Duch_Luver_4ever Digest #1

Started by Duch_Luver_4ever, April 13, 2017, 04:12:40 AM

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Trudie

OK I read the extract in the Daily Mail from Junors new book if this is the truth. If Charles was that in love with Camilla he should have told her. According to Junor it was Mountbatten not that palace that didn't encourage marriage as he found her not aristocratic enough and not virginal. Camilla it is made clear was in love with APB and wanted to marry him despite him cheating on her with friends and others during the time they were dating and his close friendship with Princess Anne. For the last 20 years it has been spun that Charles and Camilla have had a 40 year love affair well which is it? As for Diana and married men well that is just gossip and speculation Will Carling denied he had an affair with Diana even after her death in his biography and Oliver Hoare has never commented nor has his wife. If Diana was proven to have indeed been involved in affairs with them I wouldn't exactly praise her nor make excuses for that. Diana's known lovers were all single and unattached confirmation of Charles and Camilla came to light in Camillagate while Squiggygate involved a young man who was unattached.



sandy

#326
Quote from: amabel on June 24, 2017, 10:23:17 AM
well then, I don't think that the affairs with Camilla mattered at all. if you feel they were very very incompatible and didn't have anyting to make a good marriage, between them..then it would have pretty much ended the same way that it did.. that both of them would have found other lovers and spent more time with them in private.  If Camilla had enver existed, Charles and Di would stil hve had a bad marriage and have had affairs.

I totally disagree. It's like saying a man who was robbed would have lost his money anyway. Camilla is the elephant in the room. If Camilla had not been "there"for Charles then I think Charles and Diana would have had a much better chance. What sort of woman sends cufflinks to a man on his honeymoon and the man wears them in front of his new bride? Of course Camilla made a big difference. And she did exist and was poison to the marriage.

Double post auto-merged: June 24, 2017, 11:47:09 AM


Quote from: royalanthropologist on June 24, 2017, 07:28:23 AM
Authors are entitled to state their opinion and write books. They do not need clearance from the pro-Diana partisans. I doubt that this book is intended for them because they picked sides in that marriage and it is impossible to penetrate their deeply held views. They will never forgive and will never forget. They hate Charles and Camilla and worship Diana. It is what it is and I think everyone has pretty much accepted it. I doubt Charles, Camilla or the palace are interested in courting or convincing the pro-Diana partisans as that is a pointless exercise.

The book is another perspective on the Charles and Camilla story. Those who want to read it will, those who don't can ignore it. I hate it when people complain about reading an article they have searched for, opened up and read. If you don't like it, ignore it. If you are not convinced by its PR, ignore it.

Also not everything that happens in July and August is an attack on Diana. Camilla was born around that time and many many things happen in those months. At this rate, we will be demanding that nobody writes anything around the months because they belong to Diana.

There is such a thing as fairness. Junor trashes Diana. It is not just saying she is no saint. It is a full blown trashing session on her.

Camilla's birthday is no national holiday.

I think Junor intensely loathes Diana. And fawns all over Charles.

Double post auto-merged: June 24, 2017, 11:49:17 AM


Quote from: royalanthropologist on June 24, 2017, 10:36:15 AM
I agree with and sympathize with those who argue that the personalities were so incompatible that the marriage should never have happened in the first place. That is at the very least a logically consistent position. What I find puzzling are those who say Charles is a horrendous human being but he should have remained married to Diana or not remarried at all. Very strange thing to say someone is bad and then insist that he ought to have remained married to your idol. It is almost as if people need to have their villain and victim in this story such that any effort to end the story is strongly resisted.

No, Charles should never have gone into the marriage with Diana knowing he preferred another woman. He married Diana for expediency's sake. He needed to leave her alone and let her live a happy life. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Charles did behave in a horrendous way, yet excuses are always made for him

royalanthropologist

That to me is the eternal puzzle. The belief that somehow without Camilla, Charles would have loved Diana. That is a nonsense. The couple barely knew one another and later could not stand one another. I am also curious as to why some Diana fans wanted Diana to remain married to a man whom they have told us on numerous occasion is a very, very bad man. Surely the Diana fans would wish that he left that bad man and found a man that was more to their and her liking?
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

sandy

#328
Camilla was there. So this is all what ifs. It is a cop out IMO to say that the marriage would have broken up anyway. Anything to whitewash what Camilla did. I think another woman around is poison to any marriage.

