Charles and Diana

[soapstar]

I've deleted a number of off-topic posts. This thread is not about Charles and his friends/acquaintances. Let's stick to the topic which is Charles and Diana.

 

[Denville]

Yes, typical of the thinking of the early 1900s to 1920s. Fossilised by the 1970s! I have to say that I don't know too many young men in that era, in public life and out of it, who would have followed the advice of a very elderly man (however fond they were of him) in picking a suitable bride.

The last time I saw that sort of thing happening was in the film 'The Student Prince' with Mario Lanza that I caught once on late night TV!

:

sorry but no not "fossilised" at all. I'm sure if Charles had asked advice of his paretnts, (who weren't exactly Edwardians) he would have been told the same. yes have relationships, get experience iwht women but the future queen must be someone who has not had any previous relationships.

I am not that old but I remember the 70s fairly well. I came from a conservative religious background, and that was the conservative thinking at the time..
It was only just being challenged that women with a sex life were "promiscuous", whereas men were just having a normal life. Ordinary couples were just starting to live together prior to marriage and generally It was only just becoming acceptable to have children out of wedlock.
For a prince, like Charles, it was not possilble to have an open "live in relationship".
I don't believe that Charles was following Mountbatten's advice per se - like most people he followed advice when it suited him and didn't if it didn't suit him...
he was doing what was generally considered in the RF circles to be the acceptable thing.. ie he could have a pre marital sex life, but his wife had to be inexperienced.
He said to journalists that "you chaps can live with a girl and get to know her, before marriage. I can't do that. I have to get it right first time."

I wont comment on Mountbatten's own marriage because I think that is really OT for this thread..
But IMO it was true that in the 70s, Charles' bride was going to have to be a virgin, I read it in articles and papers at the time.. and that meant that there was likely to be an age gap...

 

[Denville]

:

Charles admits he began an affair with Camilla "after his marriage had irretrievably broken down", and yes, I believed him both then and now. Diana sobs on Panorama about her lover of several years "betrayed her". Now here's the kicker, did anyone go "say what! our perfect princess with not one, but several lovers"? Oh no, her fans damned Hewitt and called him a cad and he is vilified to this day, in the same way that Charles was branded an adulterer.

As I recall Diana felt that Charles was going ot marry TIGGY not Kanga, and she didn't "hate Charles' friends".. she just had nothing much in common with them.. and she did resent them as time went on because she felt that she was getting on badly with Charles and they were still close to him.
And she didn't have "several lovers".
I really do wonder at times why people seem to act so horrified by what is IMO a normal love life...
Diana didn't have the pre marital relationships that most women have, she did not have any serious boyfriends, and when her marriage broke down, she made up for lost time.
She had Hewitt certainly, but she didn't get involved with him until after Charles and Camilla had resumed their affair. And later, when her relationship with him broke down and her marriage was clearly completely finished, she had other relationships. what was wrong with that? These affairs took place after her separation from Charles. He clearly didn't care tuppence what she was doing, he didn't suffer any pain or jealousy. She may have hurt other women..wich was selfish of her but she certainly wasn't hurting Charles...
She may well have thought that as Oliver Hoare was not faithful to his wife, she was a sophisticated woman who didn't care about his affairs, and at first Di was probalbely only looking for a little affection. Later, I think she fell for Hoare and wanted to marry him.. and thought that he would be wiling to leave his wife for her.. And yes she was wrong there to try and pressure him. but please don't lets be sayng that she was hurting her husband in having one of these "many affairs..."
They had nothing to do with the breakdown of her marriage, they were the consequence of its being a failure.
Charles had "Only one affair" because he had done his sowing wild oats. He had had many pre marital relationships, and when his marriage failed he had settled on the woman he was happy with and went back to her...
As for Hewitt, yes he is a cad. He did betray her. They had an affair, it ended, and he for money sold his story. He went on selling it even after she was dead and betrayed or made up confidences she had given him in private. If that's not caddish behaviour I don't know what is.

 

[MARG]

I stand corrected! Kanga was an earlier target.

 

[Mermaid1962]

You must be about my age then, Denville. This is pretty much what I remember from those eras as well.

I'm really an old fossil, as I've been previously told by at least one other poster on these Diana forms.

