As she knew very well, peace and quiet were not beyond her reach. For political as well as therapeutic reasons, I had often urged her to buy a seaside house in Wales. There she could have had all the peace she wanted, interrupted only by heartfelt expressions of Welsh devotion inspired by the fact that someone carrying the name of their principality should actually want to live there. ‘And anyway, Ma’am, a week in Pembrokeshire would buy you a month of hassle-free sunshine in Necker.’
The grand oration, however, grew into an obsession. It was not a means to an end. It was an end in itself. With mounting anxiety, I resorted to humour. We joked about it as a Churchillian event, but I always added the rider that when she decided to put this fantasy into practice it should only be for the sake of an exceptionally important statement. ‘You’ll only get one chance at this,’ I said to her. ‘So you need to be quite sure that what you’re saying is what you want to be remembered for.’
‘Yes, Patrick,’ she said with a suspicious meekness. Really she meant, ‘No, Patrick.’
Our thoughts were on divergent courses. I had a growing conviction that the one great speech she should make – one that would secure her future from every threat – was publicly to offer a reconciliation with her husband and his family. This would be on her own terms, of course, and that was its principal attraction. If she could bring herself to do it, her moral victory would be complete. Forgiveness, after all, is divine and what more powerful credential could she claim for herself, especially since such a large proportion of world opinion seemed prepared to deify her anyway?
It was a suggestion I came back to several times before my resignation. Each time she listened attentively. Once, impatiently, she retorted, ‘But they have to do it first!’
‘Ma’am, don’t you see? Who does it first is the winner!’
She could not do it. Certainly, the bitter invective of pre-separation days was by then a thing of the past, otherwise I would not have dreamt of making such a suggestion, but the resentment ran too deep and was now so familiar that she was unable to let it go. Or perhaps she was just more honest than me, even if – as I believed – forgiveness in her heart could follow forgiveness publicly expressed.
Instead she had other plans – a tearful and very public withdrawal from public life, implying as it would her victimization at the hands of the press. It also invited sympathy for her (questionable) inability any longer to carry the great burden of public expectation that had been placed upon her. This, rather than a statesmanlike offer of reconciliation, irresistibly appealed to the martyr, the emotionally deprived child and the showgirl within her. It also gave her a wonderful platform from which to launch yet another assault on her husband. As if the point needed emphasizing, on the day after the speech the Daily Mail – well briefed by its royal subject as always – spelt it out: ‘CHARLES DROVE HER TO IT’ announced the headline confidently.
I saw it rather differently – at least privately. ‘Just you wait: you’ll be sorry!’ was my private synopsis of her speech, which she had kept out of my hands until only a few days before it was due to be delivered.
Its early drafts owed much to the influence of her speech trainer Peter Settelen, who bombarded her with faxes sent to a new machine set up on her desk for the purpose. He assumed a familiarity which nettled me, but only because of its irresistible novelty value to the Princess. Under its influence she swallowed ideas that sounded daringly honest in the privacy of a training session, but on the world stage and in the mouth of a serious contender for international influence I thought them disastrously banal and peevish.
Especially in view of my own understanding of her motives, the expression ‘Give me time and space’ made my toes curl. I also knew it to be fundamentally dishonest. Whatever else she had planned, a quiet private life was never going to be the Princess’s style.
My cynicism was fuelled by virtuous thoughts of the thousands of charity workers and their clients in all her patronages whom she now wished to deprive of a glamorous figurehead and unsurpassed fundraiser. I thought of the hours her staff had spent and the promises they had made on her behalf in drawing up her diary for the six-month period which was about to begin. I thought of the assurances I had given in good faith and the promises I felt she would appear to have broken. I thought also of the outpouring of genuine sympathy that would undoubtedly be forthcoming, which I knew was deserved for a hundred wrongs she had suffered – but not for this.
Needless to say, I shouted all these fine, brave sentiments from the rooftops, but only in a whisper. Instead, in the usual way, I ran myself and the rest of the Princess’s staff ragged trying to minimize the consternation that her decision would inevitably cause.
One tangible benefit of the preceding traumatic months had been the close relationship it had once again forced me into with Buckingham Palace. More than ever, for my own sake as much as hers, I recognized how essential it was that the Queen’s office should be spared any more unwelcome surprises about what the Princess was going to do next.
The task of rebuilding trust – which had never been entirely broken so far, only severely strained – was one that suited my instincts and inclinations. It helped buy the Princess the ‘time and space’ which she was preparing to request so publicly, enabling her to experiment with whatever form of occupation she finally decided she could really sustain. I therefore spent uncomfortable hours at 10 Downing Street and in the inner recesses of BP, trying to convince sceptical ears of the Princess’s sincerity. I tried also to keep open the door back to some form of fulfilling public life – a door on which I confidently predicted she would wish to knock almost as soon as the speech-maker’s exultation had evaporated.
