Charles and Diana

[Dman]

It didn't have to be a back out, but at least the elders in Diana's life could've given her some constructive advice on sitting down with Charles and figure things out. This is a couple that needed some counseling before and after their wedding. They needed some good guidance. They just had a lot of "yes" people around them. They really didn't have a good support group.

I'm not really crazy for Princess Michael of Kent, but she did speak up just a couple of years ago on Diana. She said Diana really didn't have any support around her and anyone who could understand her situation and position.

It's one of the reasons why I get upset when the media like coming down on the Middleton's. They're not a family who understands the royal world, but they are a family that's very loving and very supportive of the Cambridge family. Catherine needs her family around her family. Especially as her role grows and positions change. A good support team is very much needed in those kind of positions.

 

[Iluvbertie]

If Charles and Diana had sat down and talked about things they would have both, hopefully, realised that this was a mistake and both called it off.

It is clear in hindsight that both of them wanted out but both their families wanted it to happen with arguments like 'you can't, your face it on all the tea-towels' - how pathetic is that as a reason to encourage your sister to go through with a marriage. That comment says a lot about what the Spencers wanted - a royal bride - not happiness for Diana but a title and future King from their family.

That the Queen and Philip didn't listen to Charles when he raised the issue of not wanting to go through with it says a lot about them as well. They didn't care about their son's happiness - only about getting him married and settled regardless of how much it was wrong for him.

Even the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time has since said he had his reservations about them as a couple. He should therefore have done what other ministers in the CoE are instructed to do - refused to marry them until they were sure and he was sure that they were marrying for the right reasons and not because she wanted to be a Princess and he wanted to have a bride to be the mother of his children.

Had any pre-marriage counselling happened that was any good it would have been simple - 'don't do it - give yourself a year or two together and see'. As we now know that marriage was largely over within the first two years.

 

[Lady Nimue]

If all of that happened and common sense prevailed, who might have Charles then married? Who was on the horizon? This pairing may have been destiny.....there was certainly every energy being directed to it taking place.

 

[Curryong]

Well, certainly every energy of the British Press, and it was largely the print media in those days, was directed at getting these two married off because the journos and editors were in love with Lady Di.

I've always read that Charles asked his mother's opinion on whether he should marry Diana (in the early stages of the romance) and she refused to give him one. The BRF weren't at that time very good at face to face confidential chats with each other. It's unfortunate that the Queen didn't reply that if he was so unsure about it that he had to ask her then the answer was clear.

This is all in hindsight though, isn't it, and hindsight always has 20/20 vision. At the time it's clear that all parties were hoping for the best.

 

[MARG]

Maybe it was a different time, but the idea of a 32 year old man marrying a 19 year old girl is kind of nauseating. It makes Charles come off as a bit of a creep to be honest.

I'm 19, and I'd have more in common with a baby than a man in his 30s.

Just as a matter of interest (to me) my mother was 18 and my father 32 when they wed. They had 5 children and loved each other til the end. So my advice would be to try not to make personal, ill- informed and insulting statements about situations of which you have no experience.

It appears that many aspects of pop-psychology are creeping into this thread. Statements are being made with no point of reference along with a litany of what he or she did and shouldn't have or should have done and didn't. We need to remember the rules of posting and referencing which seems to have gone by the board.

I do not accept "I read somewhere . ." as an acceptable reference. If it is worth posting it's worth referencing, and the DM doesn't count.

On a purely personal note, I find the statement that infidelity was not just a fact of life but a way of life for royalty and aristocracy pretty damning. Look at any of the great loves in history and they have to be seen through the lens of adultery. The only real "evidence" I have seen to corroborate that situation comes from reading Barbara Cartland novels in my very early youth.

Somehow I don't think that counts and, when the people you are maligning are still alive, it behoves one to take care in what you are actually saying. Princes William and Harry have both had assistance to help them deal with their family situation. I can't help but believe that ill-informed, speculative and slanderous statements made against either of their parents are very pleasant to deal with 20 years after the fact/

 

[Curryong]

I don't think Anfisa wasn't meaning anything insulting or slanderous. She's obviously a very young woman and is just giving her opinion on age gaps.

As for me, in my previous post when I wrote that the Queen had refused to give her opinion about whether Charles should marry Diana I was quoting Jonathon Dimbleby 'The Prince of Wales: A Biography' P 282. 'The Queen characteristically refrained from tendering her opinion.'

