The royals - Kitty Kelley [181]
A Norwegian manufacturer capitalized on the discord and made the Prince and Princess of Wales role models for people too busy to cook. Billboards in Oslo featured the mournful faces of Charles and Diana looking at single-serving cans of pasta and beef stew marked Middag for en— Dinner for one. Yet Britain’s establishment press did not take the rift rumors seriously. They dismissed the tabloid stories as “downmarket tittle-tattle” and called on establishment figures like Harold Brooks-Baker of Debrett’s Peerage to dispel the rumors.
The reverent monarchist complied eagerly. “Outrageous, simply outrageous,” said Brooks-Baker. “These rumors of marital discord tarnish the royal family’s image and diminish the monarchy. They must stop. There will never be a separation between the Prince and Princess of Wales, and there certainly will never be a divorce.”
His denial did not dent the tabloids’ credibility among royal servants. “Too much of the information was accurate and true,” said one of Princess Margaret’s butlers with dismay. “We knew that it had to be coming from someone on the inside. One of us. The royal family knew it, too. But there’s nothing they can do about servants who sell their stories, unless, of course, they catch them outright. Then we can be fired, fined, even imprisoned.
“The only people who knew that the Prince and Princess of Wales were no longer sharing the same bed were their personal maids. You don’t think Her Majesty knew that. Or even wanted to know it. Princess Margaret used to say that she had to read the papers simply to find out what was happening in her own family. The floor-shaking fights between them [Charles and Diana] were known to their staffs, and the word traveled fast through the royal houses.”
The butler offered an explanation for the disparity between the upmarket press, which proclaimed the marriage as solid, and the tabloids, which depicted the marriage as shaky. He said a footman at Highgrove had seen the Princess throw a teapot at the Prince and rush from the room in tears. Hours later the royal couple had composed themselves and appeared together in public at a benefit. Their smiling photographs in the Daily Telegraph made the teapot story in the Mirror look fabricated. “Actually, both stories were accurate,” said the butler, “but the tabs ran the juicier bits.”
Diana resented the press speculation about her marriage but did not know what to do. “Just because I go out without my husband,” she protested, “doesn’t mean my marriage is on the rocks.” She had taken on more public engagements—299 in 1985, 70 percent more than her 177 in 1984—and more than half of those in Britain were without her husband. Heartened by her increasing commitment to performing royal duties, Prince Philip told her to ignore the rumors, and she tried.
“When we first got married,” she said, “we were everybody’s idea of the world’s most perfect couple. Now they say we are leading separate lives. The next thing is I’ll start reading that I’ve got a black Catholic lover.”
The unrelenting pressure of having to appear in public and be gracious to a press corps that acted like a firing squad wore her down. During a visit to a children’s nursery school, she was asked by the supervisor whether she wanted to accommodate the photographers clamoring outside.
“I don’t see why I should do anything for them,” she replied. “They never do anything for me.”
The next day the Sun fired back with an editorial: “Princess Diana asks: ‘What have the newspapers ever done for me?’ The Sun can answer Her Loveliness in one word—everything! The newspapers have made her one of the most famous women in the world. They have given her an aura of glamour and romance. Without them, the entire Windsor family would soon become as dull as the rulers of Denmark and Sweden.”
The burden of