 

[Denville]

I stand corrected! Kanga was an earlier target.

I don't know what you mean by a target, she wasn't IMO really considered as a serious rival by Diana..

 

[Denville]

You must be about my age then, Denville. This is pretty much what I remember from those eras as well.

I'm really an old fossil, as I've been previously told by at least one other poster on these Diana forms.

I don't think wer're Fossils Mermaid. I am going to be "perpetually middle aged"!
However it is a long time ago and there have been huge social changes since the 1970s.. its foolish IMO to judge Charles for going along iwht the standards of that time.. just as it is foolish to judge Victorians for what they thought in THEIR time..

I don't say I agreed with it, at the time, I was young and "radical minded", and felt that all this double standard was very unfair. but I did come from a conservative Catholic background, and so perhaps I can remember what things were like better. I'm sure that the rest of the "older" royal family, people of the age of Philip and the queen (much less the Q Mother or Mountbatten) would have felt that it was Ok for Charles to gain pre marital experience, but certainly Not ok for his wife to be gossiped about in the papers, or seen as a flighty young woman who had had other lovers.
Ordinary people were starting to live together in the 70s, but I think it was considered "Just about OK" as a pre marital thing, (Of course people had casual affairs and one night stands as they have always done - and the PIll meant that contraception was increasingly safe and easy and foolproof) and I think that generally speaking, it was becoming acceptable for a couple to live together prior to marriage, but usually they didn't have children. By the 80s, sex was getting "free-er" in the time before AIDS came along, and it was increasingly acceptable to have children outside marriage.. and for gay people to be more open abut their sexuality...
But someone like Charles couldn't openly live with a woman, or marry a divorcee or a woman with a chequered past..
when Fergie married Andrew there was some chit chat in the press about her pre marital love affairs and it was said that the RF had felt "well she's marrying the second son and nowadays, most girls of her age are bound to have had a few boyfriends that they lived with.. ".
That's the way things usually go with the RF, usually a minor member "does something unconventional" first, then it moves into the younger members of the main family..
At first only cousins got divorced, then Margaret and Anne's marriages broke up and they divorced. Then the divorce situation happened with Andrew and Charles..
When Edward and Sophie became a couple, the queen allowed them to live together, and Will and Kate were also living together before their marriage but that was not the case for Charles and his serious girlfriends...
And I'd say that the RF held to the old idea that it was OK for a woman to have affairs after her marriage and the production of the "heir and spare".. because marriage gave her status and protection and it was safe for a Prince to carry on such a relationship, discreetly because her being married would mean she was already safely "taken". and in olden days I'm sure the more naïve of the public would be like "Oh Prince So and So can't be doing anyting naughty with Mrs X, she's a married woman"...

 

[Curryong]

No baby boomer will ever be old! Sixty is the new thirty for us, and seventy is only middle age creeping up!

As someone who did live with my future husband in those times, I can remember a few raised eyebrows. However, not every girl in those days went to bed with their boyfriends and I'm sure there were still some suitable aristocratic girls out there in the late 1970s who were in their early twenties without 'pasts' who could have become Prss of Wales, without choosing a rather troubled and extremely naive nineteen year old.

 

[Katrianna]

To me, the prospect of Charles marrying a young beautiful girl who was a virgin and without the label of having a "past" was the fairy tale dream of the romantic public and the press. I remember my co-workers at the hospital who were in their Fifties and early Sixties, terribly old to me at the time, but which age I now have arrived at ;-), thought this was also a "role model" for the younger generation. Here was a young woman "waiting until marriage" and this is the ground for the long and happy marriage. In the US women's magazines there was also this implication although very tacit.
When the story came out at the time, incorrectly as we all know, of a young blonde woman leaving the Prince's train early in the morning and it was implied that the woman was Diana, my co-workers were a little shocked yet they seemed to accept the story because "it was fairly close to the wedding" (their words). The press seemed to treat it as a "wink-wink" "nudge-nudge", "maybe the future bride isn't as innocent as we portrayed her", but it all rather blew over quickly while the Palace issued a denial.
The groom with his sowing his wild oats before marriage while the bride had to be innocent and virginal was a carry over from past times especially for the eldest and Heir to the Throne in this case. It was delusion, but that was thinking then for Charles and Diana.

