by Kitty Kelley
The Queen showed her displeasure during that meeting by not offering the Prime Minister a seat. Afterward she reported Thatcher’s reaction: “Only two curtsies today.” The exaggerated deference of the Prime Minister, who referred to herself as “we,” amused the royal family. Prince Philip dismissed her as “the greengrocer’s daughter” because she was born in a flat above her family’s grocery in Grantham. The Queen, known for her wicked mimicry, relished telling Margaret Thatcher jokes. Her favorite was about the Prime Minister’s visiting an old age home.
“Do you know who I am?” said the Queen, imitating Thatcher’s grandiose accent as she shook the hand of an elderly resident.
“No,” replied the befuddled resident, “but if you ask Matron, she’ll tell you.”
Once, however, a joke backfired. There is a story, probably true, about a Commonwealth diplomat who went to Buckingham Palace to present his credentials. When the Queen thought he had gone, she began to mimic him, then saw, to her distress, that he was still in the room. “Not bad, ma’am,” he said courteously as he bowed himself out, “not bad.”
The Queen’s press secretary tries to humanize the monarch by emphasizing her sense of humor, which frequently lurks behind a stern facade. He disclosed that the royal family called the Queen “Miss Piggyface” when she looked bored or displeased. She, too, made fun of herself that way. Watching a video of the royal wedding, she called to her husband, “Philip, come here and look. I’ve got my Miss Piggyface on.”
“Sometimes, certainly not always, Her Majesty enjoyed watching her puppet on Spitting Image,” said her press secretary, referring to the satirical television show that used rubberized puppets to make fun of the royal family and other establishment figures. One sketch that amused the Queen featured a rubber caricature of the Prime Minister—heavily rouged cheeks, pointed nose, and hair plastered in place—talking to the Queen’s puppet, dressed in a dowdy sweater set with a babushka tied over her crown.
“At least we don’t strut around in ludicrous little hats,” said the Margaret Thatcher puppet.
“But you’d love to, wouldn’t you,” retorted the Queen’s puppet.
The Queen’s relationship with Margaret Thatcher was always proper and cordial, but never as warm and cozy as the rapport the Queen had enjoyed with Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson. Part of the problem was her preference for men. “She regards female inferiority as the natural order of things,” said British historian David Cannadine. “The other part of the problem was Margaret Thatcher herself,” Prince Charles told his biographer. “She was too formidable.” The Prince described the Prime Minister to the editor of the Sunday Express as “a bit like a school ma’am.” Charles eventually became so disenchanted with Thatcher’s conservative policies that he sent a memo to the Queen, imploring her to do something before the Prime Minister ruined the country. The Queen, who came to agree with her son, could do nothing, but she occasionally shared her displeasure with Commonwealth leaders.
“Her Majesty was not at ease with Margaret Thatcher’s policies,” said Robert Hawke, the former Prime Minister of Australia. “She saw her as dangerous.” During a dinner with Lord Shawcross, the Queen expressed anger toward her Prime Minister because Margaret Thatcher had reneged on granting the Shah of Iran asylum in England. “Once you give your word,” the Queen said, “that’s it.”
Despite her negative feelings, the Queen did not withhold the Order of the Garter from her Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher left office. Limited to twenty-four citizens, the Garter, the highest order of chivalry, is usually bestowed by the monarch on a retired prime minister who has not been defeated in a general election. Thatcher resigned in 1990.
The Queen was just as politically suspect to Margaret Thatcher, who told conservative aides that Her Majesty was not “one of us.” The Iron Lady clashed with the Queen over a Commonwealth statement opposing apartheid. She did not share the monarch’s fervor for the Commonwealth; she cared more about Britain’s stature in Europe. In fact, she dismissed the Commonwealth as a bunch of greedy beggars.
The Queen confided in Anthony Benn, a Labor MP, that she loathed the Common Market and considered its leaders rude, cynical, and disillusioned. In his diary Benn suggested that the Queen’s negative attitude came from seeing there was no role for her in a European union. Benn, a republican, also derided the Queen, saying she was incapable of saying “Good morning” without a courtier’s script.
