On one occasion the royal couple were comparing engagements when two photographs of Camilla fell out of Charles's diary. Several days later he appeared for dinner sporting a new pair of cuff links in the shape of two C's intertwined. He admitted they were from Camilla, but passed them off as a gesture of friendship. Diana didn't see it that way.
For the watching world, the Princess smiled and laughed, seemingly delighted with her husband and status. Away from the cameras and microphones, however, the couple argued continually. Diana was always on edge, suspecting Camilla's presence in Charles's every action. As a close friend commented: "They had shocking rows about her, real stinkers, and I don't blame Diana one bit."
Diana lived on an emotional seesaw, her jealousy matched by a sublime devotion to Charles. She was still totally besotted with him, and Charles, in his own way, was in love with her. They went for long rambles around the hills that overlook Balmoral, the Queen's retreat in Scotland, and as they lay in the heather he read passages from books. The touching letters they exchanged are testimony to their growing affection.
But these romantic interludes were mere pauses in Diana's worries about public life. She was continually sick and losing weight. In early October 1981 she saw several doctors and psychologists at Buckingham Palace. They diagnosed depression and prescribed tranquilizers to calm her. Diana fought against their advice. She knew she did not need drugs, but rather rest, patience and understanding.
That same month the Princess discovered she was pregnant. "Thank heavens for William," she has said, as it meant she could now forsake the pills she was proferred by arguing that she did not want to risk physical or mental deformity in the baby she was carrying. Her pregnancy was a reprieve. But not for long.
It was shortly after Christmas 1982, but there was little festive cheer between the royal couple. The sound of angry voices and hysterical sobbing could be plainly heard coming from the rooms occupied by the Prince and Princess of Wales at Sandringham House, the Queen's winter retreat. The Prince seemed incapable of understanding the turmoil in Diana's life. She was suffering dreadfully from morning sickness, she was haunted by Camilla Parker Bowles, and she was desperately trying to adjust to her new position.
As she later told friends: "One minute I was a nobody, the next minute I was Princess of Wales, mother, media toy, member of this family, and it was just too much for one person to handle." She had pleaded and quarreled violently as she tried to win the Prince's assistance. In vain.
On her first New Year within the royal family, Diana threatened to take her own life. Charles accused her of crying wolf and prepared to go riding. But Diana was as good as her word. She hurled herself down a staircase, falling in a heap at the first landing. The Queen Mother, the first to arrive on the scene, was horrified, physically shaking with the shock of what she had witnessed. A full checkup revealed that the fetus had not been injured.
In the first tumultuous years of their married life, Diana made several more suicide bids and endless threats. As her longtime friend James Gilbey observes: "They were messages of complete exasperation. 'Please, please help.' " On one occasion she threw herself against a glass cabinet at Kensington Palace, while on another she slashed at her wrists with a razor blade. Another time she cut herself with the serrated edge of a lemon slicer; on yet another occasion, during a heated argument with Prince Charles, she picked up a penknife lying on his dressing table and cut her chest and her thighs. Although she was bleeding, her husband scorned her. As ever, he thought she was faking her problems.
One friend who watched their relationship deteriorate says, "His indifference pushed her to the edge. Through no fault of his own, because of his own ignorance, upbringing and lack of a whole relationship with anyone in his life, he instilled this hatred of herself."
This is a partisan appraisal. Prince Charles did, for a time, try to ease his wife into the royal routine. Her first big test was a visit to Wales in October 1981. The crowds made it painfully obvious who was the star—the Princess of Wales. Charles was left apologizing for not having enough wives to go around. Diana admits that she wasn't easy to handle during that baptism of fire. She was often in tears, telling her husband that she simply could not face the crowds. While Prince Charles sympathized, he insisted that the royal road show go on. However well she did, she never earned a word of praise from her husband, the royal family or their courtiers.
Diana had such a morbid fear of letting down her husband and the royal family "firm" that she performed her official duties when she was clearly unwell. Fortunately, the camera had already fallen in love with the new royal cover girl. However nervous she may have felt, her warm smile and unaffected manner were a photographer's delight.
When friends ask how she was able to display such a sunny public countenance, she says, "I've got what my mother has. However bloody you are feeling, you can put on the most amazing show of happiness."
On June 21, 1982, Diana produced a son and heir, cause for national rejoicing. When the Queen saw the tiny bundle the next day, she said dryly, "Thank goodness he hasn't got ears like his father." For a time, the joy of motherhood helped Diana overcome her eating disorder, and Charles surprised his friends with his enthusiasm for the nursery routine. As William grew, stories filtered out about the Prince joining his son in the bath, of William flushing his shoes down the lavatory or of Charles cutting short engagements to be with his family.
