Charles and Diana

[Pranter]

Correct.


LaRae

 

[Dman]

The Queen and the rest of the family weren't happy with Charles and Diana's interviews. It was very stupid moves, but I think people just have to understand that this was a couple who were in a very difficult and painful time in their lives. It's not easy going through a rough and tough separation and later divorce.

I don't excuse their behaviors, but I don't trash them for it either. Charles and Diana's private problems spilled out in public, because they failed to dissolve their issues at home in the proper and private manner. I also think those around them failed to help them do that.

Royal duties and responsibilities to the institution of the monarchy, country and Commonwealth is very important and I will never dismiss it. But when it comes to private and personal matters at home, a future King and Queen must take the time to straighten out those issues properly and for the sake of their family. The duty and responsibilities to each other as, husband and wife, and as parents, is far more important than anything else.

Don't take care of your problems at home, everything in ones public life will eventually fall apart in front of everyone.

 

[loonytick]

The Queen and the rest of the family weren't happy with Charles and Diana's interviews. It was very stupid moves, but I think people just have to understand that this was a couple who were in a very difficult and painful time in their lives. It's not easy going through a rough and tough separation and later divorce.

I don't think anyone should underestimate how still relatively new the pervasive press atmosphere was - the older generations couldn't give good advice for how to handle it, since none of them had dealt with quite that animal before, so Charles and Diana's generation of royals were having to feel out new territory. Their peer royals in other nations also tended to be much more open to having their smaller moments play out in front of cameras, thinking of it as part of "being seen to be believed." That once-unheard-of openness to the press had actually started within the British family pre-Diana, when the Queen allowed documentary film to be made within the palace showing the royals going about their day, etc. But of course, it's a thing that becomes more fraught once marital discord comes to play, and especially once that discord becomes public.

I think it's also important to remember that their trouble was playing out at the same time that both Andrew and Anne's marriages were also falling apart. There were so many fires quietly burning left and right in that family at that time, it's no wonder one of the conflagrations burned out of control in a very public way. I have to wonder if HM and Prince Philip would have been more hands-on or focused in guiding the couple to a quieter handling of things if they hadn't seen simultaneous crumbling relationships among all of their married children.

 

[Mermaid1962]

My husband and I didn't. True, it's not possible for a couple to know absolutely everything about each other before marriage, but it's not true that "every couple tell a lie to each other."

As to the country/Balmoral issue: It seems that Diana enjoyed the country enough when she lived in it. There are many pictures of her as a girl and teenager enjoying country things. I'm sure that Balmoral was charming on visits there, and Diana also had Prince Charles to concentrate on during her visits. For a young woman who lived with friends of similar age in London and who based her life there for a couple of years, spending two months in a remote location with people she didn't know that well and in circumstances that were new to her--well, that would un-nerve more than a few people.

Every couple tell a lie to each other when they're perusing a relationship. That's how life goes. I'm sure Charles told her some lies too.

 

[Dman]

My husband and I didn't. True, it's not possible for a couple to know absolutely everything about each other before marriage, but it's not true that "every couple tell a lie to each other."

As to the country/Balmoral issue: It seems that Diana enjoyed the country enough when she lived in it. There are many pictures of her as a girl and teenager enjoying country things. I'm sure that Balmoral was charming on visits there, and Diana also had Prince Charles to concentrate on during her visits. For a young woman who lived with friends of similar age in London and who based her life there for a couple of years, spending two months in a remote location with people she didn't know that well and in circumstances that were new to her--well, that would un-nerve more than a few people.

The lies couples tell each other don't have to be very bad lies. There are little lies couples tell each other when they're dating. Lying about liking football because ones partner loves watching football. Things like that.

I think Diana would've enjoyed being with the royal family of today. Mingling with her sons, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, Wessex's, Tindall's, York's, etc. When she joined the family in 1981, the family was pretty dull and everyone acted much older than they were. Can't be easy for a young 21 year old girl to adapt to that.

