The royals - Kitty Kelley [129]
As Prince of Wales, Charles was accustomed to adulation. He expected it and received it in full measure, especially from the wives of two of his friends. These married women gave freely and expected nothing in return, unlike single women, who required the time and attention of courtship. For Charles’s married lovers, sharing his bed was like owning a wine château or a Gulfstream jet: it added to their prestige. They enjoyed being whispered about as his “confidantes,” and their husbands felt honored to share their wives with the future King. The arrangement enhanced their stature within the aristocracy.
“Poor Charles even feels more comfortable with bossy old women like me than he does with young single women his own age,” said the sixty-five-year-old Viscountess he invited to Windsor for lunch a few days later. “I’m one of the old aristos who grew up with Her Majesty and Princess Margaret at a time in this tiny country when we all knew one another and understood our place. I’m part of a world no longer visible: the bloated upper classes where the echo of deference still lingers and allows for amiability toward our royal family, which is unfortunately German, and part of the vaulting arrogance of the middle class. We recognize them [the royal family] for what they are—they are undereducated and ill-informed Germans, and they need our help. We feel protective toward them, particularly the heir apparent, which is the reason Charles seeks me out.
“He was never more endearing than on that day after his thirtieth birthday,” she said. “I arrived for lunch, and he said, ‘Oh, God, I hope you are not very hungry. When Mummy’s not here, nothing much happens. So my valet is making us a little omelet.’ He eyed my dog. ‘Thank God Mummy isn’t here. Her corgis would’ve made a sandwich out of your Labrador. They’re perfectly dreadful.’
“Charles is very sweet, but not too bright. He has a slender understanding of the world. Humbly nice and well mannered, but there’s a dimension missing. He said he’d become so set in his bachelor ways and habits that he didn’t think he’d ever find a wife who’d fit in and want to share his life. ‘Sad, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘What woman would ever put up with all this? With me?’
“After lunch he showed me his horse, Mantilla, and then I left, feeling more protective than ever toward the future King of England, who seemed to have everything but actually had nothing. At least, nothing that mattered much.”
TWELVE
Charles was in Iceland to fish when he received a call on August 27, 1979, from the British Ambassador. “Your Royal Highness,” said the Ambassador, “I’m afraid I have some tragic news…. Lord Louis has been… Sir, I’m so sorry…. Earl Mountbatten of Burma is dead.”
Charles was too stunned to cry. Stammering in disbelief, he asked for details, but the Ambassador said he knew only what he had heard on the BBC news flash. So Charles called his mother at Windsor Castle. She told him that “Uncle Dickie,” on holiday in Ireland, had been blown up by an IRA bomb.
Mountbatten, seventy-nine, had been aboard his boat with his daughter, Patricia; her husband, John Brabourne; their fourteen-year-old twin sons, Nicholas and Timothy; and Lord Brabourne’s elderly mother. They were going lobstering in Mullaghmore harbor when the bomb was detonated. The explosion instantly killed Mountbatten; his grandson, Nicholas; and an Irish boat boy hired as crew. Lord Brabourne was severely wounded, and his wife almost died. She spent days on a life-support system