Date Posted: 07-30-12
This news I find very interesting and informative and while nobody should believe everything reported via media
coverage be this on the televison, on the radio or in the papers as often the truth is diluted and even sometimes quite
different. The subject of this precis is based on an article I read recently in the Daily Mail by the papers Royal
Correspondent Richard Kay who was also a friend of Diana's, one of the few she had who was involved directly in the
media but who also proved a useful connection for the lady who was by her own admission a professional strategist
and often her own spin - doctor and one of the last people who Diana spoke to on 30th August 1997 from the Ritz
Hotel in Paris. For these reasons I would be inclined to think that this news is based on fact and it also is one that
makes sense with Diana's message about the Monarchy falling which she has made no secret she wants to see
happen so her eldest son William is spared his mapped out destiny as King! It seems clear by this article that in-
house squabbling is due to blood royal members roles already being phased out!
Though not related to the article I was shocked to see how the Monarch herself has been made a figure of fun at
the recent opening of the Olympics Ceremony 2012, filmed meeting the fictional M.I.6. Agent James Bond ( 007 ) and
then racing to the Olympic Park by helicopter, diving out of it giving an irreverent photo shot of the royal knickers
albeit a double, to then be seen in the same dress in attendance at the opening ceremony which included in a musical
mix being featured the punk group "The Sex Pistols" version of the National Anthem "God Save The Queen" which
was considered too controversial in 1977 on its release and was banned air - play by the B.B.C. but whom 35 years
later cover this event on television and the same song now one played in the Monarch's presence.
I admit that I am approaching 53 years old, and so as a friend Tracy has pointed out to me getting old, but never
the less whilst not a royalist I am interested in William and Harry as they are Diana's sons and not because they are
Royal Princes. I still question was this really respecting the Queen but appreciate that she would have had the final
say as to it being televised but can see why the royal house of cards could easily be one to fall and particularly after
her death as I agree with Diana that she will be the last of the Regal Monarchs and aged 86 yrs more popular now the
year of her Diamond Jubilee than she has ever been throughout her reign though allowing herself to be depicted
featured in a James Bond spoof still amazes me...call me old fashioned!
Right now moving on to the article I have read which intimates dissension behind Palace walls! Do please
remember how Diana and Charles presented a united front to the world of a happy marriage for years with the press
instructed to promote this farce, which they did very successfully, and the Palace publicly denying there were any
problems within that royal marriage but how eventually the truth was revealed! Now read on ..... There once was
brotherly harmony between brothers Prince Charles the Prince of Wales and Prince Andrew the Duke of York and this
now displaced by hostility. The Duke of York is angry that he and the two blood princesses of their generation,
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie his daughters from his marriage to Sarah Ferguson ex-Duchess of York and one
time ally of Diana publicly christened "Fergie" and who like Diana courted controversy and was similarly osrtacised
from the family following the official divorce from the Duke of York, are being together with him pushed to the margins
of royal life and dissuaded from carrying out royal duties.
Apparently Charles, 64 yrs this coming birthday in November, is seen to be running the show, his elderly
parents agreeing that his role becomes more enhanced now, implementing changes within the Monarchy he wants to
see when he inherits the throne, a slimmed down Monarchy and by example of this on the final day of the jubilee
celebrations having attended the thanksgiving service at St. Paul's Cathedral where in 1981 Charles and Diana
married, his younger brothers Andrew, Edward the Earl of Wessex and his sister Princess Anne now The Princess
Royal were not invited to the official luncheon afterwards and they also did not join in the private celebration later held
at the Queen's royal residence in London of Buckingham Palace. Alternatively in prominent positions at the luncheon
were William, now The Duke of Cambridge, and Harry, Catherine, The Duchess of Cambridge and Camilla, The
Duchess of Cornwall, the second wife of Charles. Catherine hosting her own table at the primary luncheon. Catherine
and Camilla now being consistently publicly displayed in pole positions and regularly making public appearances is
angering the Duke of York as both are non-blood royals though the wives of prominent members of royalty.
More damaging being Andrew and his siblings were not required to join their mother the Queen on the
Buckingham Palace balcony in front of the people there for the R.A.F. fly past salute, one of the most significant
moments of the jubilee; this particularly hurt the Duke of York. Consequently only one of her children was present with
the Queen for it and this being Charles and with him Camilla, William, Catherine and Harry. The Queen's husband
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh was in hospital at the time The slimmed down monarchy seems to be one that will
feature Charles and Camilla, William and Catherine and Harry. Edward and his wife Sophie are reported to being
unimpressed with this insensitive behaviour from Charles but Anne who has always been independent and insisted
her children Zara and Peter would never be burdened by royal titles seems more accommodating and less personally
troubled with this new arrangement.
It is accepted that globally the most popular members of royalty are now William and Harry and my guess is not
because they are Princes but that they are Diana's boys, her living legacy, the jewels in the crown of the People's
Princess, Diana, Princess of Wales. Similarly non-blood royal William's wife Catherine easily capturing headlines, the
publics attention and people popularity globally as non-blood royal Diana, William's mother, did before her which must
make him incredibly happy and enormously proud of her I am quite sure.
Andrew Russell - Davis,
Note: The below news article, if entirely true, might indicate that the Queen was a good sport about this film and not
as offended as others might have been for her.
LONDON (Reuters) - Queen Elizabeth needed little persuading in making her film debut, appearing with the
country's most famous fictional spy James Bond during the London Olympic opening ceremony.
In a brief, tongue-in-cheek film broadcast to a packed Olympic stadium late on Friday - as well as a massive worldwide
television audience - Bond actor Daniel Craig entered Buckingham Palace wearing his trademark tuxedo.
After a pause, Her Majesty turns from her writing desk and says simply: "Good evening, Mr. Bond."
She uttered just four words, but they were seen as a highly personal touch from a monarch once seen as aloof.
"The queen was delighted to be asked, and be involved in something so exceptional," a Buckingham Palace
spokeswoman told Reuters on Saturday. "Very pleased to take part, and it was our Olympics and the queen was
delighted to be part of it."
Princess Diana's death in 1997 was a low-point for the royal family, yet the huge crowds that greeted her during
Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June were proof of how far the queen had recovered in the eyes of the public.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, who escorted the 86-year-old monarch around the Olympic Park during an official tour
on Saturday, said that she was "thrilled" about the film and keen to know if people found her cameo role funny.