 

[Denville]

No baby boomer will ever be old! Sixty is the new thirty for us, and seventy is only middle age creeping up!

As someone who did live with my future husband in those times, I can remember a few raised eyebrows. However, not every girl in those days went to bed with their boyfriends and I'm sure there were still some suitable aristocratic girls out there in the late 1970s who were in their early twenties without 'pasts' who could have become Prss of Wales, without choosing a rather troubled and extremely naive nineteen year old.

well Exaclty. If there was tutt-tutting, for ordidnary people tehre woudl certianly be tut-tutting if Charles had tried it.
I'd say that most upper class girls did have a sex life by the time they were inot their 20s. So the closer they were to charles' age, the more likely they were to be ineligbile. and Charles was attracted to Diana. I think she was so sweet and pretty, that he certianly didn't go inot the marriage in a cold blooded spirit. He was fond of her, he didn't know she was troubled. how should he? She came across as a charming sweet inexperienced but grounded young girl. (in the sense that she didnt' seem to hae any airs and graces, was easy going and pleasant, had a nice litlte job and a quiet circle of friends...)
He was harldy to know how messed up she was emotionally, i think that only came out when she was engaged... and married.

 

[Denville]

You must be about my age then, Denville. This is pretty much what I remember from those eras as well.

I'm really an old fossil, as I've been previously told by at least one other poster on these Diana forms.

I meant to say Mermaiid, that I guess I'll just say i was a kid in hte 70s!

 

[Denville]

Toworkers were a little shocked yet they seemed to accept the story because "it was fairly close to the wedding" (their words). The press seemed to treat it as a "wink-wink" "nudge-nudge", "maybe the future bride isn't as innocent as we portrayed her", but it all rather blew over quickly while the Palace issued a denial.
The groom with his sowing his wild oats before marriage while the bride had to be innocent and virginal was a carry over from past times especially for the eldest and Heir to the Throne in this case. It was delusion, but that was thinking then for Charles and Diana.

Not sure what you mean by a delusion? But that was the way most upper class and middle class (and probalby most couples) married prior to the later 20th C. Generally unless it was a very strictly religious culture, (where BOTH sexes were meant to remain virginal till marriage), it was OK for the man to have experience but not for the woman. And marriages probalby worked out Ok.. for the most part. Upper class girls were usually allowed a bit of freedom when they had been married and produced some children..

But I think that it was a bad idea for the Diana/Charles marriage in that she was SO young, and inexperienced in general. She didn't seem to have had any serious boyfriends, had little experience of the world, and she hadn't made up for that lack of experience by doing well educationally.
She could have been a virgin - as was considered necessary, and still been a more savvy and educated young woman than she was...
There have been biggish age gaps like 12 years between other modern royal men and their wives, but usually the woman wasn't as young as 19 or 20 and usually seems to have had an education. (For Example Q Mathilde of Belgium is several years younger than Philippe but she was about 26 not 20 when they married).

And another problem I think that was that Diana was not all that willing to learn. Not exactly that, but she was stubborn in her resistance to being "told what to do". She did learn in her own way, but she didnt want to read books, because I think she feared her ignorance or lack of abilty to learn well being exposed. She got cross and resistant when C's aides tried to educate her, and shied away when Charles himself wanted her to share his reading... She did learn her job but she would have probably saved herself some stress at the beginning, had she already been better informed, or had she been willing to do what the aides suggested...

 

[Mermaid1962]

It's more that my beliefs about marriage and sex are seen as "fossilized", although I certainly don't believe in different sexual standards for men and women. I just don't comment on Charles' and Diana's extramarital relationships because I'm usually accused of being too old-fashioned. No one needs that. BTW my birth year is part of my username.

You must be about my age then, Denville. This is pretty much what I remember from those eras as well.
I meant to say Mermaiid, that I guess I'll just say i was a kid in hte 70s!