It is also in Sarah Bradford's 'Diana'. As that particular book is on my Kindle I can't give a page number. Amazon frequently sell books on Kindle with no page numbering. However it is in Bradford, Chapter 5. 'Whatever Love Means'.

I don't believe that Barbara Cartland wrote 'bodice-rippers' or books about adulterous love at all. All her young heroines were pure and the hero proposed marriage at the end.

The views expressed here of the British aristocracy being louche is in my view more likely to come from people reading memoirs of aristocratic life between the wars that have been published in the last couple of decades, as well as, of course, details of Viscount and Viscountess Althorp's divorce petition and that of Peter and Janet Shand Kydd in 1968 and also later of Viscount and Viscountess Dartmouth, (Raine) as it pertains to Diana's life.

 

[MARG]

Thank you for your referencing. The actual book and author or interview etc. are enough for people to go and look and read for themselves.

As for Barbara Cartland's 'Bodice Rippers', the hero's invariably started out as dyed-in-the-wool rakes with a mistress, etc. which they end up rejecting in favour of 'true love' and become besotted, reformed rakes!

 

[Iluvbertie]

J
I do not accept "I read somewhere . ." as an acceptable reference. If it is worth posting it's worth referencing, and the DM doesn't count.

If I had read it in the DM I would have referenced that.

I have a very large collection of royal related books, articles etc and don't have the time or interest to go back and read through pages and pages of 100s of books to find a reference for a forum. If I wanted to use it in my PhD thesis (not being done on Charles and Diana thankfully but a way more interesting topic) I would reference it but in a discussion board - sorry not necessary and I won't be doing it.

I believe that with over 10,000 posts I have made it clear that I have read extremely widely on British royals all my life.

Where and when I read something I have no idea anymore.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

Same for me.

I have read far, far too many books on history and the BRF in particular to provide a page # for every quote I reference, as much as I would like to.

But sorry, it can't and won't happen. I will assure everyone who cares about such things that I never, ever post something that is false, and I have a near photographic memory....and I most definitely do not quote from the Daily Mail.

Ever.

 

[Jacknch]

I think we need to get back on topic please. As a reminder, the rules state: "Whenever possible, opinions should be based on factual information obtained from reputable sources and should be backed up by references to those sources".

 

[loonytick]

I can't help but assume Charles would have been very aware of at least his own family's history. Edward VII alone had eleven known mistresses, including Alice Keppel (Camilla's great-grandmother) who was not only known to Queen Alexandra but accepted to the point that she was allowed a seat at the King's deathbed in 1910. There are so many sources for that historical fact, I wouldn't even know where to begin citing.

That the Queen Mother allowed Charles and Camilla to meet in her home speaks volumes the the idea that there was at least a begrudging acceptance still of the practice of saving public face by creating a private outlet, so to speak.

I can't help but assume Charles would have been very aware of at least his own family's history. Edward VII alone had eleven known mistresses...That the Queen Mother allowed Charles and Camilla to meet in her home speaks volumes..

Forgive me for not citing above the most important example Charles would have had in matters of indifidelity, his "grandpapa" Earl Mountbatten. The two were tremendously close in the first decade of Charles' adulthood. The prince has credited the Earl on many occasions as having been a trusted and beloved mentor. The Earl and his wife were completely open about their affairs. The Earl himself said he an Edwina spent their married life "getting into other people's beds" and their daughter, Pamela Hicks, has said their lovers were accepted as family.

 

[Osipi]

I think "Uncle Dickie" was Charles' surrogate father in so many ways and Charles definitely looked up to the man. Louis and Edwina did live the discreet private lives that many aristocratic couples did and were quite happy and at ease about it.

Diana was a totally different ball of wax. Her parents had an acrimonious divorce and the harsh words continued between Frances and Johnnie long after the divorce was final. Perhaps if Frances and Johnnie had followed the example of Louis and Edwina to resolve their private matters, Diana wouldn't have felt so threatened by "other women" in Charles' life. Diana had a huge fear of abandonment and anyone or anything that seemed to indicate that they could come between her and Charles drove her to paranoia.

This is all my supposition but when a person tries to hold onto someone else to the point of suffocating them, the end result is the exact opposite of trying to hold someone closer. It drives them away.

 

[Curryong]

Forgive me for not citing above the most important example Charles would have had in matters of indifidelity, his "grandpapa" Earl Mountbatten. The two were tremendously close in the first decade of Charles' adulthood. The prince has credited the Earl on many occasions as having been a trusted and beloved mentor. The Earl and his wife were completely open about their affairs. The Earl himself said he an Edwina spent their married life "getting into other people's beds" and their daughter, Pamela Hicks, has said their lovers were accepted as family.

