TWO-FACED EARL'S DIANA REBUKE
Oct 22 2003 Mirror
EARL Spencer stood looking down on the coffin from his elevated position in the ornate pulpit at Westminster Abbey.
As he spoke, his words rattled around in my mind, words he had directed at his sister: "Your mental problems ... Your fickle friendship ... I was a peripheral part of your life and that no longer saddens me ... Our relationship is the weakest I have with any of my sisters..."
That was what I heard as he delivered his emotionally charged masterpiece of oratory, speaking, "as the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock".
BRAZEN: Earl delivers his attack on royals from pulpit at Westminster Abbey
My ears weren't listening to his public funeral address delivered on 6 September 1997. I was recalling the private words he had delivered to the princess a year earlier on 4 April 1996; words the world should have heard before it jumped to its feet in a tearful ovation after his funeral speech.
As his voice echoed through God's house, I sat in the choir stalls, head bowed, suppressing disbelief as his carefully crafted words leaped from the pages in his hand and grabbed the monarchy by the throat, leaving the crowds outside applauding its public humiliation, while the master of the 'blood family' seized the most inappropriate moment to claim the moral high ground.
The hypocrisy masked by his eloquence was only known by the princess's real family: the people like me who knew her best, the surrogate family of chosen friends and confidants who knew the truth of this alienated brother-sister relationship.
I didn't see the closest of brothers walking into the pulpit that day. I saw a distant cousin who was once close in a faraway childhood; someone speaking on behalf of a remarkable adult he clearly loved but didn't know.
By his own private admission, he had only seen the princess around 50 times since she got married in 1981. He expressed that statistical truth in a rambling letter, which she read with me on the stairs at KP in the spring of 1996.
As the abbey and the nation were riveted by his funeral address, I found myself caught between two flashing images: the earl speaking fondly in the elevated pulpit above me; the princess on the stairs, holding one of his letters, entirely different in tone.
In the abbey in 1997, he said: "Fundamentally she had not changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby."
Then my mind flashed back to 1996: "After years of neglect on both sides, our relationship is the weakest I have with any of my sisters ... perhaps you have more time to notice that we seldom speak."
And "I ... will always be there for you ... as a loving brother: albeit one who has, through 15 years' absence, rather lost touch - to the extent I have to read Richard Kay [in the Daily Mail] to learn that you are coming to Althorp...'
Back in the abbey: "Diana remained throughout a very insecure person - most childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom."
In 1996: "I fear for you. I know how manipulation and deceit are parts of the illness ... I pray that you are getting appropriate and sympathetic treatment for your mental problems."
The princess felt she was over her bulimia, but what upset her most was the suggestion that she was mentally ill. 'Mental problems' was a phrase she had thought she would only ever hear from the sniping friends of Prince Charles.
ATTACKED: Earl fired off hurtful letters to Diana
BACK in the abbey: "The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her vulnerability, while admiring her for her honesty."
In 1996: "I long ago accepted that I was a peripheral part of your life, and that no longer saddens me. Indeed, it's easier for me and my family to be in that position as I view the consternation and hurt your fickle friendship has caused so many..."
Then he referred to William and Harry. "We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair..." Another flashback: "I'm sorry but I've decided that the Garden House isn't a possible move now.
There are many reasons, most of which include the police and press interference which would inevitably follow."' That letter had driven the princess to tearful despair.
His request for the Spencer tiara had upset her, and his letter of April 1996 had brought tears again. Many commentators viewed his speech at Westminster Abbey as the expression of his pain for a sister badly treated by the system.
In my eyes, it was the words of a man riddled with guilt, focusing on childhood because of the distance that had come between them in adulthood. But he includedsome apt tributes, too, describing the "unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both external and internal, will never be extinguished from our minds".
And he captured the "joy for life, transmitted wherever you took your smile, and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes..." I couldn't help feeling, though, that this man, who had caused his sister so much heartache in recent years, was not the man to speak on her behalf, to be the standard- bearer for the princess.
He had turned down her plea for sanctuary at her ancestral home, yet was preparing to accept her into the grounds now that she was dead.
I sat there thinking, how can he be so hypocritical in God's house? Nor could I believe that, on a day of remembrance for a remarkable life, the earl had chosen such a moment to make a veiled attack on the Royal Family, reminding the world that he, his sisters and mother were the blood family who would protect William and Harry "so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty".
Then Earl Spencer finished his address, and there came the sound of rippling applause, rolling in from the streets, through the Great West Door and down the nave; a Mexican wave of clapping.
I looked around and saw Elton John and George Michael clapping. Euphoria was greeting a travesty of the truth, and the Queen's humiliation was complete.ANemotional outburst from a Spencer was received warmly by a people who, that week, had turned like never before against the House of Windsor. I felt a profound sense of injustice.
The Royal Train was waiting for us in London, and I was invited to the family-only burial service, 70 miles away at Northamptonshire at the Althorp estate.
As the hearse carrying the princess collected a shower of flowers on its crawl through London and up the M1, I joined the Spencer family, Princes Charles, William and Harry aboard the train with its smart burgundy carriages, pulled by the two locomotives named 'Prince William' and 'Prince Henry'.
At Althorp Earl Spencer stood at the top of the long, rosewood table, telling everyone where to sit. I found myself positioned rather awkwardly between the Boss's mother and ex-husband, Mrs Frances Shand Kydd to the left, Prince Charles to the right.
It wasn't easy for the prince to be sitting there on Spencer territory, having endured the anti-Windsor tone of the earl's funeral address, knowing that all eyes were not looking at him kindly.
Conversation was difficult and stilted but - as the only one around that table who knew how civility had been restored between the prince and princess - I kept the small- talk rattling along, knowing that a conversation about Highgrove and its gardens would see us through the three- course meal.
"You must come down and see the gardens some time," said Prince Charles. "I would love to, Your Royal Highness," I replied, knowing that it was unlikely. William and Harry sat on the other side of their father, nearer the bottom of the table.
Both boys were quiet, chipping in with polite conversation now and again. As coffee was being served, a butler approached the earl and whispered in his ear.
He stood and left the room, and he must have been gone for about five minutes. When he returned, he announced, "Diana is home".' The burial service was 30 minutes long. What happened and what was said should remain private.
All I will say is that at the end I crouched down, picked up a handful of earth and dropped it on to the gold plate that read, 'Diana - Princess of Wales 1961-1997. Then I stood, and said aloud: "Goodbye, Your Royal Highness." We all reconvened in the drawing room for a cup of tea.
Everyone stood huddled in little chattering groups. Then Earl Spencer approached the television in the corner of the room, and switched it on. All eyes turned to the screen. The highlights of the funeral were being shown on one channel. Prince Charles and his sons stood there in silence. The room was silent.
Why are we watching this now? I thought. Then Earl Spencer's voice came out from the back of the television, filling the room. His echoing voice from Westminster Abbey. His speech from the pulpit. I have never been caught in such an awkward moment.
But Prince Charles was clearly not standing for a repeat performance of the humiliation. He put down his cup and saucer, and said to William and Harry, "I think it's about time we were leaving."
.. but thanks for doing it.. this pictures are great haft of them I hadn't see them 