 

[Denville]

But it's not really their extra marital affairs that are at issue here? Its the fact of Charles being expected to marry a virgin.. which WAS the case in the 1970s, and IMO its not fair to blame him for going along with it and believing that if he fell for a girl who had a lively past, he woud have a hard time getting permssion to marry her..and the papers would problaby zestfully go on about it.
I think he knew he had to marry a virgin which basicaly meant looking at girls who were several years younger than him.. and his preference IMO was a for an experienced woman who was his own age or a bit older, becuase he was rather shy and awkward.. and I dont think he really wanted a shy young thing. I think that Diana was "bouncy" enough, on her good days to convince him that she was not a shy little mouse that he would have to look after...but modest and young enough to please the public and his family..
And she was very pretty and sweet and seemed to be really fond of him.. so I think taht all those factors made him feel "well I know I can't marry someone of 30 witht a past, and so if I have to pick a young girl, Diana is almost perfect..."
so while he wasn't exaclty in love with her, he was fond of her, and charmed by her and "willing to fall in love"...
But I think that over the time of thte courtship and perhaps after they got engaged, he began to get a bit nervous and wondered if she was really as down to earth and cheery as she had originally seemed..and perhaps he began to feel that he was "pushing himself" to be in love... and so he had doubts..]
But what coudl he do? He could not IMO stand out against the fact that he was now over 30 and it was time to get married.. and that the public liked Diana and if he ditched her, he had to start all over again...
I think it is unfair to blame him for being fooled by Di's seeming to be a perfect bride who shared his interests.. or for going along wit the convention of the time that his wife could not have a past and that he coudl not "live with a girl" to get to know her...

 

[Osipi]

Is it actually anywhere written in stone that Charles' bride had to be virginal? I've heard that it was assumed that was the case and the press sure did a number suggesting a pure, white, virginal and untouched Shy Di of 19.

Is it really written somewhere or are we assuming this was the way it was. Curious minds want to know.

 

[Mermaid1962]

I think that it was just social convention, not something that was in a rule book for picking future princesses.

 

[Denville]

Is it actually anywhere written in stone that Charles' bride had to be virginal? I've heard that it was assumed that was the case and the press sure did a number suggesting a pure, white, virginal and untouched Shy Di of 19.

Is it really written somewhere or are we assuming this was the way it was. Curious minds want to know.

What does written in stone mean? Of course there is not a law or a rule book, but as I've said and one or 2 seem to agree with me, at the time, yes it was generally felt that the future Queen had to have no past. There is no written constitution in the UK and there is no law saying "the Princess of Wales has to be a virgin on her marriage..."
But there are lots of things in the UK and other societies that aren't "written down" but they are conventions that a majority of people adhere to, at least in theory or give lip service to.
I can remember the 1970s, so can Mermaid and others. As I've said at tedious (I'm sure) length, ordinary people were only just beginning to live together then. Safe reliable contraception had come in with the 60s and that meant that for the first time, young women could engage in "easy guilt free sex".. without the fear of pregnancy...So when Charles started dating around the late 60s, for the first time a Prince of Wales was dating "nice girls" who were now free to have premarital relationships... Prior to that, nice girls DIDNT do this, so had Charles been around dating in say the 1940s, his upper crust girlfrends would have been almost certainly virgins.
Conservative people still disapproved of the trend for young people to go on holidays together and sleep together or to live together in trial marriages..and generaly royals are behind the times with social trends.
People were behaving more freely, but for Charles, he was still stuck in the 50s.. in that it was seen as allowable for him to have his fun but no one wanted the future Queens exes being persuaded to talk to the press about her past, or for Charles to set up house with his latest girlfriend...
I dot think I'm that old but I can remember a time when it was felt that a woman having a sex life meant she was promiscuous, whereas a man was "just being a man".
In fact in around the early 90s when Edward got together with Sophie, the queen allowed them to lvie together in Buck Palace, and there were conservative religious commentators who disapproved...

 

[Osipi]

Gotcha and what you've said makes a lot of sense but I do think that by the time the 70s rolled around, after the major societal changes of the 60s, dating which included intimate relationships were more the norm than not. Maybe it wasn't that way in the upper circles in the UK but all I have to go on is what I experienced myself during that era.

What it boils down to really is that Diana was the perfect Princess Bride on paper and at first, it seemed to both of them to be a solid, grand idea to go ahead with the marriage. I would wager my last corn flake that had they lived together for a year before marriage, the wedding would never have happened. I advised all of my kids to live with their intended before thinking about marriage. It worked.