"My impression is that she loved it," the staunch royalist told reporters. "Maybe, you know, there won't be many film
performances that she will give and whether she will get an Oscar, I don't know," he joked.
The pre-recorded clip also showed 007 escorting the queen to the stadium in a moment of levity rarely shared by the
public, who can only read about her well-reported sense of humor.
CORGI CAMEOS
The 86-year-old monarch was happy for two of her beloved corgis, Monty, 13, and Holly, nine, to play a role. The
depiction of her derring-do arrival was a quirky moment in an eclectic ceremony on Friday.
The opening shot showed the Queen sitting at a writing table in Buckingham Palace, welcoming Bond, played by
Daniel Craig.
The pair made their way to a waiting helicopter in the grounds of the central London palace, apparently leaving her
doting corgis on the doorstep.
The helicopter zipped across the city and a man dressed as Bond skydived down towards the Olympic Park in east
London, followed by a figure in a pale peach dress matching that worn by the queen in the film.
She then appeared for real in the main stadium before 60,000 spectators - and without a hair out of place - before
taking her seat.
The film was the brainchild of the ceremony's director Danny Boyle, but it was London organizing committee (LOCOG)
chairman Seb Coe who first approached the palace in 2011.
When asked how much it took to persuade the queen to take part, a LOCOG spokeswoman said: "Not much."
"I think she really liked the whole concept Danny had put together."
Oscar-winning director Boyle shot the scenes in the palace's quadrangle, the Grand Entrance, the East Gallery, the
Audience Room and the West Terrace, in March and April this year.
"You don't have to tell her something twice," Boyle was quoted as saying by British media.
"She picks it up straight away, about cameras and angles."
The queen was then given a viewing before its official showing.
"She was very happy to take part, she was happy to do what she did," the Buckingham Palace spokeswoman added.
MEDIA HIT
Her off-beat appearance was a hit with the British media.
"It's been received really well, we always knew it would," the palace spokeswoman added.
When asked if it might be the monarch's last appearance in a film, she said: "Never say never, but I imagine so, it was
a very special one-off."
Other members of the Royal Family have had cameo appearances in long-running TV and radio soap operas.
Her stuntman Gary Connery said the part had been exciting, but he'd not been allowed to keep the dress.
"It's all part of it, and you just go with the flow," he told BBC television.
"Last night was the first time I'd actually had the make-up on.
"The process of making me the queen ... had been three to four months."
It capped off a successful year for the queen who in June marked 60 years on the throne with a weekend
extravaganza that saw millions of flag waving Britons take to the streets to show their affection and appreciation for a
monarch more normally renowned for her stately dignity.
Date Posted: 07-30-12
The Queen and Diana by Robert Lacey
H.R.H.Prince Charles’s new girlfriend Lady Diana Spencer with her childlike enthusiasm and ready smile was just the
type of house-guest to appeal to the Queen. The year was 1980. There was no doubt that Lady Diana Spencer had
just passed the Balmoral test with flying colours.
‘We got hot, we got tired, Diana fell into a bog,’ remembered Prince Charles’s friend Patty Palmer-Tomkinson, ‘Diana
got covered in mud, laughed her head off. Diana was a sort of wonderful English schoolgirl who was game for
anything.’
The whole family liked the 19-year-old Diana. Edward and Andrew competed with their elder brother to sit beside her
at evening picnics, and Prince Philip clearly appreciated her good looks. To his mother’s evident relief, her eldest son
seemed finally to have picked himself a winner and who could blame her for thinking so? What’s largely been
forgotten in the dramatic arc of Diana’s short life is that the Queen was one of her most caring supporters.
For the past year, Charles had been spending more and more time with Camilla, the wife of Guards officer Andrew
Parker Bowles, and the affair had even reached the ears of the Queen.
‘Ma’am,’ a senior courtier had informed her, ‘The Prince of Wales is having an affair with the wife of a brother officer,
and the regiment don’t like it.’
In April 1980, Charles had taken Camilla with him to Zimbabwe, where he was due to represent his mother at the
country’s independence ceremony. Ostensibly, Camilla was flying over to see her husband but at a formal dinner in
Harare, the couple flirted ostentatiously and Charles fumbled below the table with his mistress while her husband
stoically looked the other way. The incident was so flagrant that reports of it reached the Queen.
‘There are times,’ said a courtier, ‘when the Queen and Prince Philip are just plain baffled by this eldest son they have
produced.’
Little wonder then that Charles’s parents were so relieved to welcome Diana to the fold. It helped, too, that she’d
known the Royal Family since childhood, when her father Earl Spencer rented a ten-bedroom farmhouse on the
Sandringham estate. Ever vigilant, the Queen was determined to protect her potential daughter-in-law from the almost
immediate and overwhelming Press interest.
‘The Queen looked out at Diana coping all on her own and she really felt for her,’ said one of the Queen’s friends.
That November, while Diana was visiting Sandringham, hoardes of reporters and photographers surrounded the
house. Characteristically, the Queen said nothing to Charles directly but she did speak to Philip, who wrote their
eldest son a carefully considered letter. Media pressure was creating an intolerable situation, said Philip, which meant
that Charles must come to a rapid decision. Either he must offer Diana his hand in marriage or he must break off the
relationship to avoid compromising her reputation.
‘Read it!’ Charles would furiously exclaim to friends in later years, whipping the letter out of his breast pocket.
‘It was his attempt to say that he was forced into the marriage,’ recalled one who saw the note.
However, another who read it confided: ‘It was actually very constructive and trying to be helpful. It certainly did not
read as an ultimatum.’
On the wedding day itself, in July 1981, Her Majesty was as giddy as everyone else with the high emotion of the day.
That evening, she watched the wedding all over again on large screen televisions set up in Claridge’s Hotel in
London. Dry martini in hand, she studied her own image intently, pointing delightedly whenever the cameras caught
one of her famous glum faces. It was noted how she beamed with pleasure whenever images of her new daughter-in-
law appeared.
The Queen did not leave till 1.30 in the morning, hitching up her skirt and performing a little jig as she said her
goodbyes.
‘I’d love to stay and dance all night,’ she said.
