American Princess

by Leslie Carroll

  There were occasions when the Waleses were a normalish family of four. In happier times, on days when the couple had no formal engagements, sometimes Diana would pick up the boys at school and then stop at the local Sainsbury’s grocery store for candy or at the video store, where Harry would select—what else?—action flicks. The princess would spend the rest of the afternoon catching some rays in the garden at KP—as Kensington Palace is colloquially known—while the princes romped on the playground equipment and Charles played grill master, barbecuing foil-wrapped potatoes and salmon for dinner.

  Other days, after school Diana would take Harry and William shopping along Kensington High Street, part of her campaign to provide them with a more assimilated upbringing. With the Princess of Wales disguised in a dark wig and sunglasses, to the immense amusement of her sons, Harry browsed for his favorite action hero comic books among the shelves of WHSmith. They indulged in fast food from McDonald’s. Diana took them sightseeing to the sort of tourist attractions that would excite little boys, including the zoo and the dungeon. They rode the Tube, went go-karting, and patronized local cinemas. Diana gave the princes pocket change for their purchases so they could learn the value of money. Charles never gave them money and never understood why they needed it. Royals traditionally didn’t carry money; if Harry and William wanted something, they could just ask their protection officers to buy it for them. The princes also queued up like civilian children to sit on Father Christmas’s ample lap at Selfridges department store.

  But while the “normal” kids in the queue might have begged Santa Claus for a train set, Harry’s was a gift from the London Underground itself.

  The Waleses’ divergent views on child rearing were just one example of the increasing emotional distance between them, but they often lived separate lives as well. In May 1988, when Harry was only three and a half years old, he was rushed to Great Ormond Street Hospital, where an emergency hernia operation was performed. Charles was en route to Italy at the time, headed for a painting holiday; Camilla was allegedly accompanying him. When Charles reached Paris and was informed of Harry’s medical emergency, he offered to fly right home. He checked in on Harry’s condition every half hour by phone and was assured by Diana that it wasn’t necessary. Harry was swiftly out of danger and there was no need for him to return to London. The princess spent the night sleeping in a chair by Harry’s hospital bed. The story the press ran with was that of a golden-haired Madonna mother and an indifferent absentee father.

  IN SEPTEMBER 1989, when Harry turned five, he once again followed in William’s footsteps and entered Wetherby Preparatory School in Notting Hill, not far from where he had attended Mrs. Mynors’.

  Despite their attending school with nonroyal children, the princes knew they were different. At the age of six, Harry lorded it over eight-year-old William, saying, “You’ll be king, I won’t, so I can do what I want!”

  It was at Wetherby where Harry first made good on this royal proclamation. He was a bratty prankster, literally pulling the trouser leg of music master Robert Pritchard. Harry’s protection officer Ken Wharfe tried to discipline his pint-size charge. “Shut up, Harry.”

  Finally, when the instructor could stand the prince’s pestering no longer, he said, “What is it, Harry?”

  The imp indicated the teacher’s open fly and replied, “I can see your willy, Mr. Pritchard!”

  Diana was hysterical with laughter when she learned about the incident. Two days later, when she was back at Wetherby, she approached the hapless music teacher and said, “Mr. Pritchard, I hear my son saw your willy the other day.”

  No wonder Diana once said, “Harry’s like me. He’s the naughty one.”

  WITH DIANA PLAYING “good cop” and Charles frequently on official duties, the nanny was often charged with disciplining Harry. By 1990, both spouses were leaking stories to the press. Staff were expected to choose sides.

  Nanny Jessie Webb was a no-nonsense Cockney who assessed the situation quickly. “Those boys are going to need a lot of help if they’re not going to end up as barking mad as their dad and mum.” According to Harry’s biographer Marcia Moody, Webb’s first royal job “didn’t get off to a good start.” As Moody puts it, according to Harry’s protection officer Ken Wharfe, “Jessie was an interesting character . . . a good nanny, but more of a fun person.” The princes “used to play Jessie up because she wasn’t really their type.” Because Harry could indeed be a handful at times, Nanny Webb would, confided Wharfe, “come and knock on my door and say, ‘Ken, can you have a word with them, they’re being very naughty.’ ” And then the protection officer would be the one to give Harry a talking-to, reminding the prince that he had to listen to Jessie.

