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.

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”