Quote from: royalanthropologist on June 24, 2017, 03:16:50 AM
I repeat: the upper classes are not as obsessed about adultery as the lower classes. It is what it is. Assigning middle class values of fidelity and going on about that Church of England  moralizing is a total failure to understand why and how that Church was established. The Church of England exists for no other reason than to ensure that a king could divorce and remarry. That is not my opinion but right there in the history books. There is absolutely no requirement on the monarch of Britain to be faithful or loving to his wife. That is what some people might want but it is no requirement for being king. Charles is not and has never been the most serial adulterer Prince of Wales or royal in our history. The obsession with his love life is alarming in my view. It has gone on for so long with so limited information that it is now bordering on a pathology.

Those who say that adultery is not a game and is a serious character flaw, fail to see the hypocrisy in trying to airbrush the multiple adulterous affairs that Diana had (one with a married man and whose distraught wife had to deal with crank silent calls from Diana) . First they said Charles cheated first. I seriously doubt that because even Diana herself never said he cheated on her first. Charles said he left after the marriage had broken down and never has she challenged that version despite all the things she tried to do to destroy him. So who cheated first and who cheated many times? Those are the kinds of conundrums you get for trying to be the judge, jury and executioner of people's marriages where the details are not fully known.

The other interesting thing. Some Diana fans (they don't like me saying so but that is what they are in reality) suggest that Charles is a very bad man, not particularly handsome, weak, pathetic, evil, wimp etc. Fair enough. That means that Diana was well rid of him. After all; the people that worshiped her would have not wanted her to remain to someone that is as bad as that? Others say that he should not have married her at all if he did not love her. Fair enough then that means that Diana would be better off married to some anonymous person with no Prince William and Harry? I don't get this obsessive dislike of Charles and the puzzling simultaneous insistence that he should have remained married to Diana or worked on the marriage. If he is a bad man, then Diana was better off when he left her. He did not love her, she did not love him. They divorced. That is what most normal people do.

Saying should have, could have, must have etc. goes back to that thing about fate. Unless you are saying that the entire marriage and the children that came from it plus the title and celebrity that followed should not have happened? If that is people's position then it makes some sense, at least being logically consistent. Far better than this confusing: "I hate him so much but want to remain married to him" nonsense. If we accept Charles and Camilla are very bad people, then by all means they deserve one another. Diana was well rid of them since they were so beastly to her.  What then is this nonsense about "working on the marriage"?

Citing Diana does not whitewash what Charles and Camilla did. You think Diana is a bad person apparently. Carling denied any affair took place.

. The Hoares are still together. And Hoare pursued Diana yet the male is exonerated. An affair was neither confirmed nor denied by Hoare.

Charles did cheat first. He went into the marriage knowing he preferred Camilla. That's cheating.

Double post auto-merged: June 24, 2017, 11:57:09 AM


Quote from: Trudie on June 24, 2017, 11:40:09 AM
OK I read the extract in the Daily Mail from Junors new book if this is the truth. If Charles was that in love with Camilla he should have told her. According to Junor it was Mountbatten not that palace that didn't encourage marriage as he found her not aristocratic enough and not virginal. Camilla it is made clear was in love with APB and wanted to marry him despite him cheating on her with friends and others during the time they were dating and his close friendship with Princess Anne. For the last 20 years it has been spun that Charles and Camilla have had a 40 year love affair well which is it? As for Diana and married men well that is just gossip and speculation Will Carling denied he had an affair with Diana even after her death in his biography and Oliver Hoare has never commented nor has his wife. If Diana was proven to have indeed been involved in affairs with them I wouldn't exactly praise her nor make excuses for that. Diana's known lovers were all single and unattached confirmation of Charles and Camilla came to light in Camillagate while Squiggygate involved a young man who was unattached.


The whole world is blamed by Junor. Anything to exonerate her idols.

Camilla wanted to marry Andrew Parker Bowles. She was not "forced to"

royalanthropologist

"Charles did cheat first. He went into the marriage knowing he preferred Camilla. That's cheating."

So anyone that does not wholly and truly love their partners is cheating. Wake me up from this Disney story please???? It is so annoying that someone who could have a substantial biography of charitable work is reduced to this vicious sanctimonious sentimental nonsense that would be laughed at in any other context.