Using my most charitable analysis of what was happening, I explained that the Princess put so much of her own emotion into her work for those in need that, especially after the trauma of the previous year, she was now exhausted and near to breaking point. While she did want to take a pause to recharge her batteries, she would in all likelihood wish to return to the public stage once she had worked out her own priorities.
Unknown to my boss, I had written a briefing note for the Queen herself, which referred to the fact that in my view, despite all her protestations of strain and exploitation, the Princess retained a desire to serve. I also expressed the opinion that such ongoing service would be essential to her mental equilibrium. I doubt if Her Majesty needed this observation. By her intervention – with the significant support of Prince Philip – she limited the Princess’s lemming-like urge to abandon the exposed public position she now needed like a drug, while still allowing her the space she required for this melodramatic rite of passage.
In the later drafts of her speech – from which I managed to excise the more histrionic references to a self-imposed and irreversible exile – my main concern was that, having stamped her foot and called for everyone to stop what they were doing and listen to her, she should actually have something to say that was worthy of their attention. Hopefully it would also not appear to have been planned with that attention as its only objective. Given the brevity of her ‘withdrawal’ – which was just as I and a few others such as Lynda Chalker had anticipated – I later felt some justification for the belief that, despite all the other reasons which may have accumulated inside her to make such a high-profile announcement, the desire for that moment of attention was over-riding and irresistible.
In the days before the speech I worked hard, with the help of others, to wind the Princess back from what I thought risked being a dive into the void. ‘Don’t just jump off the cliff,’ I told her anxiously. ‘You don’t know where you’re going to land.’
Arms crossed, she was pacing up and down in her sitting room. I sensed her annoyance: here she was, preparing for the greatest role of her life, and I was trying to rewrite her script at the eleventh hour. She had nerved herself for the ordeal and now her craven private secretary was clucking about the boring consequences. Why could he not see that the gesture, no
t the detail, was what mattered?
I had an idea. ‘Ma’am, why not look on it as a retreat, rather than a final withdrawal? Time to review what you want to do and set new priorities. And don’t ditch all your patronages. The good ones will stick with you as long as you tell ’em what you’re doing …’
This appealed to her on different levels. The semi-religious overtones of a ‘retreat’ acknowledged the hard-pressed spirit’s need for space in which to heal. The concept of setting her own priorities appealed to the executive, dynamic, working Princess. Offering herself up to the mercy of her patronages – and a more generous-hearted panel of judges it would be hard to find – appealed to the martyr.
She continued pacing, but at least she was no longer looking at me as if I was trying to take away her latest toy. Of course, the need to make a big statement would not be denied. When it finally appeared, however, her speech was ambivalent enough to leave her some open doors through which she could re-emerge when the fuss died down. I even got her to agree to retain her military affiliations.
Two years later, however, when in Panorama she found another irresistibly tempting attention-grabbing opportunity, she did not repeat her mistake. No interfering private secretary was going to try and talk her out of that one, let alone get his hands on the draft script.
At long last, in another echo of the previous year’s crisis, all our preparations were complete and there was nothing more to be done. The statements were ready, the draft Qs and As had been rehearsed and the press had been briefed. The patronages had been laboriously faxed. The other households had been informed – ‘Oh God, here she goes again!’ came clearly through their noncommittal and personally sympathetic responses. The die was well and truly cast.
It was agreed that I would stay at mission control in the Palace press office with the Princess’s press secretary Geoff Crawford, while she went with the equerry to her lunchtime engagement with destiny. The MC of the Headway lunch was to be Jeffrey Archer, for whom the Princess had a soft spot, not least for his pre-eminence as a charity auctioneer. He was the ideal man for the job and called at KP that morning to be let in on the big secret. Her faith in him was fully justified by the sympathetic but reassuring way in which he conducted the dramatic departure from the scheduled programme, as a stunned audience – including Headway’s top management – heard rather less than they had expected about head injuries.
Despite my last-ditch success in getting her to tone down the rhetoric, I had an overwhelming feeling that the Princess was cutting herself off from the very opportunities that would be her lifeline in the future. If she was to retain her status not just as a royal person but also as a credible and honest symbol of hope, she would need more of the links we had painstakingly built up, not less. As I saw her planning methodically to hack away at these lifelines, I prayed that what we had salvaged would be enough to let her start again, as I knew sooner or later she would realize she had to do anyway.
In a melodramatic moment of my own, I was tempted to throw away the keys to her car. I restrained myself with the thought that there were probably enough pointless gestures arranged for the day without me adding to them.
Geoff and I waited at BP for the dramatic lunchtime news headlines and exchanged unconvincing jokes. Every now and then I would walk to the window and peer through the net curtains at the crowds outside the Palace railings. Did they have any idea, I wondered, how lucky they were to be on the outside looking in?
At the appointed hour, as the Princess stood up to speak, we briefed a small handful of selected journalists. The Princess’s words were hurriedly scanned by expert eyes.