 

[Denville]

I agree that most people and couples do fib a bit, unless they are terribly high minded.. Men go and see soppy movies, women go and watch sports.. and they pretend they are having fun. but usually after marriage they begin to GRADUALLY slide out of the things that they dont really enjoy doing. Whereas Diana abruptly went from "enjoying country sports with Charles" to suddenly HATING it and resenting his going off and doing his shooting.
I think that Di enjoyed "country life" to an extent as a kid but as a young adult she was bored with "hunting shooting and looking out at a rainy day," and longed to go to London and began to enjoy urban life much more. Even though she liked sports, they were non blood "urbainite games "and pastimes like the gym, swimming, tennis.
I think that while she had grown fed up with blood sports and muddy boots for quite a while before her marriage, what really hit her on the honeymoon was that she was stuck with this lifestyle.. that the queen was cross because she was bored and scared by the Balmoral house party.. that Charles realy LOVED his sports and couldn't do with out the stress busting relaese that they gave him..

 

[Osipi]

Maybe, just maybe, Diana envisioned a country life with a husband that would be constantly by her side rather than preferring to keep up with doing the things he really enjoyed about country life. Long walks alongside the River Dee with someone who adored her and kept her on a pedestal as the only person in his life would maybe have enhanced liking country life rather than distracting from it.

If I remember right, Diana's complaint was that she was left alone to her own devices while Charles was off doing things she had no interest in.

 

[COUNTESS]

And loved another woman. That's the rub.

 

[Osipi]

At the beginning, I think Charles did love another woman but was committed to his marriage and becoming "in love" with his wife. What was threatening to Diana was the fact that she knew that there was a friendship that ran deep with someone else and that ol' green eyed monster reared its head and Diana was determined that kind of strength of friendship belonged to only her and set about to try and manipulate it so that Charles had no choice but to focus on her and her alone.

A mature person would have realized that of course a person has strong friendships outside of the marriage and would have had a better advantage to get to know and like those that Charles did. Y'know... the old keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. It was this kind of threat that began the downfall of the relationship between Charles and Diana IMO. The more she cut him off and tried to control things, the worse they got. No one likes to be manipulated. A marriage is supposed to be a partnership built on love and trust and honesty and frankly, there was very little of that to start with in the first place.

 

[royal rob]

It amazes me how this topic just goes on and on. It's pretty simple really. If you marry someone while you are in love with someone else it's not going to work. Plain and simple

 

[Osipi]

My point was that at the time of marriage, we don't know that Camilla was the have all and be all in Charles' life. Certainly they were close, intimate friends and that circle also included Camilla's husband Andrew along with their two children.

I think its very well in the realm of possibility that Charles had a warm, intimate and close friendship relationship on a platonic level at the time he married Diana. He did feel that perhaps having Diana for his wife would be a relationship that could grow into something deeper and that was his intent on marriage. He never figured that the rest of his friends would ultimately be cut off from him as a result of said marriage.

We really don't have any concrete proof of where Charles' head was on the day of his marriage but I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Curryong]

I don't think, if true, the remark that Princess Margaret made to friends on the eve of the engagement, as the news seeped through, that she hoped 'Mrs Parker Bowles will let him go' made that prospect very hopeful.

Regardless of how Charles felt about Camilla, whom he had seen on and off since his early twenties and for whom his feelings were very deep, I think the primary emotion in Charles's heart on his wedding day should have been overwhelming love and passion for his bride. This was the young woman he was to pledge his future life to in front of the altar.

And so, from the fact that he did not feel anything for her apart a fondness, and the belief that he could grow to love her, came all the miseries that we know of afterwards. Because, of course, if great love isn't there blocking out thoughts of any other woman, then a union starts off on a wrong footing from the beginning.

Plus of course they were completely wrong for each other temperamentally anyway and Charles should have taken his time, realised it and not proposed!

 

[Osipi]

One thing we do know is that when it came to the whirlwind courtship between Charles and Diana, Charles was between a rock and a hard place. No matter what he did, there were expectations and he would be letting someone down. He had it drummed into him that he must marry and provide the heir and the spare to the kingdom and as he grew older, the viable brides for him were getting fewer and fewer. He didn't really have the option of falling in love with whomever he chose but there were limitations on just who he could fall in love with.

In the end, Diana seemed on paper the right one to take the plunge with. Unfortunately it was a plunge into a tsunami.