Diana was caught by the police making crank calls to a married man. There is no getting away from that no matter what excuses are made. It is what it is. She made the crank calls and was found out. Unless of course her fans want to suggest that there was some malicious person on Charles' side who made her pick up the phone and make those silent calls??? The calls were traced to Kensington Palace and one of Diana's sister's homes.
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

sandy

Yes, it is. So it's a Disney story when a couple gets married because they love each other and are ready for a commitment. Since when? To me that sounds very cynical. They might as well do away with marriage if everybody is that cynical. And I don't think fidelity and commitment are "sanctimonious." Just not cynical.

Hoare pursued Diana. This has been attested to by those there at the time. You give a strictly one sided view. I think Hoare was toxic for Diana. And it was good she moved on. The thrill for Diana of being near Hoare was that he was also a friend of C and C.  Or so it was said. Hoare never got on his judgmental high horse and condemned Diana, he moved on and never mentioned a thing about it. If he can be non-judgmental so can the rest of us.

royalanthropologist

No. Hoare was not a hypocrite. Indeed I have never heard him judge any one for adultery. It was Diana who complained about adultery and then went on to commit it, multiple times (sometimes with married men). This is not about Hoare. Hoare has never given any interview or record condemning anyone for any behavior. That was Diana and that is why I say that if adultery is bad then it is bad for everybody.

Those who want to buy Penny Junor's book will buy it. Those who don't will just have to bear it. Not everyone is prepared to have rose tinted glasses on this one and people will just have to lump it. In any case, if Charles is as bad as the Diana fans claim; then it was only a good thing that they divorced. In that way Diana could find more suitable partners (that even sounds silly reading it back but that is what we've come to).
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

sandy

#332
Of course he was and is. Why is the man always the "good person" in these scenarios? He had a mistress he was keeping before he started seeing Diana. His wife put up with it. I don't know if he moved out on her then. You have no proof she slept with married MEN. The only two suspects are Hoare and Carling. Carling said there was no affair. Hoare neither confirmed nor denied one and I doubt he ever will. Diana's lovers confirmed by both were Hewitt, Khan (who confirmed this in the inquest), possibly Dodi (the secret went to their grave). Hewitt was single then. Charles on the other hand had many relationships. Confessed to adultery with Married Camilla and was involved with her pre Diana. His confessions forced a divorce. If you read one Junor book you have read them all. I think a lot of the same will appear in this one. She seems to be tossing Andrew Parker Bowles (the Mr Simpson of his day) under a bus. Camilla knew he cheated on her, she cheated on him when they dated. So why was she surprised when the same pattern of behavior happened in their marriage?  Junor is an avid Charles fan and I think she is a true cultist. 

The thing that Hoare has going for him is he does not "tell all" and is not tsking tsking Diana about the phone calls. I think his phone calls to Diana ran up his and his wife's phone bills. According to Jephson and Wharfe he was calling Diana a lot.

I wonder if Junor will bring up Janet Jenkins who was his mistress during the Camilla years. He moaned and groaned to her too.

Charles could have been a suitable partner if he had been a grown up when he married Diana. He sounds rather immature to me.

royalanthropologist

Could have, should have, might have....all these are just fantasies. Strangers acting as investigators, judges, juries and executioners of a marriage is one of the reason why that relationship failed permanently.

In any case it was not a happy marriage and one that should never happened. The best thing was to end it as quickly as possible. They delayed far too long. The ideal time was to end it when it "irretrievably broke down" circa 1984-1986. Better still, just calling off the wedding.  Beyond that they were both making one another miserable and feeding this frenzy of obsessive interest in their relationship.

Charles was sensible enough to divorce his first wife and finally propose to the woman he loved and married her. That is what he should have done when he first saw Camilla instead of dithering. For a start, it would have saved us a whole load of sentimental nonsense in between.

This soap opera is getting quite old. Someone needs to put an end to it. 
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

tiaras

#334
Quote from: amabel on June 24, 2017, 10:23:17 AM
well then, I don't think that the affairs with Camilla mattered at all. if you feel they were very very incompatible and didn't have anyting to make a good marriage, between them..then it would have pretty much ended the same way that it did.. that both of them would have found other lovers and spent more time with them in private.  If Camilla had enver existed, Charles and Di would stil hve had a bad marriage and have had affairs.

Yes I do believe that there was never going to be a good happy ending to their union. They weren't compatible and he loved someone else that's a recipe for disaster.

sandy

#335
Right. Camilla was in the way

Double post auto-merged: June 24, 2017, 05:59:16 PM


Quote from: royalanthropologist on June 24, 2017, 01:48:42 PM
Could have, should have, might have....all these are just fantasies. Strangers acting as investigators, judges, juries and executioners of a marriage is one of the reason why that relationship failed permanently.