Three weeks later the Queen welcomed Charles and Diana back from their ocean-going honeymoon with similar
gusto. As they approached Balmoral in an old pony trap, the Queen ran alongside, hopping and skipping to keep up,
while her husband pedalled on an ancient bicycle before shooting off ahead to greet them at the door but it was soon
apparent that something was amiss. At midday, the Queen would appear in the hall in her headscarf to take the
women guests to lunch with the men on the grouse moors. It went without saying that no one should be a minute late.
‘So there we’d all be waiting in the hall,’ recalled a guest, ‘making polite conversation — and no Diana.
So after a time, the Queen would send off a footman, and he’d come back looking embarrassed. “Sorry, Ma’am, the
Princess of Wales will not be joining the party for lunch.” ’
The Queen would go very silent. Friends saw the danger signs: the pursed lips, the extra quick blink of the eyes. In
the monarch’s view, staying in your room at lunchtime was something you did only if you were ill — or rather odd.
Still, one had to make allowances.
‘The Queen’s thought in those days,’ said a friend, ‘was that Diana was a “new girl” who was finding it very difficult to
get used to things.’
It was rather more complicated than that, for in the year since she made her first successful appearance at Balmoral,
Diana had made the astonishing discovery that her husband’s deepest emotions were committed to another woman.
‘Whatever happens, I will always love you,’ she’d overheard him saying to Camilla on the phone, while taking a bath.
Both this and her discovery that his mistress had given him new cuff links featuring their entwined initials provoked a
series of terrible rows.
That autumn in Scotland, Diana would be smiling one moment then breaking helplessly into tears the next, and her
new mother-in-law tried hard to help her. Pondering on what had happened to the jolly girl who’d been ‘game for
anything’ one year earlier, Elizabeth referred the problem to experts. By the end of September 1981, Diana was on a
plane to London to meet with leading Harley Street psychiatrists — and having done what she could to help Diana
with her private demons, the Queen summoned the editors of Fleet Street and asked them to give her more space.
"Diana's not like the rest of us, she's very young’ explained the Queen.
Happily, the birth of Prince William on June 21, 1982, produced a certain calm.The Queen arrived the next day to
congratulate her daughter-in-law and inspect the new arrival.
‘Thank goodness,’ she said, woman to woman, ‘he hasn’t got ears like his father.’
After Harry was born in September 1984, several friends identified this surprisingly early date as the moment when
the couple stopped ‘making the effort’ with each other. By 1987, both were having affairs. Charles was back with Mrs.
Camilla Parker - Bowles and Diana had turned to most notably a Guards officer-turned-riding instructor, Major James
Hewitt.
When the princess delivered her side of the troubled marriage into the public domain, by using a go-between to
provide tape-recorded answers to questions posed by Andrew Morton, a young tabloid journalist, the Queen was
surprisingly sympathetic. Without any real knowledge of how Morton had got his story and with no doubt that she and
the family were victims of the most monstrous betrayal, the Queen and Philip held back from accusing Diana.
‘If anything, they tried not to side with Charles against Diana,’ said a friend.
‘They were very conscious that, in a sense, she did not have a family, and that they had to try to supply her with that.’
Deeply troubled, the Queen fell back on the therapy that her husband called her ‘dog mechanism, she’d take her
corgis out for extra-long walks, bring them home, wash them, and then take them out again. Even before Morton’s
book was published, the Queen and her husband met Charles and Diana for an informal attempt at family therapy,
explaining how they understood the problems that marriages go through, and were both just desperate to help.
‘Can you tell us what’s the matter, Diana?’ asked Philip, at which his daughter-in-law collapsed in tears. Refusing all
offers of comfort, she continued to sob.
‘Well, Charles,’ said the Queen rather desperately, turning to her son. ‘Can you explain to us?’
‘What?’ replied the prince. "Read it all in the newspapers tomorrow? No thank you.’
That was the end of the first and last royal family therapy session.
In December 1992, the then Prime Minister John Major announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales had decided
to separate. It was the Queen’s fervent hope that this legal separation would stop the couple feuding — but the rivalry
between them ran too deep. In a TV documentary made the following year by Jonathan Dimbleby, the prince
confessed to his own adultery — with the sting coming for his mother in the biography that Dimbleby published with
Charles’s approval, painstakingly listing his grievances against his parents and actually stigmatising the Queen as a
bad mother.The Queen said nothing to her son directly, but Anne, Andrew and Edward were furious at their brother’s
disloyalty and said so to his face.
Diana’s own riposte to Charles came on November 20, 1995, when over 23 million British viewers watched the
princess nervously but deftly answer the questions of Martin Bashir, a young reporter on Panorama.
‘There were three of us in this marriage,’ was her edgy skewering of the Camilla situation.
The Queen was not impressed as she had taken Diana’s side from the earliest days, and particularly in the division of
roles after the separation, when she’d resisted Charles’s efforts to cut down his wife’s access to royal perks such as
the Queen’s Flight and the royal train but now Diana had strayed into dangerous constitutional territory. Diana not
only questioned Charles’s fitness to be king, but also mounted a kind of challenge to the Queen herself by saying: ‘I’d
like to be a queen of people’s hearts.’
The Queen of the United Kingdom acted at last. The previous December had seen the second anniversary of the
couple’s legal separation, the point at which British law permitted a simple no-fault divorce by mutual consent. On
December 20, 1995, a uniformed courier from Windsor Castle delivered a personal letter from the Queen to her
daughter-in-law.
‘Dearest Diana,’ it began, according to Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler and ‘rock’ in her days of separation, to whom she
showed the letter.
The Queen explained that she had been discussing the ‘sad and complicated situation’ with the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Prime Minister, who were both in agreement, and she was now expressing her own personal wish
that Charles and Diana should formally and finally divorce ‘in the best interests of the country and ended the note with
an affectionate scribble, ‘Love from Mama’, but her message brooked no argument.
The dream marriage formally came to an end the following August 28th 1996. Charles, Diana and the monarchy could
all now make a fresh start. but just one year and three days later, the British ambassador in Paris rang Balmoral
around 1am, rousing the duty private secretary, Robert Janvrin, from his sleep. The embassy was receiving police
reports, he said, of a serious car crash that involved Diana, Princess of Wales.
The news of Diana’s death came through from Paris just before 4am, and the Queen’s first reaction was to think of
her grandsons.
‘We must get the radios out of their rooms,’ the Queen said to Charles.