 

[Denville]

My point was that at the time of marriage, we don't know that Camilla was the have all and be all in Charles' life. Certainly they were close, intimate friends and that circle also included Camilla's husband Andrew along with their two children.

Ithat could grow into something deeper and that was his intent on marriage. He never figured that the rest of his friends would ultimately be cut off from him as a result of said marriage.

We really don't have any concrete proof of where Charles' head was on the day of his marriage but I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think she was very important to him but perhaps even he didn't realise it at the time.. that he thought he could cool his love for her down to a loving platonic friendship and go from being fond of and attracted to Diana to being deeper In love. But he and Diana had so little in common that the love didn't have much of a chance to grow. I don't believe that Diana reaelly cut him off from people, I think she DID expect a lot of attention from him but she was a young romantic girl, and didn't realise that he was a busy man and also a bit of a loner.. and when she felt neglected, ill and depressed, she got more irrational. and that put Charles off her...
And she and he were beginning to realise that when they spent time together they didn't have much in common. So I think that Diana did at times beg and yell for him to leave his friends alone - esp Cam and spend more time with her.. but at times it was simply that he felt that she was ill, pregnant and depressed and needed him.. as was proper, to spend more time with her and let his friends get on without him. But I gather that ove time Diana excuse herself from attending parties with his friends and either stayed home alone or went out with her own pals.. I don't believe that apart from Camilla, she cut Charles off from his friends.

I don't think she realy saw them as having a "rural life" together, she imagined they would mostly be in London.. and woud not be stuck in the country on a rainy weekend at shooting parties...

 

[Mermaid1962]

Perhaps she thought that the weekends at Highgrove, away from London, would be just that: weekends at home, enjoying each other's company. She knew that Prince Charles hunted and played polo, but perhaps she thought that he wouldn't do it quite as much as he did once he had a wife and family. If I were a 20-year-old bride, I'd think the same thing. I'd want him with me during our time off together, particularly in the first year or two after the marriage. I don't know about other places; but where I live, there's an assumption that people will spend a lot of time alone together in the first year of marriage or so. There isn't the assumption that they'll be going out as often.

 

[Denville]

he did cut back on his hunting and shooting in the early years of marriage and he wrote to his friends before marriage telling them that he wouldn't have so much time to spend wit them now he was married. But I think that when stuck at home or wherever, together, they both found that there wasn't muc to talk about and they probably found each other rater tiring company. Diana was pregnant and Charles did make an effort to take her away on sunny holidays in the winter, to cheer her up.. and I think that in the first year or so, in spite of rows there were loving times.
but she was ill, depressed bulimic and not always easy to live with. And he tried to be a paitient loving husband and to understand her moods and her change from "loving the country" and "hanging on his every word".. but it was hard for him. And she still loved him but now "up close" I think she found him boring and hard to understand and she lashed out at him.. and he wasn't really used to that.
so even in the early few years it was a lot of stress and pain and "not really adjusting" though they did try.

 

[Denville]

One thing we do know is that when it came to the whirlwind courtship between Charles and Diana, Charles was between a rock and a hard place. No matter what he did, there were expectations and he would be letting someone down. He
In the end, Diana seemed on paper the right one to take the plunge with. Unfortunately it was a plunge into a tsunami.

yes Osipi, It was drummed into him that he should make a sutiable marriage, to a girl who had no past, who was a well bred unmarried girl preferably... who was a Protestant and knew what royal life was about.
that wasn't necessarily a disaster. He might have fallen passionately in love with some girl of that sort in his mid 20s.. or he might have chosen woman he was fond of, had interests in common with, and built a good loving relationship. "Passionate overwhelming love" isnt' IMO a necessary foundation for a good marriage. its bound to fade and you need something solid underneath it.
And IMO a lot of people, when the "passionate love" fades, they get bored and restless or confused... don't make the effort to build something new and solid, and end up divorced.