In any case it was not a happy marriage and one that should never happened. The best thing was to end it as quickly as possible. They delayed far too long. The ideal time was to end it when it "irretrievably broke down" circa 1984-1986. Better still, just calling off the wedding.  Beyond that they were both making one another miserable and feeding this frenzy of obsessive interest in their relationship.

Charles was sensible enough to divorce his first wife and finally propose to the woman he loved and married her. That is what he should have done when he first saw Camilla instead of dithering. For a start, it would have saved us a whole load of sentimental nonsense in between.

This soap opera is getting quite old. Someone needs to put an end to it. 

Sentimental nonsense? Two human beings would not exist today if Charles had chosen Camilla in the first place. I don't call Will and Harry sentimental nonsense.

If Diana had not married a royal nor had an early pregnancy I think she'd have had grounds for an annulment

Double post auto-merged: June 24, 2017, 06:00:33 PM


Quote from: Trudie on June 24, 2017, 11:40:09 AM
OK I read the extract in the Daily Mail from Junors new book if this is the truth. If Charles was that in love with Camilla he should have told her. According to Junor it was Mountbatten not that palace that didn't encourage marriage as he found her not aristocratic enough and not virginal. Camilla it is made clear was in love with APB and wanted to marry him despite him cheating on her with friends and others during the time they were dating and his close friendship with Princess Anne. For the last 20 years it has been spun that Charles and Camilla have had a 40 year love affair well which is it? As for Diana and married men well that is just gossip and speculation Will Carling denied he had an affair with Diana even after her death in his biography and Oliver Hoare has never commented nor has his wife. If Diana was proven to have indeed been involved in affairs with them I wouldn't exactly praise her nor make excuses for that. Diana's known lovers were all single and unattached confirmation of Charles and Camilla came to light in Camillagate while Squiggygate involved a young man who was unattached.


Junor always blamed Mountbatten as did Ingrid Seward. I think that is a cop out. Charles and Camilla were responsible for their own actions and not marionettes with their strings pulled by Mountbatten

Trudie

Quote from: royalanthropologist on June 24, 2017, 01:48:42 PM
Could have, should have, might have....all these are just fantasies. Strangers acting as investigators, judges, juries and executioners of a marriage is one of the reason why that relationship failed permanently.

In any case it was not a happy marriage and one that should never happened. The best thing was to end it as quickly as possible. They delayed far too long. The ideal time was to end it when it "irretrievably broke down" circa 1984-1986. Better still, just calling off the wedding.  Beyond that they were both making one another miserable and feeding this frenzy of obsessive interest in their relationship.

Charles was sensible enough to divorce his first wife and finally propose to the woman he loved and married her. That is what he should have done when he first saw Camilla instead of dithering. For a start, it would have saved us a whole load of sentimental nonsense in between.

This soap opera is getting quite old. Someone needs to put an end to it. 

Diana wanted to call of the wedding she was talked out of that one by her sisters and from what I have read it was the Queen who asked her sisters to calm her down. As for the marriage ending in the mid eighties that would have been a solution however, at the time it wasn't an option as they were not allowed to divorce. Charles sensibly ended the marriage? It was the Queen who ordered the divorce. It says a lot about Charles maturity if he was bullied into the marriage by his Daddy and ordered to divorce by his Mummy now doesn't it.



royalanthropologist

@Trudie. I agree Charles should have been firmer and not allowed himself to be bullied into proposing to someone he did not love. It is also quite outrageous for those Spencer girls to have advised Diana to marry because her name was on tea towels. What a silly reason to get married to someone who has made it very clear to you (through actions, if not words) that he does not love you?

I have always thought the queen was a terrible parent. Knowing about Camilla and Diana's doubts, it would have been the height of stupidity to insist that Diana had to get married. Well, the queen certainly paid the price for that decision and interference. Diana did give them all a very long headache and I am sure if she could turn back time, the queen would have stopped that relationship at the first meeting stage. Of all her daughters-in-law, none has done as much to destroy the monarchy as Diana did.

As for @sandy. Yes we have suffered lots of sentimental nonsense because of the marriage between C&D. No relationship in royal history has attracted this amount of external nit-picking and tabloid media interest.  Had Charles married Camilla when he first had a chance, the annus horribilis would never have happened (at least on the Wales side). In hindsight Camilla is far better suited to being married to Charles than Diana ever was.