Mother and son discussed whether to wake William and Harry — their grandmother felt strongly that they should have
a decent night’s rest before they had to face what would be the most difficult day of their lives. ‘Looking after the boys’
became her top priority in the difficult days that lay ahead.
‘We must get them out and away from the television,’ she said as she clicked across the mournful images of the dead
princess being played non-stop on every television channel.
‘Let’s get them both up in the hills.’
The Queen assigned Peter Phillips, Princess Anne’s rugby-playing son, the task of taking William and Harry out on
the moors on stalking and fishing expeditions, with lots of mucking around on the brothers’ noisy scrambler
motorbikes. At 15 yrs old William seemed to take it bravely, on the outside at least. Not quite 13 yrs old Harry had
been more obviously upset. ‘Was everyone quite sure that Mummy was dead?’ he was heard to enquire. "Could it just
be checked to make sure there had not been some mistake?"
The Queen had no doubt that the calming and secluded Highlands were the best place in the world to help the boys
with the therapy that always lifted her in times of trouble — lots of fresh air and exercise but down in London there
was mutiny in the air.
‘Where is the Queen when the country needs her?’ demanded an open letter on the front page of The Sun
newspaper.
Compounding the Queen’s absence was the lack of any flag flying at half-mast above Buckingham Palace as a sign of
royal mourning. Tradition was one of the keystones of the royal mystery. If Prince Charles had died in a car crash the
previous Sunday, the Queen would not now be flying the Union Jack at half mast over Buckingham Palace. The
Queen had not done it for her beloved father and would not expect it for herself or for her mother.
So why should tradition be overturned for a young woman who, just like her Uncle David, Edward VIII, in the abdication
crisis, had put her own wayward concerns before those of the family? Her Private Secretary Sir Robert Fellowes tried
making the argument, but got the answer he expected. Both the Queen and her husband had a deep mistrust of
making concessions to the popular concerns of the moment, particularly when voiced by the tabloid media.
Unhappiness over the flag was something that the sacred and enduring monarchy should rise above in a world of
trendy gestures. The flagpole must stay bare.
‘There were times in that week,’ said a No 10 insider, ‘When you could not believe what was coming down the line
from Balmoral. You wondered if they were living in the same century?.’
By the Wednesday following Diana’s death, there were people in Buckingham Palace who were feeling the same.
‘When the Queen was at Buckingham Palace or Windsor,’ said a former adviser, trying to explain the Queen’s
obstinacy over the flag, ‘she was psychologically much more prepared to get involved with something unexpected.
'The Queen's time relaxing in Scotland was so precious to her . . . she was not thrilled when Prime Ministers or Privy
Councils or something interrupted “Her Balmoral Time”.’
The Queen had been encouraging this sense of detachment for the sake of her grandsons but what worked for
William and Harry was disastrous when it came to her own willingness to take on board the messages coming from
London — most of them conveyed via the courtly Robin Janvrin, a former naval officer and diplomat.
‘Robin had a tough job up there,’ remembers one of the team of courtiers based in London at the time.
‘We were all coming off the street as it were, with our feeling of what was happening out on the ground. Then he had
to walk down the corridor, a delegation of one, and convince the family — the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles —
all gathered in the sitting room, that there was a crisis and they couldn’t just look at it in the traditional family way.’
When Janvrin was rebuffed, Robert Fellowes would pick up the phone in the palace and go into action. ‘I love Robert
— he’s incredibly brave,’ says one of his former colleagues.
‘If he believes in something, he’ll go right over the top fighting for it, whatever the cost.’
The cost proved painful for Fellowes himself and for several other senior courtiers in a series of deeply wounding
confrontations with the Queen and with Prince Philip. By the end of the third day after Diana’s death the Queen’s
advisers were unanimous. There must be some compromise over the flag, as well as some drastic change in the
timetable decision that had been taken by the Queen and her husband at the start of the week: that they would not
show their faces in London until the morning of the funeral, coming down overnight on the royal train, then heading
straight back to Scotland afterwards.
Such a fleeting visit to the capital would only increase the accusations of indifference and heartlessness that were
now being hurled openly at the Royal Family. The first reaction of the Queen and her husband to these suggestions
was that they would not budge. They both got angry with their advisers, and in an ugly fashion. When the memory of
those desperate hours and what was said at Balmoral comes up today, all those involved go silent and refuse to
describe what transpired. They had seen a side of Queen Elizabeth II that they would evidently prefer to forget.
‘A lot of people,’ recalls one of them, ‘were heavily scarred by it.’
The next morning — Thursday September 4, the fourth day after Diana’s death — Her Majesty showed another side.
The Queen, as one of her private secretaries says, ‘has ruthless common sense and the ability to move on’.
So that day up in Balmoral she bent to a principle that was even more timeless than her respect for tradition — her
need to stay in business. Was it the morning headlines, or a change of heart in the night? Either way the Queen
accepted that her stiff upper lip would now have to soften — and the details of what was to be done were set in place
at once.
The Balmoral pastor was told to arrange a service that very evening at which the name of Diana would not be
mentioned. Afterwards, the Royal Family would get out of their cars to inspect the flowers that had been laid at the
castle gates, and the next day the entire family — the boys included — would fly down early to London so they could
talk to people outside the London palaces.
In addition, the BBC was told to set up its cameras inside Buckingham Palace: Her Majesty would be making an eve-of-
funeral broadcast to the nation. The turn-around was incredible: in just 45 minutes, the Queen had backtracked,
adapted and totally reinvented her role in Diana’s ending, moving herself from the margin to the very centre of the
drama.
‘I, for one,’ she said in her live broadcast, ‘believe that there are lessons to be drawn from (Diana’s) life and from the
extraordinary and moving reaction to her death.’
The Queen proved as good as her word. After the broadcast,’ says one of her advisers, ‘we found it easier to
convince her about doing things. She listened to us more, and was just a little more prepared to take risks.’The
Queen embraced a more people friendly approach
In one school visited by her, the Queen took questions from the class, cheerfully admitting she had no idea how
many rooms there were in Buckingham Palace but she warned her staff against taking informality too far. ‘No stunts,’
she would say. ‘I am not a politician.’The Queen was positively annoyed when the Press interpreted her ‘new
informality’ as the ‘Diana effect’.
‘Don’t they realise I’ve done it before?’ she said. ‘I’ve done everything before.’
