The royals - Kitty Kelley [153]
“When no one listens to you, or you feel no one’s listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen,” she said. “These attempts were my cries for help.”
When the Queen saw the first signs of dissension between the couple, she proposed Charles and Diana take a trip. “In that type of situation, Her Majesty always recommends escape,” said one of her friends. “Her solution is to get away together, sort things out, and everything will be fine. It’s always worked for her. Why shouldn’t it work for them?”
A few days later the Prince and Princess left for the island of Windemere in the Bahamas. “What Diana needs is a holiday in the sunshine,” said Charles, “to prepare for the birth.” Again the couple were followed by the long lenses of freelance photographers, who captured the Princess, five months pregnant, skipping through the surf in an orange bikini. Once again Diana was on the front pages of the tabloids, and the Queen was incensed. “This is one of the blackest days in British journalism,” she said through her press secretary. The Sun later printed an apology and published the photographs a second time, just in case its five million readers wondered why the publication was saying it was sorry.
Her Majesty had been burned again by the Sun and the man who had come to dominate Britain’s media through buying the Sun, the Sunday Times, the Times of London, and Sky TV. Rupert Murdoch was now teaching the Queen that her stingy wages were no match for his checkbook journalism. Every tidbit of royal gossip from inside the Palace was for sale, and he spent freely for sensational revelations. An Australian, unrestrained by deference to the Crown, Murdoch was no monarchist. So his irreverent publications zoomed in on the royal family and printed unprettified stories and candid photos. Without the protective blanket of reverence, the royals flapped and squawked like geese in a gunsight. The Queen lectured editors, demanded (and obtained) injunctions, and, finally, went to court to stop her servants from selling secrets. She called for press sanctions and sued for damages.
“Her Majesty became annoyed after a photo appeared of her six-year-old grandson, Peter, twirling a dead pheasant by the neck during a bird shoot,” recalled a member of the royal household. “She ordered reporters and photographers off the estate at Sandringham and barred them from Windsor. She tried to keep them away from all family events, including the royal christenings.”
Charles and Diana’s first child, the heir to the British throne, was born on June 21, 1982, and the Hussars of the Royal Horse Artillery fired the traditional forty-one gun salute in honor of the new Prince. The blond, blue-eyed boy was called “Baby Wales” for seven days until his parents stopped fighting over his name. “We’re having a little argument about what to call him,” Charles admitted to reporters. The couple eventually settled on William Arthur Philip Louis in honor of William the Conqueror, the legendary King Arthur, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Louis, Lord Mountbatten. Prince William (“Wills” to his parents) was to be christened on the Queen Mother’s eighty-second birthday.
“It had been quite a difficult pregnancy—I hadn’t been very well throughout it,” Diana recalled in a television interview. “But I felt the whole country was in labor with me… so by the time William arrived, it was a great relief.”
Britons rejoiced, except for William’s crotchety aunt, Princess Anne, who was on a goodwill tour in the United States when Diana gave birth and resented the press queries.
“Your Royal Highness, any word about Princess Diana?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “You tell me.”
“Your reaction to her having a son?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know she had one.”
“This morning.”
“Oh, good,” she said sarcastically. “Isn’t that nice?”
“How are you enjoying your visit to New Mexico?”
“Keep your questions to yourself.”
“Ma’am, how does it feel to be an aunt?”
“That’s my business, thank you.”
The sourpuss Princess skidded to the bottom of the royal popularity