I hope you can find it in your hearts to understand and to give me the time and space that has been lacking in recent years … When I started my public life 12 years ago I understood that the media might be interested in what I did. I realized then that their attention would inevitably focus on … our private lives … But I was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become; nor the extent to which it would affect both my public duties and my personal life in a manner that’s been hard to bear…
The man from the Press Association spoke for many of his colleagues. ‘Have we killed the goose that lays the golden eggs?’ he asked.
Geoff and I reassured him that it was not the intention to paint the media as the villains of the piece. It was, nonetheless, a telling example of the harsh reality of the Princess’s relationship with the media. She supported a whole industry of investigators, reporters, photographers, commentators, editors, publishers and proprietors. In return, she occasionally made use of their services to communicate over the heads of the conventional court organization to reach her public in the country and world at large. The famous ‘withdrawal’ speech was a classic example of the process at work.
Forgetting my own lunch – for once – I drove to KP to greet the returning, uncaged Princess. After one look at her excited face, flushed with the rapt attention she had received, I gave in to a grudging optimism. Early reports were of uncritical understanding and sympathy. Perhaps everything would be all right after all and I had simply allowed my curmudgeonly caution to get the better of me.
As I followed her upstairs, she was still chattering about the looks of shock that had greeted her opening words. I followed her into her sitting room and she threw down her handbag, kicking off her high heels with the usual gasp of relief. ‘What have you got for me?’ she asked brightly, spotting the sheaf of papers under my arm.
I handed them to her with a smile. They were our diary planning sheets for 1994. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, flicking through them. They were completely blank.
‘It’s your programme for next year, Ma’am.’
Her smile faded and she looked rather thoughtfully at the empty pages. ‘You know, Patrick,’ she said, suddenly serious. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to run away screaming from this.’
I said no, I was sticking with her and so were all her other staff, for as long as she needed us. I reminded her of what I had said the previous year about being prepared to find a note on my desk saying that she had run away and would I sort everything out. Rather self-consciously and almost completely sincerely I said, ‘What matters to us, Ma’am, is that you should be happy.’
She looked touched by this thought, but before it required any serious consideration from her I added, ‘I mean, it’s no fun for us if you’re not!’ Then we could both laugh away our embarrassment.
‘You realize I’m going to have to start being less formal with you,’ I said. ‘Our relationship is going to have to change.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ she replied. ‘I’m all for that. I’d much rather you told me what you really think.’ It was too late to say that so often I had been telling her what I really thought, but she had not wished to listen – especially on the many occasions when her mind was already made up on a particular course with which I disagreed.
For me the fallout from that speech was considerable. There was the small practical matter of disentangling six months’ worth of lovingly prepared engagements, accompanied by the understandable and painful disappointment of some who had stood to gain large amounts of money from the Princess’s involvement in fundraising activities. The restraint showed by most was further evidence for me of their semi-angelic status.
The rump of the 1993 programme, only a couple of engagements, passed off relatively peacefully, despite Richard Branson’s valiant efforts to turn the Princess’s christening of his new Airbus A340 into a day of fun to raise her morale. On her seventh and final visit to Northern Ireland, the Princess visited a children’s hospital where, amidst the kind of welcome only the people of Ulster can provide, she was briefly once again in her element.
As I had anticipated, I was also already hard at work preparing alternative occupations for the Princess, now that her diary was so invitingly clear. Among other things, the possibility of a Birkbeck course arose again and was dismissed again.
Wor
se was to follow. Relieved of the discipline of the six-month programme planning system, she leapt at the chance ‘to set her own priorities’ – a euphemism that soon became an excuse to re-enter the limelight with so-called ‘private’ visits which then mysteriously got reported in the Daily Mail or other tabloids, and even descended to cherry-picking from the old, friendly patronages who knew their Princess and the score. I sometimes wanted to attach to my office door an agent’s sign saying, ‘Anything overseas or photogenic considered.’
So this was the ‘time and space’ she had asked us to find it in our hearts to give her, I thought to myself. It was agreeable enough for us workers – for a while – but I could not see it leading anywhere except into a slow spiral of decline and ennui.
Following her sincere but not very well-thought-out wish to be involved in a smaller number of subjects more deeply, I canvassed suggestions from some of her more senior patronages. They duly responded with enlightened programmes for the further education and development of their beloved patron. Their attitude was unsentimental but totally positive: for many years they had benefited from her patronage and now there was an opportunity for them to return the favour. They were ready to help in whatever way she needed them to.
Many of these suggestions – involving as they did a real commitment to some of her favourite forms of humanitarian work, along with the chance to acquire new skills, to sharpen her existing talents and to immerse herself in therapeutic activity – held up the exciting prospect of the Princess leaving behind the wreckage of her marriage and her formal royal position and replacing it with a fresh start. There would be interesting new work, of a type for which she had already demonstrated her aptitude and with people who supported her without judging her. Also on offer was the gratifying prospect of growing older, wiser and more substantially the icon which much of the world already thought her to be.
Shadows of a Princess Page 44