This news I find very interesting and informative and while nobody should believe everything reported via media
coverage be this on the televison, on the radio or in the papers as often the truth is diluted and even sometimes quite
different. The subject of this precis is based on an article I read recently in the Daily Mail by the papers Royal
Correspondent Richard Kay who was also a friend of Diana's, one of the few she had who was involved directly in the
media but who also proved a useful connection for the lady who was by her own admission a professional strategist
and often her own spin - doctor and one of the last people who Diana spoke to on 30th August 1997 from the Ritz
Hotel in Paris. For these reasons I would be inclined to think that this news is based on fact and it also is one that
makes sense with Diana's message about the Monarchy falling which she has made no secret she wants to see
happen so her eldest son William is spared his mapped out destiny as King! It seems clear by this article that in-
house squabbling is due to blood royal members roles already being phased out!
Though not related to the article I was shocked to see how the Monarch herself has been made a figure of fun at
the recent opening of the Olympics Ceremony 2012, filmed meeting the fictional M.I.6. Agent James Bond ( 007 ) and
then racing to the Olympic Park by helicopter, diving out of it giving an irreverent photo shot of the royal knickers
albeit a double, to then be seen in the same dress in attendance at the opening ceremony which included in a musical
mix being featured the punk group "The Sex Pistols" version of the National Anthem "God Save The Queen" which
was considered too controversial in 1977 on its release and was banned air - play by the B.B.C. but whom 35 years
later cover this event on television and the same song now one played in the Monarch's presence.
I admit that I am approaching 53 years old, and so as a friend Tracy has pointed out to me getting old, but never
the less whilst not a royalist I am interested in William and Harry as they are Diana's sons and not because they are
Royal Princes. I still question was this really respecting the Queen but appreciate that she would have had the final
say as to it being televised but can see why the royal house of cards could easily be one to fall and particularly after
her death as I agree with Diana that she will be the last of the Regal Monarchs and aged 86 yrs more popular now the
year of her Diamond Jubilee than she has ever been throughout her reign though allowing herself to be depicted
featured in a James Bond spoof still amazes me...call me old fashioned!
Right now moving on to the article I have read which intimates dissension behind Palace walls! Do please
remember how Diana and Charles presented a united front to the world of a happy marriage for years with the press
instructed to promote this farce, which they did very successfully, and the Palace publicly denying there were any
problems within that royal marriage but how eventually the truth was revealed! Now read on ..... There once was
brotherly harmony between brothers Prince Charles the Prince of Wales and Prince Andrew the Duke of York and this
now displaced by hostility. The Duke of York is angry that he and the two blood princesses of their generation,
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie his daughters from his marriage to Sarah Ferguson ex-Duchess of York and one
time ally of Diana publicly christened "Fergie" and who like Diana courted controversy and was similarly osrtacised
from the family following the official divorce from the Duke of York, are being together with him pushed to the margins
of royal life and dissuaded from carrying out royal duties.
Apparently Charles, 64 yrs this coming birthday in November, is seen to be running the show, his elderly
parents agreeing that his role becomes more enhanced now, implementing changes within the Monarchy he wants to
see when he inherits the throne, a slimmed down Monarchy and by example of this on the final day of the jubilee
celebrations having attended the thanksgiving service at St. Paul's Cathedral where in 1981 Charles and Diana
married, his younger brothers Andrew, Edward the Earl of Wessex and his sister Princess Anne now The Princess
Royal were not invited to the official luncheon afterwards and they also did not join in the private celebration later held
at the Queen's royal residence in London of Buckingham Palace. Alternatively in prominent positions at the luncheon
were William, now The Duke of Cambridge, and Harry, Catherine, The Duchess of Cambridge and Camilla, The
Duchess of Cornwall, the second wife of Charles. Catherine hosting her own table at the primary luncheon. Catherine
and Camilla now being consistently publicly displayed in pole positions and regularly making public appearances is
angering the Duke of York as both are non-blood royals though the wives of prominent members of royalty.
More damaging being Andrew and his siblings were not required to join their mother the Queen on the
Buckingham Palace balcony in front of the people there for the R.A.F. fly past salute, one of the most significant
moments of the jubilee; this particularly hurt the Duke of York. Consequently only one of her children was present with
the Queen for it and this being Charles and with him Camilla, William, Catherine and Harry. The Queen's husband
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh was in hospital at the time The slimmed down monarchy seems to be one that will
feature Charles and Camilla, William and Catherine and Harry. Edward and his wife Sophie are reported to being
unimpressed with this insensitive behaviour from Charles but Anne who has always been independent and insisted
her children Zara and Peter would never be burdened by royal titles seems more accommodating and less personally
troubled with this new arrangement.
It is accepted that globally the most popular members of royalty are now William and Harry and my guess is not
because they are Princes but that they are Diana's boys, her living legacy, the jewels in the crown of the People's
Princess, Diana, Princess of Wales. Similarly non-blood royal William's wife Catherine easily capturing headlines, the
publics attention and people popularity globally as non-blood royal Diana, William's mother, did before her which must
make him incredibly happy and enormously proud of her I am quite sure.
Andrew Russell - Davis,
Note: The below news article, if entirely true, might indicate that the Queen was a good sport about this film and not
as offended as others might have been for her.
LONDON (Reuters) - Queen Elizabeth needed little persuading in making her film debut, appearing with the
country's most famous fictional spy James Bond during the London Olympic opening ceremony.
In a brief, tongue-in-cheek film broadcast to a packed Olympic stadium late on Friday - as well as a massive worldwide
television audience - Bond actor Daniel Craig entered Buckingham Palace wearing his trademark tuxedo.
After a pause, Her Majesty turns from her writing desk and says simply: "Good evening, Mr. Bond."
She uttered just four words, but they were seen as a highly personal touch from a monarch once seen as aloof.
"The queen was delighted to be asked, and be involved in something so exceptional," a Buckingham Palace
spokeswoman told Reuters on Saturday. "Very pleased to take part, and it was our Olympics and the queen was
delighted to be part of it."
Princess Diana's death in 1997 was a low-point for the royal family, yet the huge crowds that greeted her during
Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June were proof of how far the queen had recovered in the eyes of the public.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, who escorted the 86-year-old monarch around the Olympic Park during an official tour
on Saturday, said that she was "thrilled" about the film and keen to know if people found her cameo role funny.