  “I don’t like her,” Harry protested.

  “Well, you’d better get to like her. I gather you’ve been rude to her. What did you say?”

  “I told her she should lose weight.”

  “Well, that’s not very nice, Harry, is it?”

  Ultimately Diana managed to coax an apology from her son—always a teachable moment in kindness, empathy, and compassion.

  It was hard for anyone to remain cross with Harry for long. He was a lovable, huggable little boy. Wharfe described him as “a friendly Labrador dog who liked everybody.” And he was always up for treats. “If someone took him off and gave him some food, he would go.”

  BECAUSE WILLIAM OFTEN received special attention given his status as firstborn, Diana was keenly aware that Harry often felt left out. Harry had displayed an early interest in firearms and all things military, so Diana used her influence to secure visits to such facilities as the Metropolitan Police Firearms Training Centre in Lippitts Hill; and when Harry was about seven or eight years old, a boyhood dream came true: he was permitted to shoot a gun. He discovered he was good at it. Harry had found his calling—one he never grew out of.

  Harry’s interest in the army from an early age is also credited in part to James Hewitt, the princes’ equestrian instructor (and considerably more to their mother). Hewitt was an officer in the Life Guards, the senior regiment of the British army and part of the Household Cavalry, the security unit that protects the royal family. Hewitt enthralled Harry and William with his war stories and had miniature camouflage uniforms made for them. Hewitt also used his army contacts to show Harry and William the high-tech military equipment at the army camps in Wiltshire. Diana made sure that her sons were appropriately appreciative and wrote thank-you notes to Hewitt after each visit to a training camp.

  Just days after his eighth birthday in September 1992, after a shaky start, Harry found his footing at the exclusive Ludgrove School, set on 130 acres of rolling Berkshire countryside. Ludgrove was home to two hundred boys from ages eight to thirteen, one of whom was his older brother. Harry may have looked angelic in his school uniform of corduroy pants and tweed jacket, but his behavior was positively devilish. At Ludgrove, Harry became both a daredevil and the class clown, demonstrating a rebellious streak that—for better or worse (and sometimes both)—made him the “bad boy” of the present-day Windsors, a reputation of his own making that has followed him all his life.

  As their parents’ marriage continued to deteriorate, William, now older and more aware of their perpetual tensions, became quieter and more sensitive, while Harry got into all manner of mischief. He dared a quartet of boys to moon the paparazzi who lay in wait for him behind a hedge on the school’s footpath, and aimed pillows at his dorm mates with such accuracy that they would fall out of bed. Harry also sparked a schoolwide alert when he lost his GPS security tag. He was supposed to wear it at all times so that his Scotland Yard protection officers knew where he was. Panic ensued when it went missing. The tag was eventually located in Harry’s laundry bag.

  Yet everyone at Ludgrove seemed to have the ginger prince’s back. William had helped Harry settle in, and the house matron permitted him to watch Star Trek, with a cup of hot cocoa. Not one to abuse his privilege, Harry soon convinced the matron
to permit the other boys in his dorm to join him in front of the telly.

  The headmaster, Gerald Barber, and his wife also took care to ensure that Ludgrove was a safe haven for Harry and William, banning newspapers from the school in order to shield the princes from the daily deluge of headlines detailing their parents’ ongoing feud. The media were not permitted on the school’s verdant manicured grounds. Photographers had no access to the property, except for a footpath that ran between the ball fields and the school.

  Unfortunately, when Harry and William went home to Kensington Palace on weekends, they saw what was being written about their mum and dad because Diana did read the tabloids. The emotional health of two little boys was of no concern to the demon barons of Fleet Street, who were only interested in selling papers.

