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By Root 1250 0

Australia as an exchange student, Charles was open to his mother’s idea for a job there after his wedding. He and Diana would move to Canberra, the capital, and Charles would become governor-general. The position paid an annual salary larger than the premier’s, but it did not carry great powers, other than commander in chief of the armed forces. Under the Australian constitution, it would enable him to summon and dissolve Parliament and carry the kind of responsibility that the Queen felt her son needed. She had discussed the appointment with her Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who approached the Foreign Office in 1980; she reported back that Charles had permission to “informally explore the possibility” during his next Australian tour. But, on that trip, Charles decided if the position were to be offered, he would have to refuse because the Australian Prime Minister was too dour.

“The difficulty is that he does not have any humor,” Charles told Diana in a phone call from Australia that was secretly taped. “He is terribly serious. I made a terrific effort to be amusing, but he just stared at me all the time.”

That was just one of the five phone calls between Charles and his fiancée, and Charles and his mother, that had been recorded. The tapes, made by anti-British republicans within the Australian telephone company, were given to a freelance British reporter, who tried to sell them in England. Afraid of further straining relations with Australia, which had been threatening to break away from the Commonwealth, the Queen’s courtiers moved swiftly. They called the Queen’s lawyers, who claimed the transcripts were not authentic.* The Queen’s courts agreed and issued an injunction to prevent publication of the transcripts in England. The Queen’s lawyers then sought an injunction in West Germany, but they were too late: extracts had appeared in the magazine Die Aktuelle and were translated from German to English and published in the Irish Independent.

In one of the purported conversations, Diana mentioned her wedding preparations and complained about the behavior of her stepmother, Raine, who had appeared on British television. Standing alongside her beaming husband, Countess Spencer did all the talking. The Earl Spencer, who never completely recovered from his stroke, smiled benignly.

“She’s got Daddy autographing photos and selling them in the gift shop,” said Diana. “It’s so embarrassing.” She added that her stepmother was conducting paid tours. Priced at $2.50, the fee included tea with “the ghastly pink lady,” as Diana now referred to Barbara Cartland. “The wedding,” she said, “will be a catastrophe if Raine continues.”

“Don’t worry too much about that,” Charles told her. “Edward [Adeane] can organize it when we come back. You will see the Queen will be in a position to give the necessary instructions so that objections will not be possible.”

“Yes, I know,” said Diana. “But can I not have any say about my own wedding?”

“Naturally, but let your mother advise you.”

“I will, I promise,” said Diana. “I really don’t want to complain, Charles, really not. I’m going to talk through everything tomorrow with Mummy. She has a very good feeling for things like this. She’s very sensible.”

The Spectator had already put out the call for Diana’s mother to take over. Following Raine’s television interview, the conservative magazine pleaded: “Come home, Mrs. Shand Kydd, your country needs you.” In an editorial railing against the participation of Raine Spencer and Barbara Cartland in the royal wedding, Alexander Chancellor wrote: “If a special Act of Parliament is necessary, so be it. For it would be more than a little unfair on everybody if these two absurdly theatrical ladies were permitted to turn a moving national celebration into a pantomime.”

Diana could do nothing about keeping her stepmother away from the wedding, but she was adamant about her stepgrandmother. “She struck Barbara Cartland from the guest list,” said a former aide to Prince Charles, who tried to intercede. Six months later the aide was fired.

“It was