"My impression is that she loved it," the staunch royalist told reporters. "Maybe, you know, there won't be many film
performances that she will give and whether she will get an Oscar, I don't know," he joked.
The pre-recorded clip also showed 007 escorting the queen to the stadium in a moment of levity rarely shared by the
public, who can only read about her well-reported sense of humor.
CORGI CAMEOS
The 86-year-old monarch was happy for two of her beloved corgis, Monty, 13, and Holly, nine, to play a role. The
depiction of her derring-do arrival was a quirky moment in an eclectic ceremony on Friday.
The opening shot showed the Queen sitting at a writing table in Buckingham Palace, welcoming Bond, played by
Daniel Craig.
The pair made their way to a waiting helicopter in the grounds of the central London palace, apparently leaving her
doting corgis on the doorstep.
The helicopter zipped across the city and a man dressed as Bond skydived down towards the Olympic Park in east
London, followed by a figure in a pale peach dress matching that worn by the queen in the film.
She then appeared for real in the main stadium before 60,000 spectators - and without a hair out of place - before
taking her seat.
The film was the brainchild of the ceremony's director Danny Boyle, but it was London organizing committee (LOCOG)
chairman Seb Coe who first approached the palace in 2011.
When asked how much it took to persuade the queen to take part, a LOCOG spokeswoman said: "Not much."
"I think she really liked the whole concept Danny had put together."
Oscar-winning director Boyle shot the scenes in the palace's quadrangle, the Grand Entrance, the East Gallery, the
Audience Room and the West Terrace, in March and April this year.
"You don't have to tell her something twice," Boyle was quoted as saying by British media.
"She picks it up straight away, about cameras and angles."
The queen was then given a viewing before its official showing.
"She was very happy to take part, she was happy to do what she did," the Buckingham Palace spokeswoman added.
MEDIA HIT
Her off-beat appearance was a hit with the British media.
"It's been received really well, we always knew it would," the palace spokeswoman added.
When asked if it might be the monarch's last appearance in a film, she said: "Never say never, but I imagine so, it was
a very special one-off."
Other members of the Royal Family have had cameo appearances in long-running TV and radio soap operas.
Her stuntman Gary Connery said the part had been exciting, but he'd not been allowed to keep the dress.
"It's all part of it, and you just go with the flow," he told BBC television.
"Last night was the first time I'd actually had the make-up on.
"The process of making me the queen ... had been three to four months."
It capped off a successful year for the queen who in June marked 60 years on the throne with a weekend
extravaganza that saw millions of flag waving Britons take to the streets to show their affection and appreciation for a
monarch more normally renowned for her stately dignity.
Date Posted: 07-30-12
The Queen and Diana by Robert Lacey
H.R.H.Prince Charles’s new girlfriend Lady Diana Spencer with her childlike enthusiasm and ready smile was just the
type of house-guest to appeal to the Queen. The year was 1980. There was no doubt that Lady Diana Spencer had
just passed the Balmoral test with flying colours.
‘We got hot, we got tired, Diana fell into a bog,’ remembered Prince Charles’s friend Patty Palmer-Tomkinson, ‘Diana
got covered in mud, laughed her head off. Diana was a sort of wonderful English schoolgirl who was game for
anything.’
The whole family liked the 19-year-old Diana. Edward and Andrew competed with their elder brother to sit beside her
at evening picnics, and Prince Philip clearly appreciated her good looks. To his mother’s evident relief, her eldest son
seemed finally to have picked himself a winner and who could blame her for thinking so? What’s largely been
forgotten in the dramatic arc of Diana’s short life is that the Queen was one of her most caring supporters.
For the past year, Charles had been spending more and more time with Camilla, the wife of Guards officer Andrew
Parker Bowles, and the affair had even reached the ears of the Queen.
‘Ma’am,’ a senior courtier had informed her, ‘The Prince of Wales is having an affair with the wife of a brother officer,
and the regiment don’t like it.’
In April 1980, Charles had taken Camilla with him to Zimbabwe, where he was due to represent his mother at the
country’s independence ceremony. Ostensibly, Camilla was flying over to see her husband but at a formal dinner in
Harare, the couple flirted ostentatiously and Charles fumbled below the table with his mistress while her husband
stoically looked the other way. The incident was so flagrant that reports of it reached the Queen.
‘There are times,’ said a courtier, ‘when the Queen and Prince Philip are just plain baffled by this eldest son they have
produced.’
Little wonder then that Charles’s parents were so relieved to welcome Diana to the fold. It helped, too, that she’d
known the Royal Family since childhood, when her father Earl Spencer rented a ten-bedroom farmhouse on the
Sandringham estate. Ever vigilant, the Queen was determined to protect her potential daughter-in-law from the almost
immediate and overwhelming Press interest.
‘The Queen looked out at Diana coping all on her own and she really felt for her,’ said one of the Queen’s friends.
That November, while Diana was visiting Sandringham, hoardes of reporters and photographers surrounded the
house. Characteristically, the Queen said nothing to Charles directly but she did speak to Philip, who wrote their
eldest son a carefully considered letter. Media pressure was creating an intolerable situation, said Philip, which meant
that Charles must come to a rapid decision. Either he must offer Diana his hand in marriage or he must break off the
relationship to avoid compromising her reputation.
‘Read it!’ Charles would furiously exclaim to friends in later years, whipping the letter out of his breast pocket.
‘It was his attempt to say that he was forced into the marriage,’ recalled one who saw the note.
However, another who read it confided: ‘It was actually very constructive and trying to be helpful. It certainly did not
read as an ultimatum.’
On the wedding day itself, in July 1981, Her Majesty was as giddy as everyone else with the high emotion of the day.
That evening, she watched the wedding all over again on large screen televisions set up in Claridge’s Hotel in
London. Dry martini in hand, she studied her own image intently, pointing delightedly whenever the cameras caught
one of her famous glum faces. It was noted how she beamed with pleasure whenever images of her new daughter-in-
law appeared.
The Queen did not leave till 1.30 in the morning, hitching up her skirt and performing a little jig as she said her
goodbyes.
‘I’d love to stay and dance all night,’ she said.
