Duty Should Be ?

Started by LouisFerdinand, December 15, 2015, 10:22:51 PM

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LouisFerdinand

In Diana: A Princess and Her Troubled Marriage, Nicholas Davies wrote:     
Diana thought Charles's duty should be to her first, his country second. Charles thought the opposite. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had instilled in him that he had an honorable duty to the Crown and to the British people. His personal life had to be fitted around it.


LouisFerdinand

In Diana: A Princess and Her Troubled Marriage, Nicholas Davies wrote:     
But commoners, even aristocratic commoners, face overwhelming difficulties in accommodating to the demands and duties of royal life.


Curryong

Quote from: LouisFerdinand on December 17, 2015, 01:29:08 AM
In Diana: A Princess and Her Troubled Marriage, Nicholas Davies wrote:     
But commoners, even aristocratic commoners, face overwhelming difficulties in accommodating to the demands and duties of royal life.

Yes they do, for various reasons. However, Diana's favourite anthem wasn't 'I Vow to Thee My Country' for nothing. She'd been brought up with good manners and the expectation that you write sincere 'bread and butter' letters after visiting people's homes, for instance.

School had given her a grounding in charities and helping others, and her father Johnnie Spencer, was known for being interested in others and enjoying chatting with people from all walks of life, something his daughter inherited. That's not a bad grounding for Royal life.

The private life of the Queen, PP and Charles is also very very different to the way most people live their lives now, even those who are titled.

I think many thought 'aristocrat', and just believed, even in the 1980's, that somehow Diana would 'be used' to it all. Of course Diana grew up with servants, but for most of her childhood her father didn't entertain so she didn't grow up observing how dinner parties and balls (for example)  were arranged and hosted.

Diana was used to cleaning and ironing and liked it. She then married a very much older man who had two valets and a heap of other servants, wanted things just so and expected his 20 year old wife to be an accomplished hostess and be able to chat away easily at receptions and dinner parties to older and more worldly guests about all sorts of subjects she knew nothing about.

If her private life had been happy I'm sure Diana would have mastered everything expected of her and remained a valued Royal.

LouisFerdinand

Princess Diana repeatedly challenged Prince Charles' assertion that his royal duties had to come first.


LouisFerdinand

Prince Charles put his foot down when he had work to do. It was his duty to the nation, to the Queen, to himself. In Charles's book, duty came before everything.       
:happyuk:  :happyuk: :happyuk: :happyuk: :happyuk: :happyuk:


Curryong

Charles is a workaholic and has been since he left the RN. The Duchy work, Prince's Trust, the forays into modern architecture, farming methods etc all  may have been a way for Charles to validate himself and so it has become very necessary to him.

After all he occupies a unique position, he's grown old waiting for a parent to die so he can fulfil his destiny as monarch. Some of the ways previous Princes of Wales occupied their time, ruling over Society and visiting foreign pleasure resorts, going on endless Empire tours, doing a lot of shooting, intriguing with Oppostion government leaders, are no longer appropriate or available.

Charles does have an inquiring mind (even if his staff do most of his research) and filling his days with royal duties and causes give him a lot of satisfaction, of that I'm quite sure.

LouisFerdinand

#6
[admin]Removed quoted post- no need to quote the post directly above your own[/admin]
   
@Duch_Luver_4ever, I am glad that you like the thread I began. I like your observation about Grandmother Fermoy and Frances. These ladies had contact with the Royal Family. A lady like Diana does not become Princess in sixty minutes.


LouisFerdinand

Cecilia, Countess of Strathmore, the mother of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, was a strong believer in duty.   
She set about instilling this concept in the Bowes-Lyon children with the repetition of maxims as "work is the rent you pay for life".