Charles allegedly made Diana's life a misery and she too returned the favor by trying her very best to destroy him, his family and the institution of monarchy. That is why it was  a very bad decision to get married at all.  In any case if Charles is such a bad person as Diana fans keep telling us; then William and Harry would have been saved the trouble of being born to such a horrendous person, isn't it?
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

Trudie

@royalanthropologist  I never said Charles was a very bad person. Charles does have his good points he is very caring and loyal on behalf of the people of the U.K. The biggest problem with Charles is his sense of entitlement it has never occurred to him that despite being the POW he is just another human being with the same flaws as everyone else. Charles has always been yessed to death and as a result no one is his equal not even a wife. Diana was perhaps the first person to tell him no and his bewilderment that she wouldn't yes him probably didn't help no more than Diana being emotionally needy. What Diana needed was a partner who loved her and would reassure her that yes she was valued Charles couldn't give her that. Charles and the Monarchy did make her life a misery but to say Diana tried to destroy the monarchy is stupid twenty years on it is still standing and standing as it did in 1936 when a King abdicated for the woman he loved.



royalanthropologist

I understand @Trudie. My point is that if people are constantly saying how bad and beastly Charles is, then perhaps it would have been in Diana's interests not to have married him at all. Even after being married, it would have been in her interests to divorce him at the earliest opportunity.

I was responding to someone who said that  William and Harry were not sentimental nonsense. Over the past few days I have read from some Diana fans how Charles was a bad father and bad husband. How cruel he was to Diana and how he is a terrible person. My own take then is that it would have been better if he had never married Diana at all if he is so bad. He could have married someone who is as "bad" as him (i.e. Camilla).

The very fans then counter by saying that that is not good because William and Harry resulted from the relationship. In the end one has to take life as it is, the good and bad. If you are constantly whining about your fate, there is an alternative which is not being born at all.
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

sandy

Charles is no saint. But nobody called him "beastly." Charles had the upper hand, he was the one who proposed, he knew the score. He should be blamed instead of the starry eyed young woman who accepted he proposal. She could not propose to him. She could not divorce him right away, she was pregnant within about two months so should she have stormed off carrying the heir? No way! And divorce was discouraged back then.

My point is clear: if Charles and Diana had not married--the boys would not have even existed. So I think in that way they are glad the parents married.

He would not have married Camilla to have heirs with. I think he made that clear. If Diana had said no, he would have moved on and not to Camilla. Charles wanted heirs.

amabel

Of course he wanted heirs.  it was his duty to have them. And he coudld not have married Camilla in the 70s.. so he had to marry someone else.  if Diana had not married him he would have found another young woman.  And that would mean that there would be no Harry or William.  but that's life.  If one path is taken, consequences happen.  WIll and H wouldn't be born..but - other sons or daughters would be.

sandy

He could have taken the route of his great Uncle Edward VIII and not married the suitable girl. Maybe he would have been happier that way. He wanted children but he would have had difficulty loving their mother.  In his case, he should have had a contract signed with the wife and mother of his children so she would know the exact terms he wanted in the marriage.

amabel

oh yes, he should certainly have followed his uncle Edward. 

Trudie

My take on things regarding Charles and marriage at the time Royals were now marrying for love not dynastic opportunities. The Victorian era and Edwardian eras were over. George V allowed his children in the case of George VI to marry for love as did their daughter Elizabeth II. Charles was too much in the thrall of Mountbatten with his own agenda and wayward Victorian ideas. Why The Queen and Phillip allowed Mountbatten such prominence in Charles life is a mystery when one considers how much the Queen Mother disliked him.

Marrying for love@royalanthropologist is not a fairytale it is however the basic foundation to enable a successful marriage.



royalanthropologist

#345
I beg to disagree with that notion @Trudie . Yes, being madly in love is ideal but this was not some romantic storybook tale. Diana was being invited into a dynasty to become its matriarch. The idea that she thought that Charles would be the doting devoted lover shows that Diana did not really understand what she was facing. Being a queen of England is a lot more than having a romantic relationship with your husband. The royal family is like a firm. You put up with lots of personal trials for the greater good. I can guarantee you that Charles and Camilla have disagreements. They may even have bad rows but Camilla knows that there is a lot more to this than her being a contented wife.