Three weeks later the Queen welcomed Charles and Diana back from their ocean-going honeymoon with similar
gusto. As they approached Balmoral in an old pony trap, the Queen ran alongside, hopping and skipping to keep up,
while her husband pedalled on an ancient bicycle before shooting off ahead to greet them at the door but it was soon
apparent that something was amiss. At midday, the Queen would appear in the hall in her headscarf to take the
women guests to lunch with the men on the grouse moors. It went without saying that no one should be a minute late.
‘So there we’d all be waiting in the hall,’ recalled a guest, ‘making polite conversation — and no Diana.
So after a time, the Queen would send off a footman, and he’d come back looking embarrassed. “Sorry, Ma’am, the
Princess of Wales will not be joining the party for lunch.” ’
The Queen would go very silent. Friends saw the danger signs: the pursed lips, the extra quick blink of the eyes. In
the monarch’s view, staying in your room at lunchtime was something you did only if you were ill — or rather odd.
Still, one had to make allowances.
‘The Queen’s thought in those days,’ said a friend, ‘was that Diana was a “new girl” who was finding it very difficult to
get used to things.’
It was rather more complicated than that, for in the year since she made her first successful appearance at Balmoral,
Diana had made the astonishing discovery that her husband’s deepest emotions were committed to another woman.
‘Whatever happens, I will always love you,’ she’d overheard him saying to Camilla on the phone, while taking a bath.
Both this and her discovery that his mistress had given him new cuff links featuring their entwined initials provoked a
series of terrible rows.
That autumn in Scotland, Diana would be smiling one moment then breaking helplessly into tears the next, and her
new mother-in-law tried hard to help her. Pondering on what had happened to the jolly girl who’d been ‘game for
anything’ one year earlier, Elizabeth referred the problem to experts. By the end of September 1981, Diana was on a
plane to London to meet with leading Harley Street psychiatrists — and having done what she could to help Diana
with her private demons, the Queen summoned the editors of Fleet Street and asked them to give her more space.
"Diana's not like the rest of us, she's very young’ explained the Queen.
Happily, the birth of Prince William on June 21, 1982, produced a certain calm.The Queen arrived the next day to
congratulate her daughter-in-law and inspect the new arrival.
‘Thank goodness,’ she said, woman to woman, ‘he hasn’t got ears like his father.’
After Harry was born in September 1984, several friends identified this surprisingly early date as the moment when
the couple stopped ‘making the effort’ with each other. By 1987, both were having affairs. Charles was back with Mrs.
Camilla Parker - Bowles and Diana had turned to most notably a Guards officer-turned-riding instructor, Major James
Hewitt.
When the princess delivered her side of the troubled marriage into the public domain, by using a go-between to
provide tape-recorded answers to questions posed by Andrew Morton, a young tabloid journalist, the Queen was
surprisingly sympathetic. Without any real knowledge of how Morton had got his story and with no doubt that she and
the family were victims of the most monstrous betrayal, the Queen and Philip held back from accusing Diana.
‘If anything, they tried not to side with Charles against Diana,’ said a friend.
‘They were very conscious that, in a sense, she did not have a family, and that they had to try to supply her with that.’
Deeply troubled, the Queen fell back on the therapy that her husband called her ‘dog mechanism, she’d take her
corgis out for extra-long walks, bring them home, wash them, and then take them out again. Even before Morton’s
book was published, the Queen and her husband met Charles and Diana for an informal attempt at family therapy,
explaining how they understood the problems that marriages go through, and were both just desperate to help.
‘Can you tell us what’s the matter, Diana?’ asked Philip, at which his daughter-in-law collapsed in tears. Refusing all
offers of comfort, she continued to sob.
‘Well, Charles,’ said the Queen rather desperately, turning to her son. ‘Can you explain to us?’
‘What?’ replied the prince. "Read it all in the newspapers tomorrow? No thank you.’
That was the end of the first and last royal family therapy session.
In December 1992, the then Prime Minister John Major announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales had decided
to separate. It was the Queen’s fervent hope that this legal separation would stop the couple feuding — but the rivalry
between them ran too deep. In a TV documentary made the following year by Jonathan Dimbleby, the prince
confessed to his own adultery — with the sting coming for his mother in the biography that Dimbleby published with
Charles’s approval, painstakingly listing his grievances against his parents and actually stigmatising the Queen as a
bad mother.The Queen said nothing to her son directly, but Anne, Andrew and Edward were furious at their brother’s
disloyalty and said so to his face.
Diana’s own riposte to Charles came on November 20, 1995, when over 23 million British viewers watched the
princess nervously but deftly answer the questions of Martin Bashir, a young reporter on Panorama.
‘There were three of us in this marriage,’ was her edgy skewering of the Camilla situation.
The Queen was not impressed as she had taken Diana’s side from the earliest days, and particularly in the division of
roles after the separation, when she’d resisted Charles’s efforts to cut down his wife’s access to royal perks such as
the Queen’s Flight and the royal train but now Diana had strayed into dangerous constitutional territory. Diana not
only questioned Charles’s fitness to be king, but also mounted a kind of challenge to the Queen herself by saying: ‘I’d
like to be a queen of people’s hearts.’
The Queen of the United Kingdom acted at last. The previous December had seen the second anniversary of the
couple’s legal separation, the point at which British law permitted a simple no-fault divorce by mutual consent. On
December 20, 1995, a uniformed courier from Windsor Castle delivered a personal letter from the Queen to her
daughter-in-law.
‘Dearest Diana,’ it began, according to Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler and ‘rock’ in her days of separation, to whom she
showed the letter.
The Queen explained that she had been discussing the ‘sad and complicated situation’ with the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Prime Minister, who were both in agreement, and she was now expressing her own personal wish
that Charles and Diana should formally and finally divorce ‘in the best interests of the country and ended the note with
an affectionate scribble, ‘Love from Mama’, but her message brooked no argument.
The dream marriage formally came to an end the following August 28th 1996. Charles, Diana and the monarchy could
all now make a fresh start. but just one year and three days later, the British ambassador in Paris rang Balmoral
around 1am, rousing the duty private secretary, Robert Janvrin, from his sleep. The embassy was receiving police
reports, he said, of a serious car crash that involved Diana, Princess of Wales.
The news of Diana’s death came through from Paris just before 4am, and the Queen’s first reaction was to think of
her grandsons.
‘We must get the radios out of their rooms,’ the Queen said to Charles.