Yet the Queen, despite her Prime Minister, remained devoted to her dominions. And she did everything possible to shore up the creaky concept of monarchy, especially in Canada and Australia, where republican sentiments ran high. By 1982 she had made twelve royal tours of Canada and nine of Australia. And she maintained the Crown’s presence in both countries by regularly dispatching members of her family to visit. In 1983 she sent the Prince and Princess of Wales to Australia for six weeks, although the Princess at first refused to go. After considerable wrangling, she agreed, but she insisted on taking their nine-month-old baby and his nanny.
“You know how you felt,” Diana told Charles. “You were miserable when your mother left you for months at a time, and you were older than Wills.” She reminded her husband of what he had told her about his lonely childhood. Diana felt that he had been emotionally damaged by his parents, who were too busy for him because they were constantly traveling. “I will not do that to Wills,” she said in front of her staff. She cited books she’d read about the first two years of a child’s life being the time when a sense of self-esteem and security are implanted. “I know he’s just a baby,” she said, “but he still needs our attention.”
Diana believed in tactile mothering or, as she defined it, “lots of hugs and cuddles.” Frequently she startled the nanny, Barbara Barnes, by dashing into the nursery at odd hours when the baby was sleeping. “I just came to kiss him,” Diana said, reaching for Wills and waking him up. An anxious mother, she hovered over his bassinet and worried about his crying. “Are you sure he’s all right?” The nanny, whom Wills called “Baba,” became exasperated with the Princess, who worried about being displaced. A few years later Diana felt that her child was having trouble distinguishing between “Baba” and “Mama,” so she fired the nanny.
When Charles suggested taking the baby on the 1983 tour, the Queen was dubious. But he explained that Diana did not want to be separated from their child for six weeks. The Queen listened patiently and agreed to make the necessary arrangements with the Foreign Office so the couple could travel with their baby. Even so, she was concerned.
Diana’s behavior had been worrying the Queen, especially since Diana’s ski trip to Austria months before. The Prince and Princess had attracted throngs of paparazzi, who crowded the slopes, shops, and restaurants, causing pandemonium. Pushing and shouting to get closer to the royal couple, the press jostled a crush of tourists gathered to gawk. The resort town looked as if it had been invaded by lunatics, all carrying cameras and microphones. Photographers, desperate to get a picture of Diana, crashed through doors and broke shop windows as they chased after her. It took the police to restore order.
Once charming and cooperative with the media, Diana now refused to pose. She resented being followed every time she appeared in public. She hid her face in her coat collar, jammed her hands in her pockets, and lowered her head. She pulled her ski cap over her eyes, wore large goggles, and refused to smile.
On the slopes, Prince Charles begged her to cooperate. “Please, darling, please,” he said. “Give them a smile and we’ll get on with it.” Diana stared at the ground.
“Please don’t hide like that,” he implored, leaning toward her. She stiffened and pulled away, keeping her head down.
“Diana, you’re just being stupid,” he said, irritated. “Please, darling, you’ve got to cooperate.” She would not look up.
“Your Royal Highness,” begged one photographer, “just a little smile. Like the old days.” Diana buried her face in her hands and held her head f
or a full five minutes, further frustrating Charles and the cameraman.
Photographs of the sulking Princess and her forlorn husband appeared in the British press with daily stories about the commotion she was causing: there were reports of one-hundred-mile-an-hour car chases of the Princess trying to dodge photographers and blond decoys she sent out to distract photographers; barricades thrown up and borders closed to the press; reporters roughed up and photographers driven off the road. When the Queen read about a British cameraman bloodied by a royal security guard, she sent a member of her staff to calm the disturbance.