Besides even those who start off with lots of love can end up getting divorced. The sentimentality is the high expectation of this particular marriage. So many external people were pinning their hopes on it working. The royal family was very, very foolish in not vetting Diana carefully. Just a little glance at the domestic life of the Spencers would have informed them that Diana was never going to fit into the Windsor style. To her credit, Diana's grandma warned her but she did not listen. You have to be very strong and very disciplined to survive that environment. Emotional incontinence is frowned upon and under no circumstances must you ever challenge or upstage your royal consort. Once you deviate from that, you are out and the out can be very unfriendly for an ex royal as Sarah Ferguson and Diana learnt.

If you are looking for comfort then I am afraid the House of Windsor is not the place to get it. Diana could not hack it because she wanted the man and the position but the man was forever taken by someone else. A more pragmatic person might have considered the position and not caused a fuss but Diana wanted to let it all out. To cry, complain, stump her feet...it was a cathartic experience but it cost her very dearly. Even the happiness she so wanted never happened. When they spat her out, Diana realized only too late that she was better off within the fold but she could not reverse the consequences of her responses to Charles' infidelity.

Double post auto-merged: June 25, 2017, 05:15:52 PM


There is an anecdote (don't know whether it is true or not but I read it somewhere) that when the queen presented Diana with the loversknot tiara before her wedding, she went out and started shouting "I've got Brenda's rocks" etc.  If that anecdote is true then the seeds of failure in that union were sown at that very point. By giving her that historical tiara, Diana was being welcomed into the fold as a future queen and queen mother. She would follow in the footsteps of the QM, Alexandra and Mary of Teck. Her reaction (if true) showed that this was a very immature 19-year old and Charles had no business proposing to her, let alone marrying her. She was just not cut out for the role. Diana would have been perfect as a celebrity campaigner or charitable worker but she was certainly never going to have a 40th wedding anniversary as a wife to the prince of wales. It was just not her style.
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace

Curryong

^ I have never heard of the Queen being addressed as 'Brenda' by Diana, in or out of her hearing, and I seriously doubt that the anecdote you quote is true. Diana was for several years quite tentative and rather nervous around the Queen, and she wore the Spencer tiara to her wedding anyway. The Queen wouldn't be presenting her with any tiaras until an occasion came up in which she was to wear one, and certainly not before she became Princess of Wales.

sandy

#347
Quote from: amabel on June 25, 2017, 02:42:22 PM
oh yes, he should certainly have followed his uncle Edward. 

Did you read my post. I said COULD not should.

Double post auto-merged: June 26, 2017, 12:13:40 AM


Quote from: Trudie on June 25, 2017, 04:48:45 PM
My take on things regarding Charles and marriage at the time Royals were now marrying for love not dynastic opportunities. The Victorian era and Edwardian eras were over. George V allowed his children in the case of George VI to marry for love as did their daughter Elizabeth II. Charles was too much in the thrall of Mountbatten with his own agenda and wayward Victorian ideas. Why The Queen and Phillip allowed Mountbatten such prominence in Charles life is a mystery when one considers how much the Queen Mother disliked him.

Marrying for love@royalanthropologist is not a fairytale it is however the basic foundation to enable a successful marriage.

Mountbatten was self serving. But I still blame Charles for his own choices. The Queen Mother and Mountbatten were both bad influences IMO though in different ways of course.

I think Mountbatten was an enabler for CHarles' own bad behavior.

Double post auto-merged: June 26, 2017, 12:18:07 AM


Quote from: royalanthropologist on June 25, 2017, 05:07:59 PM
I beg to disagree with that notion @Trudie . Yes, being madly in love is ideal but this was not some romantic storybook tale. Diana was being invited into a dynasty to become its matriarch. The idea that she thought that Charles would be the doting devoted lover shows that Diana did not really understand what she was facing. Being a queen of England is a lot more than having a romantic relationship with your husband. The royal family is like a firm. You put up with lots of personal trials for the greater good. I can guarantee you that Charles and Camilla have disagreements. They may even have bad rows but Camilla knows that there is a lot more to this than her being a contented wife.