Charles might have been madly in love with Diana, and found her a young beautiful charming girl..at the time of marriage..
He might have felt thtat he loved Di, that he loved her more than he'd ever loved Camilla and married her happily... but I think he would still have found out within a year or 2 that she and he had little In common. and that she was fragile emotionally and not really able to cope with the strains of married life or being part of the RF without a huge amount of help.. and that she bored him and he bored her..
And if he'd split with Diana after a few months dating, he would have had to start again, because he was getting to the age when he was expected to marry.. I think the public wanted it, the RF wanted it, and unless he wanted to be a 40 year old Dad to his kids and to be marrying a girl nearly 20 years his junior, he DID (as Philip put it) need to get ON with it and get himself wed.
If he had left Diana, then in 1980, he might have attracted a lot of bad press, for leaving a popular and lovely young girl, after flirting with her and raising her expectations.

 

[Countessmeout]

I can say I am grateful divorce was no longer seen as unthinkable. And that these two didn't stick it out. Yes I wish Diana was alive, but the divorce was best for all. Even for the sons, staying together for kids makes no one happy.

It was more than a difference in hobbies but personalities. Diana wpuld never be a good consort. She said it herself she wanted to be queen of their hearts. But it was not the role she was meant for. Charles would be king. And she the consort. Like Philip, the consort is meant as the supports one step behind the monarch, not the Center of focus. Diana would never be someone to stay a step back, to support her husband in his role.

 

[Denville]

Sort of agree, but I don't think tht Diana meant to overshadow Charles.. It just happened. And I don't think it was necessarily bad, if she and he had not been unhappy because then she got tempted to use her glamour and star quality against him..

It is terrible that Diana died before maybe she had a chance to find a lovig husband.

 

[Nice Nofret]

I think with the make up of Dianas personality it is very difficult, if not improbable to find a companion to be happy with for the rest of your life. Only if she had matured and grown in her personality and found resources in herself to be happy.

 

[Curryong]

The trouble is, they had barely twelve dates before getting engaged. He was 32 and in spite of the pressure to wed, should have taken more time. If they had dated for ten months to a year, the chasm between them on almost every level might have been clear.

All the same, after they had become engaged Charles showed little propensity to change his lifestyle even a tiny bit. From Sally Bedell Smith's new biography of Charles,
'On weekdays Diana scarcely saw Charles. Even after their engagement she wasn't a priority for him. 'I tend to lead a sort of idiotic existence of trying to get involved in too many things and dashing about' he said shortly before his wedding day. 'This is going to be my problem- trying to sort myself and work out so that we have a proper family life.'
Yet he showed no inclination to shed even the smallest commitment, whether for his work or his sporting pursuits, in favour of spending time with his new fiancée.'

'One of Charles's biggest mistakes was a six week long overseas trip to Aus, NZ and the US, beginning on March 24th. Granted, it had been planned six months in advance, along with the rest of his crowded diary, but for the sake of his relationship with Diana he could have trimmed his duties or at least curtailed his trip.'

On the night of the second wedding rehearsal, a party hosted by the Queen at BP for hundreds of friends and relatives saw Diana alone. Sally Westminster, widow of the 4th Duke, said afterwards that 'Charles left his bride for several hours to spend time with the Goons comedians in another room.' 'The pathetic little Lady Diana was left alone to make conversation with people she did not know.'

Shades of Charles not taking note of people he supposedly cared for once again, a la being oblivious to Anna Whiplash Wallace's feelings when he danced with Camilla all night at a ball.

 

[Queen Claude]

I think it is better to show the "real" you warts and all, which is what Charles did, than to create false impressions to snag the prize which is what Diana did. I think that there is enough blame to go around in the failure of the Wales marriage, and while I judge Charles for being a self-involved jerk and other things, the data was there and Diana made an informed decision.

 

[Denville]

she iddn't create a false impression, she did IMO ignore the affair with Camilla and blinded herself to it.. but she got on well with chalres at first because she had made herself belive that she liked all the things that he liked..
and he - being used ot people agreeing with him and no doubt believing that they ReaLLy really agreed, rather than just being polite because of his positon, DID believe that she was a country loving girl who enjoyed sports and the rural life, an simple things and that she was eager to learn about the more intellectual matters that he liked to think about . but she was genuinely fooling herself that she DID enjoy the same things.. I think that it was only after the marriage when she had prolonged exposure to the RF and to Charles, that she realised "I hate a lot of this stuff".