Mother and son discussed whether to wake William and Harry — their grandmother felt strongly that they should have
a decent night’s rest before they had to face what would be the most difficult day of their lives. ‘Looking after the boys’
became her top priority in the difficult days that lay ahead.
‘We must get them out and away from the television,’ she said as she clicked across the mournful images of the dead
princess being played non-stop on every television channel.
‘Let’s get them both up in the hills.’
The Queen assigned Peter Phillips, Princess Anne’s rugby-playing son, the task of taking William and Harry out on
the moors on stalking and fishing expeditions, with lots of mucking around on the brothers’ noisy scrambler
motorbikes. At 15 yrs old William seemed to take it bravely, on the outside at least. Not quite 13 yrs old Harry had
been more obviously upset. ‘Was everyone quite sure that Mummy was dead?’ he was heard to enquire. "Could it just
be checked to make sure there had not been some mistake?"
The Queen had no doubt that the calming and secluded Highlands were the best place in the world to help the boys
with the therapy that always lifted her in times of trouble — lots of fresh air and exercise but down in London there
was mutiny in the air.
‘Where is the Queen when the country needs her?’ demanded an open letter on the front page of The Sun
newspaper.
Compounding the Queen’s absence was the lack of any flag flying at half-mast above Buckingham Palace as a sign of
royal mourning. Tradition was one of the keystones of the royal mystery. If Prince Charles had died in a car crash the
previous Sunday, the Queen would not now be flying the Union Jack at half mast over Buckingham Palace. The
Queen had not done it for her beloved father and would not expect it for herself or for her mother.
So why should tradition be overturned for a young woman who, just like her Uncle David, Edward VIII, in the abdication
crisis, had put her own wayward concerns before those of the family? Her Private Secretary Sir Robert Fellowes tried
making the argument, but got the answer he expected. Both the Queen and her husband had a deep mistrust of
making concessions to the popular concerns of the moment, particularly when voiced by the tabloid media.
Unhappiness over the flag was something that the sacred and enduring monarchy should rise above in a world of
trendy gestures. The flagpole must stay bare.
‘There were times in that week,’ said a No 10 insider, ‘When you could not believe what was coming down the line
from Balmoral. You wondered if they were living in the same century?.’
By the Wednesday following Diana’s death, there were people in Buckingham Palace who were feeling the same.
‘When the Queen was at Buckingham Palace or Windsor,’ said a former adviser, trying to explain the Queen’s
obstinacy over the flag, ‘she was psychologically much more prepared to get involved with something unexpected.
'The Queen's time relaxing in Scotland was so precious to her . . . she was not thrilled when Prime Ministers or Privy
Councils or something interrupted “Her Balmoral Time”.’
The Queen had been encouraging this sense of detachment for the sake of her grandsons but what worked for
William and Harry was disastrous when it came to her own willingness to take on board the messages coming from
London — most of them conveyed via the courtly Robin Janvrin, a former naval officer and diplomat.
‘Robin had a tough job up there,’ remembers one of the team of courtiers based in London at the time.
‘We were all coming off the street as it were, with our feeling of what was happening out on the ground. Then he had
to walk down the corridor, a delegation of one, and convince the family — the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles —
all gathered in the sitting room, that there was a crisis and they couldn’t just look at it in the traditional family way.’
When Janvrin was rebuffed, Robert Fellowes would pick up the phone in the palace and go into action. ‘I love Robert
— he’s incredibly brave,’ says one of his former colleagues.
‘If he believes in something, he’ll go right over the top fighting for it, whatever the cost.’
The cost proved painful for Fellowes himself and for several other senior courtiers in a series of deeply wounding
confrontations with the Queen and with Prince Philip. By the end of the third day after Diana’s death the Queen’s
advisers were unanimous. There must be some compromise over the flag, as well as some drastic change in the
timetable decision that had been taken by the Queen and her husband at the start of the week: that they would not
show their faces in London until the morning of the funeral, coming down overnight on the royal train, then heading
straight back to Scotland afterwards.
Such a fleeting visit to the capital would only increase the accusations of indifference and heartlessness that were
now being hurled openly at the Royal Family. The first reaction of the Queen and her husband to these suggestions
was that they would not budge. They both got angry with their advisers, and in an ugly fashion. When the memory of
those desperate hours and what was said at Balmoral comes up today, all those involved go silent and refuse to
describe what transpired. They had seen a side of Queen Elizabeth II that they would evidently prefer to forget.
‘A lot of people,’ recalls one of them, ‘were heavily scarred by it.’
The next morning — Thursday September 4, the fourth day after Diana’s death — Her Majesty showed another side.
The Queen, as one of her private secretaries says, ‘has ruthless common sense and the ability to move on’.
So that day up in Balmoral she bent to a principle that was even more timeless than her respect for tradition — her
need to stay in business. Was it the morning headlines, or a change of heart in the night? Either way the Queen
accepted that her stiff upper lip would now have to soften — and the details of what was to be done were set in place
at once.
The Balmoral pastor was told to arrange a service that very evening at which the name of Diana would not be
mentioned. Afterwards, the Royal Family would get out of their cars to inspect the flowers that had been laid at the
castle gates, and the next day the entire family — the boys included — would fly down early to London so they could
talk to people outside the London palaces.
In addition, the BBC was told to set up its cameras inside Buckingham Palace: Her Majesty would be making an eve-of-
funeral broadcast to the nation. The turn-around was incredible: in just 45 minutes, the Queen had backtracked,
adapted and totally reinvented her role in Diana’s ending, moving herself from the margin to the very centre of the
drama.
‘I, for one,’ she said in her live broadcast, ‘believe that there are lessons to be drawn from (Diana’s) life and from the
extraordinary and moving reaction to her death.’
The Queen proved as good as her word. After the broadcast,’ says one of her advisers, ‘we found it easier to
convince her about doing things. She listened to us more, and was just a little more prepared to take risks.’The
Queen embraced a more people friendly approach
In one school visited by her, the Queen took questions from the class, cheerfully admitting she had no idea how
many rooms there were in Buckingham Palace but she warned her staff against taking informality too far. ‘No stunts,’
she would say. ‘I am not a politician.’The Queen was positively annoyed when the Press interpreted her ‘new
informality’ as the ‘Diana effect’.
‘Don’t they realise I’ve done it before?’ she said. ‘I’ve done everything before.’