  Harry had been at Ludgrove for three months when their mother made the hour-long drive to the school to inform both him and William that she and their papa were separating: they just couldn’t live together anymore. As they sat in the headmaster’s living room, Diana was quick to reassure the boys that nothing in their lives would change. They would still reside in Kensington Palace. Weekends would still be spent at Highgrove. Harry burst into tears.

  Yet Harry’s biographer Marcia Moody provides another account of this incident. She states that Ken Wharfe had asked Diana how her talk with the princes went and she told him that the boys had been generally unperturbed by the news; and that afterward, they had requested permission to go out and play.

  If this account is the accurate one, perhaps they were in shock and needed time to process such immense news, even though their mum had just told them that life would go on as before. Perhaps Harry and William had been well enough insulated from the worst by the Barbers. Perhaps they were too young to take it all in. Perhaps Harry was more focused on his struggles with Ludgrove’s academics—his bugaboo all throughout his training of any kind. He always excelled at sports and extracurriculars, and his leadership skills were commendable. But according to Harry’s biographer Duncan Larcombe, he suffers from mild dyslexia—which would put him in the good company of other famous dyslexics like Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, and Harry’s friend Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson.

  On November 24, 1992, the Queen gave a speech at London’s Guildhall, to mark the fortieth anniversary of her accession, in which she referred to 1992 as an annus horribilis—a horrible year. It certainly had been a nightmare for the royal family.

  In January, Harry’s uncle and aunt, Andrew and “Fergie”—the Duke and Duchess of York—split, following photos of Sarah cavorting on the French Riviera with Texas oil baron Steve Wyatt. But those images weren’t nearly as shocking as the tabloid snaps of Fergie sunbathing topless while her “financial advisor” John Bryan sucked on her toes.

  That spring, Diana: Her True Story was published. Diana had secretly collaborated on the book with Dr. James Coldhurst and journalist Andrew Morton. This confessional, warts-and-all version of her life as Princess of Wales shattered the fairy-tale story line that had been scripted for her, and named Camilla as the reason for the breakup of her marriage.

  In August, Harry, William, and the rest of the world learned that Diana had been unfaithful to Charles in the scandal that was to become known as Squidgygate. The news broke of an illegally taped phone call between the Princess of Wales and her lover James Gilbey, a Lotus car dealer and the heir to the gin fortune of the same name. During the lengthy telephone conversation Gilbey called Diana darling, as well as Squidge and Squidgy, several times. From the substance of the conversation, it was obvious that they were more than just good friends. Perhaps even more damning, Diana was heard on the tape venting about specific members of the royal family, particularly Charles, who she complained to Gilbey “makes my life real torture.”

  In November, Charles and Diana made their final official visit together as a couple. It was clear they couldn’t stand each other, and that became the news story. Diana had to break it to their sons.

  Later that month, on November 20, the Queen’s forty-fifth wedding anniversary, fire engulfed her beloved Windsor Castle, destroying the roof and a major part of the State Apartments. The monarch was met with a massive public backlash when she initially sought taxpayer reimbursement for the restoration, because Windsor Castle is a private royal residence and was not open to the public as a sightseeing destination at the time. The £36.5 million price tag for the restoration was eventually resolved by the royal family’s concession to charge the public an entry fee for castle precincts and to open Buckingham Palace to the public, with an £8 admission price for the next five years. The Queen not only contributed £2 million of her own money but also agreed to start paying income tax beginning in 1993, the first British monarch to do so since the 1930s.

  CHARLES WAS CONCERNED about the effect the perpetual marital squabbles were having on Harry and William. “I want them to remember that I was not the one doing all the shouting and screaming,” he confided to a former girlfriend, Janet Jenkins. One does not have to remain emotionless and aloof to be blameless, obviously; and Diana had good reason to lose her temper, if not her mind. Charles had a warm pair of arms waiting for him elsewhere.

  Incensed over Diana’s “incessant game playing” (pot, meet kettle), Charles was the one who demanded a legal separation.