There are certain things in a marriage that no matter how much you try, you're never going to get your other half remotely interested in. Even in my "golden" years, I have yet to have a spouse get me interested in American football and after 20 years, if my hubby hasn't gotten the bookworm bug yet, it ain't going to happen. We're totally opposite in a lot of ways such as he's TV and I'm on the computer. He likes junk food and I love my salads.

of course that's true, but people have to have something in common and Charles and Di had almost nothing. they loved their children and that was about it. And for very rich people, hobbies are probably what does bind a couple since they don't realy have the same "sharing ordinary life", experiences.. they don't HAVE to work, they don't have to look after the kids themselves, their wrok such as it is, si chosen for them, so their hobbies are probably their main way of expressing their individualities..

 

[Denville]

Its slightly off topic perhaps but a propos the RF it seems as if THEY TOO believed Diana was a nice country loving girl who would enjoy being at Highgrove with Charles, being a wife and mother, finding pleasure in simple things.. like the garden and the country...They didn't see Di's more volatile side, they didn't think that she was unsuitabe for Charles because she was younger and not much educated. They were pleased to get her into the family because she seemed to love C and was young pretty and charming and the public loved her so she'd be an asset.. so if you like it wasn't just Charles who was fooled or who wasn't aware that he and DI were incompatible.

 

[Osipi]

Diana was a very in between person. She felt like a misfit in the royal family. She was below her station with the staff and she had never found a truly stable and loving relationship with anyone on a give and take basis.

 

[Jacknch]

Please note that several posts have been edited/deleted. This thread is about Charles and Diana. It is not a discussion to create or speculate upon what other members of the Royal Family might or might not have said or thought. Also, ss requested many times before, let's keep Camilla out of the equation please.

 

[Denville]

Diana was a very in between person. She felt like a misfit in the royal family. She was below her station with the staff and she had never found a truly stable and loving relationship with anyone on a give and take basis.

I don't think she had much chance. She and Charles were a dreadful mismatch and she was married to him all her adult life. She hardly had time to have any sort of "open" dating with other men, as she was only free of her marraiage finally in 1996.

 

[Lady Nimue]

Diana was a very in between person. She felt like a misfit in the royal family. She was below her station with the staff and she had never found a truly stable and loving relationship with anyone on a give and take basis.

I think James Hewitt qualifies as a stable and loving relationship across the 6 years or so that it was maintained, at least on Hewitt's part. Diana was dallying even while in that relationship so I'm not sure Diana had it in her to ever stay loyal to one man. It just seems the case. There is this significant myth that Diana needed to find 'the one' to have peace and happiness 'ever after'. I just don't think she was wired for that (the way Charles was, for example).

Consider that she had married the one man who, as even she declared, would never divorce her. Yet, she succeeded in detonating that nuclear explosion: what never could happen did indeed happen under her aegis. It took some doing but she got it effected. To me that's evidence a-plenty that Diana was not looking for stability. If she was, she would have made other choices.

For me this is the single haunting question: why couldn't Diana live the quiet, nested life she claimed she wanted? A snap of the fingers could have achieved it and she'd be alive today. It's a curious thing.

 

[Denville]

What snap of the fingers? What "nested life"? It would harldy have been a "nested life" with Charles...

 

[Lady Nimue]

What snap of the fingers?

It's a figure of speech. Not sure what to say to explain it. I am saying that she had the money, the influence, and the (social) power to shape her own life as she chose. After her separation, and most definitely after her divorce when she effectively exited the BRF, Diana could have lived a quiet life with only the few obligatory appearances tied to her position vis-a-vis her sons.

In fact had she been so inclined to live there is the possibility she would have been able to marry the doctor. As I say, she'd be alive today had she been able to un-focus from the crowd.

What "nested life"? It would harldy have been a "nested life" with Charles...

In my book Diana lived a 'nested life', very much so, as does The Queen. With Charles she got addicted to the adulation of the crowd. It's a very sad story. In fact, it's the one thing she could have really taken a lesson from Charles concerning, and from the whole of the BRF: how to live a life privately away from the public eye.