Victor Chapman, a Canadian diplomat with a merry sense of humor, flew to Liechtenstein that afternoon with Francis Cornish of Charles’s staff to deal with the Princess. During their meeting with the royal couple, Cornish began by reciting to Diana her obligations as royalty. He told her sternly that she owed it to Her Majesty to cooperate with the press people. Diana, who could no longer abide the courtiers, ignored Cornish, but she responded to the gentle flirtation of Chapman, who winked during the stern lecture.
“Vic was a lovely man,” recalled one of his friends. “He’d been married twice and had five daughters. He loved women and knew just how to handle Diana. He flattered and cajoled and teased her.”
At the time, the Princess of Wales was a psychological mess. But she looked stunning, having starved off the weight (fifty-three pounds) she had gained during pregnancy. She had shopped every day to keep her mind off her hunger, and the results were remarkable. Diana knew that style was the first priority of a princess, and she was determined to become the best-dressed Princess of Wales in history. She would show substance beneath the surface later; right now all she cared about was creating a lip-smacking first impression. She studied her photographs in the newspapers and read every word of commentary about her clothes. She consulted fashion editors and designers. She let them know that she intended to bring style and glamour to her role and distance herself from the rest of the Windsor women in their white purses, garden party hats, and sturdy platform shoes. With glistening blond hair and a year-round tan, she looked as bewitching as any movie star. “Gorgeous is the only word for her,” sighed Vogue magazine. “Heart-stoppingly gorgeous.”
Certainly few suspected that the Princess was bulimic or that she was suffering from postnatal depression. The Palace assumption was that she was merely acting spoiled and temperamental. She later confided to Chapman that she was bored with performing her royal duties and intended to get pregnant again as soon as she could. “I’d rather eat and have babies* than collect bouquets,” she said.
“I quite agree, ma’am,” he said, “but please let’s not share that information with Francis [Cornish] just yet.” Chapman achieved such a warm rapport with Diana that the Queen sent him on the royal tour of Australia in 1983.
“That’s where he revolutionized Diana,” said a woman also on the trip. “Vic showed her how to be a princess. He coached her: ‘It would be lovely if you did a dance for the cameras with your husband,’ he said before the night of the charity dance at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne. Diana pulled a face, but he encouraged her. ‘Have fun with it. Show them your style.’ He flattered her, said that Diana was the best dancer he’d ever seen.
“ ‘The best?’ she asked.
“Vic laughed. ‘The best—after Dame Margot Fonteyn. And that’s only because she’s got Nureyev.’ Diana said she was stuck with Charles, who had admitted to all of us how much he dreaded having to get up at formal dinners and start the dancing. ‘I assure you,’ he had said, ‘it makes my heart sink to have to make an awful exhibition of ourselves.’
“Vic was playful with Diana. He relaxed her. She mugged at him as her lady-in-waiting fussed with her jewelry that evening. Diana took the necklace and put it over her head rather than wait to have it clasped around her neck. She couldn’t get it over the bridge of her nose. ‘My honker’s too big,’ she said. Vic roared. ‘Leave it there,’ he said. ‘It’s young and fun, like you. Just be your wonderful self. They want nothing more than a beautiful princess. They’ll love you.’ ”
And they did. The photograph of Charles and Diana dancing relieved Britons, who had begun to worry about their less-than-perfect Princess. With Queen Mary’s emeralds wrapped around her head, Disco Di was a triumph.
When the tour was over, Diana gave her lady-in-waiting Anne Beckwith-Smith an expensive pair of earrings. The card read: “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
The problem of the Princess had been solved, but the solution upset the Prince. “We’ve got trouble,” Chapman told his friend Carolyn Townshend when he returned to England. “She’s too popular, and he doesn’t like it a bit.”
The Prince did not understand his wife’s appeal. He expected his intelligence to be prized over her beauty and resented the adulation she stirred in crowds, who wanted to see her and not him. He smarted when people crossed the street to be on her side, not his. Because Diana looked like an angel and carried the aura of a royal princess, she fulfilled people’s dreams in a way that he never could. And he was envious. She tapped into emotions that were deeply rooted in fantasy and nourished by fairy tales as an image of perfection, worthy of adoration. The title of Her Royal Highness, conferred by marriage, elevated her in people’s eyes. Like a saint, she was automatically revered and considered deserving of worship. She packaged herself exquisitely, and her beauty, combined with natural warmth, made her magnetic. Charles, for all his worthy causes, looked dull, whereas Diana dazzled.