  On December 9, 1992, from the floor of the House of Commons, Prime Minister John Major announced the formal separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales. His remarks had been written by Her Majesty’s senior staff. Major announced that the decision had “been reached amicably and [Charles and Diana] will both continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children” (which they did, in separate establishments). Major’s statement continued: “They believe that a degree of privacy and understanding is essential if Their Royal Highnesses are to provide a happy and secure upbringing for their children.”

  The hacked, compromising Squidgygate telephone conversation had actually taken place in December 1989, even though the transcripts were not sold to the press until 1992. Diana’s popularity plummeted after the revelation.

  But if Squidgygate was an embarrassment to the royal family, especially to Diana’s sons, what must they have thought when in January 1993, Camillagate once and for all revealed their father’s adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles?

  Like the call between Diana and James Gilbey, the nocturnal conversation between Charles and Camilla also took place in December 1989. It may have been a composite of more than one phone call. However, when the tapes were played and the full transcript published, it wasn’t so much Charles’s desire to get into Camilla’s knickers that set tongues wagging; but the manner in which he wished to do it—as one of her tampons. This was just too much for everyone, especially the Queen.

  The Christmas holiday of 1992 was the first that Harry had not shared with his mother. The royal family traditionally spends Christmas at Sandringham, and it was imperative that the princes enjoy the holiday there with their father. After the warring Waleses formally separated, Diana was no longer welcome there. The princess missed her boys, but not the de rigueur Boxing Day bird shoot. “They’re always shooting things,” she remarked in disgust, having never been a fan of the outdoorsy pastimes that the Windsors take so seriously.

  From then on, for the next few years, Harry and William enjoyed the best of both worlds with their parents, who would endeavor to outdo each other to take them on ever more glamorous vacations. Diana took the princes on summer holidays to the Caribbean and Disneyland. With their papa they skied at Klosters and spent quality time at Balmoral with their grandparents.

  During those frosty winter months of 1993, the Waleses’ personal possessions were legally divided. Charles moved out of Kensington Palace and into York House, which had been constructed on the remains of a hospital for female lepers, and which was the official residence of the monarch before Buckingham Palace was built. He had Highgrove professionally redecorated, transforming
the rooms into a neo-Edwardian man cave, erasing all traces of Diana. There wasn’t even a photograph of her with their boys. Diana, who had begun to consult astrologers, psychic healers, and New Age gurus, had the KP apartments “smudged” to smoke out the bad juju. Her renovation consisted of an influx of modern art into a decor of pastels, white lace, and candles. She did retain a few photos of Charles; after all, he was the father of their children. About the only things she and Charles had in common now were Harry, William, and a penchant for organic food.

  But there was much more to Diana than woo-woo and gurus. The princess was passionate about helping the poorest and most disadvantaged people and directly involved her sons, engaging them in ways they would never forget. She traveled with the Red Cross to Zimbabwe in order to focus awareness on the plight of refugees. She visited a leprosy hospital in Kathmandu. Another of her charities was Centrepoint, which provides support and shelter to London’s at-risk youth. Diana frequently visited Centrepoint with William and Harry, where they played cards and chatted with the residents.

  Charles hired a new nanny for the boys, the stunning, sporty, Alexandra “Tiggy” Legge-Bourke. Although Tiggy hailed from an aristocratic family, she was also a boisterous tomboy who was a crack shot, could gut a stag, and skin a rabbit. Tiggy, a close friend of Charles’s, had previously run a London nursery school called Miss Tiggywinkle’s; and her mother had been a lady-in-waiting to Charles’s sister, the Princess Royal.

  To their mother’s dismay, both Harry and William immediately took to Tiggy, who seemed more like another indulgent playmate than a stern governess. In Diana’s sorrow over the marital separation, she feared she was losing her boys’ affection to this interloper, and also (incorrectly) suspected that Tiggy had supplanted her in Charles’s bed. Diana didn’t take kindly to Tiggy’s referring to the princes as “my babies,” or that Tiggy smoked in front of them (both boys would take up smoking in their teens). But Tiggy was no pushover and defended herself. “I give them what they need at this age—fresh air, a rifle, and a horse. She gives them a tennis racquet and a bucket of popcorn at the movies.”