Charles: Victim or villain?. Penny Junor

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СКАЧАТЬ the Queen and Prince Charles were just feet away from one another in their separate rooms, divided by paper-thin walls, it was their staff who were discussing the rights and wrongs of asking the Queen’s permission for Charles to use her aeroplane. Never was the true nature of this mother–son relationship more starkly demonstrated. Closely knit though the family appears, there is very little real communication between them. The Prince loves his parents dearly but they don’t talk. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had not known quite how serious the problems with their son’s marriage had been until 1987, when two friends wrote to the Queen, having decided independently and simultaneously that she ought to know what was going on. Their letters landed on her desk on the same day. They had witnessed some odd incidents, like Diana falling down the stairs at Sandringham, and Diana had told them on one occasion that her life with the Prince was impossible because of Mrs Parker Bowles, but they had not discussed the problems with their son.

      That Sunday, Charles, William and Harry had all been planning to fly to London. The boys’ summer holiday was almost over and they were due to meet up with their mother, who was flying back from Paris. Diana always had the children for the last few days before they went back to school at the start of a new term, so that she could get everything ready and make sure they had the right kit. The Prince would spend a few days at Highgrove, his home in Gloucestershire, before heading for Provence, in the South of France, his habitual haunt in early September.

      The Prince was in no doubt that he wanted to go and see Diana in Paris that morning, but uncertain whether he should take the children. He was worried that her injuries would be too upsetting for them. Clearly no decision could be made until they knew how bad her injuries were. And as the hours crept painfully past, he talked about the Princess, whom he still loved and prayed for every night, despite the failure of their marriage, despite the hurt that had existed between them.

      ‘I always thought it would end like this,’ he said, ‘with me having to nurse Diana through some terrible injury or illness. I always thought she’d come back to me and I would spend the rest of my time looking after her.’

      The walls in Balmoral are so thin that there is no keeping of secrets. One regular visitor says that if you want to have a private conversation you have to put the plug in the wash basin and talk quietly, or it will be all round the castle. Inevitably, with this kind of drama going on, most of the family were by now awake and watching the television or listening to the radio, which was already given over to news of the accident. The Duke of York was staying in the castle at the time, also Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips, then aged nineteen, two friends of the Queen and Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister. William and Harry were asleep and it became a priority to get their radios out of their bedrooms and the television out of the nursery, to prevent them waking up and switching one of them on.

      At about 3.30 a.m., Mark Bolland rang Robin Janvrin again to find out how he was doing with the plane, and whether he had woken up the people at RAF Northolt, in Greater London, where it was based. In the middle of the conversation, at 3.45, they were interrupted by a telephone call that came through from the Embassy in Paris for Janvrin, and he put Bolland on to Nick Archer while he took the call.

      ‘We can’t muck about with his plane,’ Bolland was saying. ‘Make sure Robin is quite clear what is going to happen …’

      ‘Oh, Mark, I think we’re going to have a change of plan.’

      In the background Archer could hear Robin Janvrin breaking the news to the Prince of Wales on the telephone. ‘Sir, I’m very sorry to have to tell you, I’ve just had the Ambassador on the phone. The Princess died a short time ago.’

      The announcement that went out at 4.30 a.m. said she had died at four o’clock. It had actually been earlier.

      The Prince immediately rang Mark. ‘Robin has just told me she’s dead, Mark, is this true? What happened? What on earth was she doing there? How could this have happened? They’re all going to blame me, aren’t they? What do I do? What does this mean?’

      Mark’s first reaction was to ring Camilla Parker Bowles to tell her that Diana had died, and warn her that she could expect a call at any moment from the Prince, in a state of serious distress. He had rung a number of close friends that night, and Camilla and the Prince had already spoken several times. She was shocked to the core by the news that Diana was dead, and utterly devastated for the boys; also terrified for the Prince, of what would happen to him, what people’s reaction would be.

      Diana’s death came as a terrible shock to everyone. All the news had indicated that she had survived the crash, and with some reports having suggested she had walked away from the car, people were totally unprepared. The truth was that she had sustained terrible chest and head injuries. She had lost consciousness very soon after the impact, and never regained it. She had been treated in the wreckage of the Mercedes at the scene for about an hour and was then taken to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital four miles away, where surgeons had fought for a further two hours to save her life, but in vain. The reaction was total horror and disbelief.

      The Prince’s first thought was for the children. Should he wake them and tell them or let them sleep and tell them in the morning? He was absolutely dreading it, and didn’t know what to do for the best. The Queen felt strongly that they should be left to sleep and he took her advice and didn’t wake them up until 7.15. William had had a difficult night’s sleep and had woken many times. He had known, he said, that something awful was going to happen.

      The Prince, like Camilla, realised only too well what the public reaction might be, and what the media would say. ‘They’re all going to blame me,’ he said. ‘The world’s going to go completely mad, isn’t it? We’re going to see a reaction that we’ve never seen before. And it could destroy everything. It could destroy the monarchy.’

      ‘Yes, sir, I think it could,’ said Lamport with brutal honesty. ‘It’s going to be very difficult for your mother, sir. She’s going to have to do things she may not want to do, or feel comfortable doing, but if she doesn’t do them, then that’s the end of it.’

      The Queen’s first difficulty was upon her before dawn had broken. The Prince decided he should be the one to go to Paris to collect Diana’s body, but the Queen was against the idea and was strongly supported by her private secretary. The Princess was no longer a member of the Royal Family, argued Sir Robert Fellowes; it would be wrong to make too much fuss.

      Robin Janvrin came up with the remark that clinched it. ‘What would you rather, Ma’am,’ he said; ‘that she came back in a Harrods’ van?’ There was no further argument.

      Diana’s love affair with Dodi Fayed had been a source of deep concern to everyone at court, not least the Prince of Wales. Not because he resented her happiness – it was his deepest wish that Diana would find happiness – but because he feared it would end in disaster. He feared that Diana was in danger of being used by the al Fayed publicity machine. Dodi’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, the high-profile Egyptian owner of Harrods, was a controversial figure. Long denied British citizenship, he had tried relentlessly to ingratiate himself with the establishment. He had done some inspired matchmaking that summer between his playboy son and the Princess of Wales in the South of France, and had milked it for all it was worth. He had scarcely been out of the news for a month: he had been photographed with William and Harry, the Queen’s grandsons, who had been his guests on board his yacht, and was hoping for the greatest coup of all, to secure the mother of a future king of England as a daughter-in-law.

      Dodi was a serious member of the international jet set, a kind and gentle man, but with more money than intellect, and a string of conquests to his name amongst the world’s most beautiful women. While he was busy wooing Diana, another woman thought she was engaged to marry him. He dabbled in the film business, СКАЧАТЬ