The royals - Kitty Kelley [152]
The more elusive Charles was, the more upset Diana became. She accused him of sneaking away to visit Camilla, and he became so exasperated by her jealousy that he stalked out, which only infuriated her more. Angry over his absences, curious about his whereabouts, and frustrated by the prying lenses of photographers, Diana complained bitterly to the Queen, who was unnerved by her daughter-in-law’s hysterics. Blaming the press, the Queen summoned Fleet Street editors to tell them to leave the Princess alone. The royal press secretary, Michael Shea, met with them first.
“We expected that, following the honeymoon, press attention would wane somewhat,” he told them. “But it has in no way abated. The Princess of Wales feels totally beleaguered. The people who love her and care for her are getting anxious at the reaction it is having.”
The Queen entered the room to underscore the message. She said it was unfair of photographers to hide in the bushes with telephoto lenses to track the Princess without her knowledge. The Queen cited the picture published the day before of Diana with her arms around her husband’s neck, smiling affectionately at him as they stood outside Highgrove, their house in Gloucestershire. Royally chided, the editors agreed to back off. In an editorial headlined “The Captive Princess,” the Times declared, “It would be nice to think we are grown up enough not to imprison a princess in a palace.” The truce lasted six weeks. Then Diana threatened to kill herself.
Shortly after the Christmas holidays at Sandringham, she warned Charles that if he left her alone again to go riding, she would commit suicide. As he stormed out, she threw herself down a short flight of stairs. The eighty-one-year-old Queen Mother heard the commotion and found the Princess in a heap, sobbing. Diana was led to her room by a footman, and her doctor was summoned. After his examination, he said she was fine, except for slight bruising around her abdomen; the fetus was unhurt. Hours later the footman sold the information about the Princess’s fall to the Sun, proving that nothing weighs as heavy as a royal secret worth money. The tabloid ran the story on the next day’s front page but did not say it was an apparent suicide attempt.
“The Princess just hated going to Sandringham for Christmas,” said her hairdresser Richard Dalton. “She told me it was freezing cold and dinner had to be over by three o’clock: ‘It’s three and time to watch me on TV,’ she’d say, imitating you-know-who. The royal family had to watch the Queen’s Christmas message on television. Diana said it was a command performance.”
The Queen Mother talked to her nephew John Bowes-Lyon about Diana’s behavior, which seemed to be exacerbated by a physical malady. “She had fits which would last just a few minutes, during which she would go crazy and become uncontrollable,” said Bowes-Lyon.* “And then it was all over as quickly as it began.”
“At first, doctors thought her outbursts might have been epilepsy, but that was discounted because she didn’t swallow her tongue or have other epileptic symptoms. Apparently what she suffers from can be hereditary, and there have been other instances in the Fermoy family, so the royal family have been told.”
Over the next three years Diana would try several more times to take her life. Each was a desperate attempt at self-mutilation. “I tried four or five times,” she told Dr. Maurice Lipsedge, a specialist in eating disorders at Guy’s Hospital in London. She told him of the various attempts: she slashed her arms with a lemon slicer; she cut her wrist; she ran a knife down the veins of one leg; and