Besides even those who start off with lots of love can end up getting divorced. The sentimentality is the high expectation of this particular marriage. So many external people were pinning their hopes on it working. The royal family was very, very foolish in not vetting Diana carefully. Just a little glance at the domestic life of the Spencers would have informed them that Diana was never going to fit into the Windsor style. To her credit, Diana's grandma warned her but she did not listen. You have to be very strong and very disciplined to survive that environment. Emotional incontinence is frowned upon and under no circumstances must you ever challenge or upstage your royal consort. Once you deviate from that, you are out and the out can be very unfriendly for an ex royal as Sarah Ferguson and Diana learnt.

If you are looking for comfort then I am afraid the House of Windsor is not the place to get it. Diana could not hack it because she wanted the man and the position but the man was forever taken by someone else. A more pragmatic person might have considered the position and not caused a fuss but Diana wanted to let it all out. To cry, complain, stump her feet...it was a cathartic experience but it cost her very dearly. Even the happiness she so wanted never happened. When they spat her out, Diana realized only too late that she was better off within the fold but she could not reverse the consequences of her responses to Charles' infidelity.

Double post auto-merged: June 25, 2017, 05:15:52 PM


There is an anecdote (don't know whether it is true or not but I read it somewhere) that when the queen presented Diana with the loversknot tiara before her wedding, she went out and started shouting "I've got Brenda's rocks" etc.  If that anecdote is true then the seeds of failure in that union were sown at that very point. By giving her that historical tiara, Diana was being welcomed into the fold as a future queen and queen mother. She would follow in the footsteps of the QM, Alexandra and Mary of Teck. Her reaction (if true) showed that this was a very immature 19-year old and Charles had no business proposing to her, let alone marrying her. She was just not cut out for the role. Diana would have been perfect as a celebrity campaigner or charitable worker but she was certainly never going to have a 40th wedding anniversary as a wife to the prince of wales. It was just not her style.

Mary of Teck fell in love with George and vice versa. They were a love match and he never strayed. Mary would have given Camilla the same treatment as she gave Wallis Simpson.

The "I've Got Brenda's Rocks" is hearsay.

I would say Charles needed to grow up. From the account of Junor he seemed to be a spoiled baby.

If Charles were "taken" by someone else (a married woman who was already "taken" no less!) he had no business marrying Diana unless he wanted to have sister wives or have a harem.

There were plenty of royal couples that had "romantic" relationships: Nicholas and Alexandra, Victoria and Albert, Vicky and Emperor Frederick, Mary and George V, Philip and Elizabeth, George and Elizabeth, Sophie and Edward, and so on.  Diana had every right to expect the same.

amabel

well I know its a waste of time to argue but Princess May of Teck didn't fall in love with George.  She and he married because of the situation of her being engaged ot Eddy, and losing him, and George then becoming heir and needing to find a wife.  They made a sensible marriage and grew into love.. but it was hardly Romeo and Juliet. 
The same thing might have happened to Charles and Diana, but unfortunately they were not that compatible.. Diana knew little of royal life, she knew little of Charles and while she loved him in a way, it was superficial.  He was fond of her, and hoped clearly that he would grow into love with her.. and that they had enough in common to make a start.  There's a lot more to marriage than "falling in love". but they hadn't enough in common.. he had already been in a relationship with Camilla that he found satisfiying.. and I think he was bewildered by Diana's abrupt volte face when they were married.  She had seemed jolly and pleasant and simple.. now she was angry and upset all the time. he tried to calm her down, and to introduce her to life in the RF.  She was volatile, hated the RF life when suddenly plunged inot it.. and was unwell.  and it all went south from there.  He tried to take her away on sunny holidays, and do less shooting etc.. but she wasn't really happy except when they got away from Britain and were able ot be together with Will.
She couldn't help being ill, and there was not much psychiatric help at the time for people with eating disorders. 
It was a tragedy and niehter of htem were to blame.  Charles did his best, but he could not make himself fall in love.. they might have grown into it, had they shared enough interests and not upset each other...

royalanthropologist

I totally agree with @amabel. People tend to imagine that because other royal consorts do not blurt out their heartache and problems to the press, their lives are fairy tale romances. Until Diana, members of the royal family were generally discreet. This was a first time that a future matriarch of the dynasty was out there washing all the dirty family linen to people who never had the best interests of the institution at heart. The queen had to do something. It could not go on like that with Diana briefing the press and trying to denigrate other royal family members' work or upstage them. She just had to go, no matter how sympathetic members of the family might have been to her plight. Ironically, paradoxically and even puzzlingly; Diana who had complained so much about this "f...in family" did not want to leave. She did not want to be divorced. Very strange behavior.
"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do"...Gianni Versace