There were darker tales too: that Diana was suffering from an eating disorder; that Prince Charles was concerned about her health. There were panicky phone calls when he didn't arrive home on time, nights without sleep when he was away. A friend clearly recalls the Princess phoning him in tears. She had accidentally overheard her husband talking on a portable telephone while having a bath. She was deeply upset when she heard him say on his handheld phone the words, "Whatever happens, I will always love you."
It was a desperately lonely time. Diana's family and friends were now at the margins of her new life. With savage irony, when she was in the depths of despair, the tide of publicity turned against her. She was no longer the fairytale Princess but the royal shopaholic who had Lavished a fortune on new outfits. In reality, Diana was being treated for chronic depression and struggling to keep her own head above water.
The mood in 1984 was not helped by the fact that Diana was pregnant with Prince Harry. She knew that Charles was desperate for a girl. When the Prince was born on Sept. 15, his father could not disguise his disappointment that this child was not the daughter he longed for. It was a reaction that marked the beginning of the end of the Waleses' marriage.
Over the next several years a series of incidents helped the young Princess regain her emotional footing. On a 1988 ski holiday in Switzerland, Prince Charles was nearly killed in an avalanche that claimed the life of his close friend Maj. Hugh Lindsay after Charles had led his party down a dangerous trail. When the stricken Prince decided not to return to London, it was the Princess who took command, prevailing upon her husband to travel home to his friend's grieving widow. Shortly after that, Diana consulted therapists and sought medical treatment to help control her bulimia. In yet another major step toward rebuilding her self-esteem, she confronted Camilla Parker Bowles about her continued relationship with the Prince, venting, according to Morton, "seven years of pent-up anger, jealousy and frustration."
Over the last few years, the counseling, the friendships and the holistic therapies Diana has embraced have enabled her to win back the personality that had been smothered by her husband, the royal system and the public's expectations. The woman behind the mask is not a flighty, skittish young thing or a vision of saintly perfection. She is, however, a much quieter, introverted person than many would believe.
Today the Prince and Princess lead separate lives, joining forces only to maintain a facade of unity. At last year's soccer cup final at Wembley, they sat next to each other but never exchanged a word during the 90-minute game. Even their note paper, which used to have an intertwined "C and D," has been discarded in favor of individual letterheadings.
Dianas willingness to take on difficult causes such as AIDS, the homeless and abused children is a reflection of her newfound confidence. As her interests move into the world of health, she finds that she has less time for her portfolio of patronages. As she says to friends: "I don't like the glamorous occasions anymore. I would much rather be doing something useful."
Diana is continually torn between her sense of duty to the Queen and nation and her desire to find the happiness she craves. Yet in order to find happiness she must divorce; if she divorces, she will inevitably lose the children she lives for.
As overprotective as a single parent, she lavishes William and Harry with love, cuddles and affection. "Who loves you most?" is a favorite phrase as she tucks them up in bed or tousles their hair. They are a point of stability in her topsy-turvy world.
Over the last two years, Diana has begun to see Camilla more as a useful means of keeping her husband out of her life. Diana calls her rival "the rottweiler," while Camilla refers to the Princess as that "ridiculous creature." At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other.
Caution is Diana's watchword. She dare not bring home tapes from her astrology readings or the satirical magazine Private Eye, with its wicked portrayal of her husband, in case it attracts any unfavorable comments. Her phone is her lifeline, and she spends hours chatting to friends. "Sorry about the noise," she said during one recent call. "I was trying to get my tiara on."
Diana has led a confusing double life in which she is celebrated by the public but watched in often jealous silence by her husband and the rest of his family. She is tactile, emotional, gently irreverent and spontaneous. To a white-gloved, stiff-upper-lip institution with a large DO NOT TOUCH sign hanging from its crown, the Princess of Wales is a threat.
Experience has taught her not to trust or confide in members of the royal family. It is perhaps inevitable that Diana, who watches from the inside, now sees a yawning gap between the way the world is moving and how it is perceived by the royal family. That was demonstrated last Christmas when, during dinner, Diana tentatively raised the question of the future of the British monarchy in a federal Europe. The Queen, Prince Charles and the rest of the family looked as if she were mad and continued with their debate on who had shot the last pheasant of the day, a discussion that occupied the rest of the evening.
Diana's thinking about her royal position changes by the month. She now feels impatience rather than despair with the creaking machinery of monarchy, indifference toward Charles and cool disregard for Camilla. As Diana's brother says, "She has done very well to keep her sense of humor. She is not at all stuffy and will make a joke either about herself or something ridiculous which everyone has noticed but is too embarrassed to talk about." After a day watching native dancers in unbearable humidity or sipping a cup of some foul-tasting liquid, she often phones her friends to regale them with the latest absurdities. "The things I do for England" is her favorite phrase.
Her achievement has been to find her true self in the face of overwhelming odds. She will continue to tread a different path from her husband, the royal family and their system and yet still conform to their traditions. As she now says, "When I go home and turn my light off at night, I know I did my best."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