“One of the world’s few true generalizations,” wrote Simon Sebag Montefiore in Psychology Today, “is that all nations, including the British and the Americans, fight the boredom of everyday life by admiring and despising the flaws and glamour of their dynasties.”
So, like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Grace of Monaco before her, the Princess of Wales became a decorative focus for the masses. Treated as a natural phenomenon, she became an object of mass hysteria. People lined up for hours to see her pass by. They reached out to touch her and felt blessed if she smiled in their direction. Unlike her earnest husband, she excited people. She possessed the incandescence of a movie star, and he couldn’t stand it.
“Vic had seen the conflict developing in Australia,” recalled Townshend, “so he tried to set things right for Charles. Vic suggested some jocular comments for the Prince to make at the farewell banquet in Auckland à la President Kennedy’s wonderful line about being the man who had accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris and enjoying every minute. But Charles was not John F. Kennedy.”
Whenever the Prince tried to be self-deprecating, he sounded strained and unnatural. Seeing someone wave a bouquet in Diana’s direction, he offered to give it to her. “I’m just a collector of flowers these days,” he said. His delivery suggested a sinner who sees redemption in self-inflicted humor but can’t make the leap of faith. Although distinctly uncomfortable poking fun at himself, he made an effort. “I have come to the conclusion that it really would have been easier to have had two wives,” he said. “Then they could cover both sides of the street and I could walk down the middle, directing operations.”
Because he was the Prince of Wales, everyone laughed. But Chapman knew how hard it was for Charles to step aside and let his wife be the star.
“Vic stayed with us in the country,” said Townshend, “and the calls came in late at night from the Prince of Wales, who was worried about some negative article that had appeared. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it,’ Vic would say. The rest of the people around Charles would shuffle and shamble: ‘Oh, yes, Your Royal Highness, you are absolutely right, sir. Such rubbish. It’s an outrage. Indeed. Yes, sir. Yes sir. Three bags full, sir.’ But not Vic. He shot straight and told Charles exactly like it was.
“Diana bit her fingernails to the quick because she worried about the tabloid stories displeasing the Palace. She once appeared in a new hairstyle that, unfortunately, upstaged the Queen, who was opening Parliament. Princ
ess Margaret was furious and said something to Charles, who gave Diana unshirted hell. Poor thing, she quaked in those days. Her nails were the giveaway: if they were short and chewed, there was trouble.”
The British press reported that for the first three years of her marriage, Diana said only five hundred words in public. She was too intimidated to make a speech or appear without her husband. Her first solo appearance was in France, not England, when she attended the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco. On the strength of their one meeting, Diana had considered the Princess to be a close friend. “We were psychically connected,” she told Grace’s daughter Caroline. Diana, who believed in astrology and numerology, felt that she and the Princess of Monaco were born under the same star and shared mystical characteristics. In fact, both came from dysfunctional families. Both were third children. Both had married royal princes. Both became more famous than their husbands. Both paid a heavy price.
This was confirmed for Diana several years later, when Robert Lacey published a biography entitled Grace, which disclosed her excessive drinking, her fraying marriage, and her extramarital love affairs. Diana said the book substantiated her psychic intuitions. When Grace died in 1982, Diana had to fight to attend her funeral. The Palace did not want her to go, although no one else in the British royal family had volunteered. Diana said the glowing press coverage she received for going to the funeral had reassured her that she had done the right thing.
Charles was more concerned about receiving credit for his own good works. He said he had been the first member of the royal family to give blood, but no one paid attention. “I did this to reassure the country after the AIDS scare caused a drop in blood bank donations, but all the press cared about was Diana’s frock,” he complained to his equerry. “Journalists are creeps—bloody hacks, all of them.”