 

[Denville]

I think that its not really that simple. People live together, nowadays, spend years courting or sharing a house and a life and is the divorce rate any lower? No.
Of course it helps to know your intended well, but I tink esp if one party wants to get married very badly, they will try their damnedest and make sure that the marriage takes place.. even if it ends in divorce some time later.

The thing is, we're not talking about upper class circles in the UK.
From what I know, they did often live together as well, by the later 70s...
but Charles was not just upper class. He was the future King,. he was a public figure. So he was held to a differnet standard. Have you heard the phrase that the "royal family are ourselves but behaving better?"
I can't recall who said it, but that's what the idea was, that the RF were people who in return for thteir privileges had to at least TRY to adhere to a higher standard of behavior.
So divorce for the POW or King was out.. though there was no legal ban on it. The only King who got a divorce was George I and he never remarried so he didn't break the rule really...
So Chalres knew that his marriage was supposed to last.. that he was not allowed to get a divorce..and that he could not just marry anyone, she had to be suitable in terms of breeding, upbringing and hopefully fertility.
Had he been just Charles Earl of X, he could have married the girl in the corner shop, even if he just liked her for her looks.. and if the marriage went pear shaped he could get a divorce.. or he could have lived with her outside marriage. But Charles POW in return for his privileges, had to stick to certain standards that were beginning to be seen as old fashioned.
It was the same with Ed VIII and Mrs Simpson. There was no legal bar to his marrying a divorced woman. The only legal prohibition was on his marrying a Roman Catholic. And it wasn't unknown at the time for upper class people and even middle class ones to get divorced, though it wasn't that common. but Edw as King was expected to go by the stricter standards of the C of E.. that he could not marry a woman with "2 husbands living" and that if he married a "suitable bride", he could not get a divorce.

 

[COUNTESS]

Oh my, I have socks older than some of you. It was the year of my 75th birthday. But with that being said, the standards were there. She had to be a pristine, aristocratic and no baggage bride. She also had to be fertile. There was an exam for that. Their real problem was that she wanted a marriage and all that went with it, he was fine with that to a point. He had a mistress, lots of princes had mistresses. The problem was he truly loved his. And all the other stuff is collateral damage. No, woman wants to be married to a man who loves someone else. Yes, she could have been Queen Alexandra and ignored everything, but she was immature and insecure.

 

[Denville]

Oh my, I have socks older than some of you. It was the year of my 75th birthday. But with that being said, the standards were there. She had to be a pristine, aristocratic and no baggage bride. She also had to be fertile. There was an exam for that. Their real problem was that she wanted a marriage and all that went with it, he was fine with that to a point. insecure.

THere isn't an exam for fertility. All that tests can do is see that you have the appropriate parts and that they work OK.. but it does not guarantee that you will have children.
Of course they hoped she would be fertile, that's one reason they wanted a young wife.. but if she hadn't been, if she and C had married for 10 years and had no children.. that just would have to be lived with.
And the problem was not that he had a mistress.. It was a part of it, but only a part. The main problem was that Diana wasn't what she appeared to be. She was volatile, nervous, over sensitive and also very stubborn.
I think that Charles could have fallen in love with Diana, maybe not in the same way that he loved Camila, but it would have been OK.. However the problem was that within a few months of the marriage, she was miserable, sick and depressed and it was obvious that she was not coping with married life or with being a Princess.
She abruptly gave up seeming to enjoy the things she'd enjoyed, it had seemed before her marriage. She was losing weight, bulimic and while she still was able to dazzle the public, she was very difficult in private. She feared all the public attention, but in a way she responded to it.. it gave her something that she realised was special... and that she could use to make people happy and she got something back from them. But she was still afraid of the press and the whole hoopla.
Charles tried to cope with her, but he realised that she was very depressed and unwell.. but I'm sure the more jealous she got, the more she pushed him to think longingly of Camilla...

 

[Dee Anna]

Diana was a wonderful Princess of Wales, irreplaceable and precious, however there's no way I'll ever believe she really loved Prince Charles.

Ever hear of the saying, 'You protest too much my dear'? Well, Prince Charles protested his lack of love too much and Diana insisted on her undying love too much, and there may have more truth in the reverse than anyone suspects.

If Charles was not Prince of Wales, would Diana have ever been interested in him? In real life, has anyone ever seen anyone like Diana marrying a common man like Charles, with the exception of Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovitt of course? Charles is really too geeky and prissy to inspire such undying passion.

So I believe Diana was in love with the idea of marrying the Prince of Wales, she was in love with the idea of being the Princess of Wales, she was in love with the idea of the Prince of Wales being in love with her, she was in love with the idea of being the queen of hearts, cherished and beloved by all. And she deserved all of that, but not because she had a deep and profound love for Charles.

You believe! That's all that is really!

 

[Dee Anna]

Here we go again!

I thought these two split up years ago?!

Are they only getting divorced now?

Princess Diana's rock selling family home to fund divorce | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV | Daily Express

 

[Denville]

You believe! That's all that is really!

so someone "geeky" can't inspire passion?

 

[Mermaid1962]

I've always been drawn to intelligent, quiet guys. Geeks work for some of us.

 

[Denville]

I've always been drawn to intelligent, quiet guys. Geeks work for some of us.

Well there's a place for everyone. I think that Diana was in love with Charles but she was deluding herself. She DID admire him for beign so clever, as she thought of it, and he was the POW and he was an older man, and her father had let her down a lot... all these things drew her to him. But she began to find the "clever talk" incomprehensible and boring..and I think as she got more fed up with him, she began to feel that her own practical knd of intelligence was just as good if not better...

 

[Roslyn]

Prince Charles offered Princess Diana different choices for her thirtieth birthday on July 1, 1999: lunch, dinner, a ball. Diana refused all of these.

I assume you mean 1991. Considering the state of their relationship at that time, I'm not surprised she refused to be part of that sort of fake exhibition of unity. As it is, she had a lunch at the Savoy in aid of the Rainbow House Hospice, and a dinner in a function room at the Natural History Museum. There is a video on YouTube of her attending the lunch, but there were no photos at the dinner. Apparently Charles spent the day in the country.

Here's an interesting little contemporary article by Washington Post staff writer Roxanne Roberts, that suggests Hewitt may have celebrated Diana's birthday with her: washingtonpost.com: International Special Report: Princess Diana, 1961-1997

 

[Denville]

Mistake.. I wonder was it turning 30 that made her decide to out the troubles in the marriage? that she felt she was getting older nd could not put up with being in a mrraige with a man who didn't care for her much longer?

 

[Denville]

I rea

H

It's well known that the Queen never interferes with the love lives of any of her children (or grandchildren.) Doesn't do it now, didn't do it in the 1970's. So who laid down this edict to Charles that 'No, a girl who has had previous boyfriends or a serious relationship is completely unsuitable. Your wife HAS to be a virgin (and therefore very young).'

Whd previous boyfriends?

I dont think that it is true to say that the queene doesn't interfere, I think that nowadays she IS more pro active in terms of her grandchildrens' love life. it is said that she has advised young couples in the RF to be in a relationship with anyone they are serious about, for about 5 years.
I think that one reason it was so long before Will and kate got engaged was that noone wanted him to go into a marriage like his father's. They wanted him to be as sure as one can be, that he was happy with Kate.
THe queen also allowed Edward and Sophie to live together in the years after Diana's death, at B Palace, because I think she now realised she HAD to get involved a bit more in her family's marital lives to make sure that no more dramas and scandals occurred.
And she didn't NEED to say this to Charles "Remember your wife has to be a virgin". It was a given..
That was why Philip DID chivy Charles along when he was courting Diana, saying apparenlty "If you dont get on with it, soon there wont be anyone left".
By the time of Andrew and Sarah in the mid 80s the social climate had changed. It was a LOT free-er, and as Andy was the second son, it was possible for him to do somethig that Charles could not do.
And with Edward, she went a step further and clealry siad to him "Live with Sophie before you get engaged."

Then in the next generation, AFAIK, pretty much all the young couples who married, Like Will and Kate, or Zara Phillips and her boyfriends, were live in couples for a while before they married.

 

[MARG]

In your opinion! Statements of fact need to be backed up by a credible source and your allegations about Charles, his parents and his subsequent marriage are not.

As far as I'm aware Charles wife didn't have to be a virgin . . . she just didn't have to have "a past" that could come back to haunt them. Charles knew he would have to marry . . . that's a no-brainer, but HM and Prince Philip's words are your own.