Yes, but they did not have anything like a solid family life and at least one of the Mountbatten daughters is on record as having written that although she admired her mother (for her public service presumably) she didn't like her very much.

Also, I really doubt the veracity of a man born in 1900 mentoring a younger man born in 1948. Yes, I know the two really loved each other and Mountbatten provided a male role model for Charles which a certain estrangement from his own father could not.

Nevertheless Mountbatten's views on marriage, on the suitability of certain young women, on fidelity, had been formulated in the 1920s and 30s and by the time Charles reached manhood in the late 1960s a very different society had developed.

In my view Mountbatten's mentoring and advice, lovely though it was on a personal level, contributed to Charles being old for his age, out of tune with his generation, and ultimately to a view about the sort of girl he should and shouldn't marry that didn't serve him well at all.

 

[Denville]

I don't think that Mountbattens' views were that much out fo date for a senior ROYAL like Charles, dating in the 1970s.
yes many people by then were starting to have live in relationships but even so conservative people were tut tutting about that.
And it wasn't possible for Charles to live with a girl, and his wife did have to be a girl wth no past. So for Mountbtn to advise charles to have some relationships but to end up iwht a girl who had no sexual relationships was pretty much what you would expect.
I'm sure that If Philip had given him advice it would have been much the same "Play the field son, but you have to have a wife who doesn't have ex boyfirends coming out of the woodwork and tlaking to the papers."
It does not mean that a marriage is going to be unhappy, because there's an age gap or an experience gap between the 2 partes. other royal couples have married with a fairly big age gap and seem to have worked out..
The problem was that Diana was not just inexperienced sexually, she was very "unlearned" in all kinds of ways. She knew little about the RF even and you'd think she would know that sort of stuff, she had not learned anything at school, or about the world. Her one brief trip abroad had resulted in her coming back after a month or 2, so she didnt' learn a language or anything about a foreign country. Charles was interested in lots of things, and had she been aware of theise things, I tihnk they could have gotten over her lack of sexual experience.

I . Her parents had an acrimonious divorce and the harsh words continued between Frances and Johnnie long after the divorce was final. Perhaps if Frances and Johnnie had followed the example of Louis and Edwina to resolve their private matters, .

I think that it was the way that Johnny and Frances behaved to Diana that left her scarred and fearing abandonment.. Her mother walked out, and even fi there were good reasons, that is scary for a child. So she was afraid of being left alone as her mother had left her alone. Its said that Diana clung to her father then when left at home with him.. she used to follow him around and offer to make him cups of tea. But he kept himself to himself... and then sent her to boarding school. So instead of his trying to make up For Frances' disappearance, he withdrew from his children even more so she was then afraid that people would leave her just as her FATHER had also "Left her" emotionally. Then Johnny S came out of his seclusion and married a woman whom none of the children coudl stand so again, Diana was "ditched" by her father, in that he was now wrapped up in Raine..
From what I've read her mother used to get very emotional when the kids ivisited her...and talk emotionally...
and this upset Diana, and she would talk about her poor mother being "left all alone" when they had to go back ot their Dad, even though she knew her mother had her husband.. but she was hurt for her mother and of course she was the one who was scared of being "left all alone.."
So I agree that when she married, she was eager to have a husband who would never leave her alone and who would be there fofr her all the time..
and Charles even if he hadn't had lingering love for Camilla, was a busy man who had a lot of work and a lot of interests.. and Diana didn't really share those interests. So when they got married, I tink that she did not want to go shooting with Charles, or sit discussing Philosophy.. she wanted him to stay home with her, not subject her to the boring wet hobby of shooting.. and tlak about HER, not about L Van Der Post..

If she had shared the hobbies, and gone on enjoying them with Charles, I think they would have adjusted into marired life and she would have realised over time that they didn't have to be joined at the hip.. but she didn't.. and she was ill and upset and Charles while stil caring and trying to help, got scared off by her upsets and tantrums.. and he began to wish himself far away from her at times./
and she focussed her unhappy feelngs on an increasing conviction that their marriage wasn't working out because of Camilla and yes, I think that if someone is constantly accused of infidelity, they ARE often tempted to go ahead and do it..

Thank you for your referencing. The actual book and author or interview etc. are enough for people to go and look and read for themselves.

As for Barbara Cartland's 'Bodice Rippers', the hero's invariably started out as dyed-in-the-wool rakes with a mistress, etc. which they end up rejecting in favour of 'true love' and become besotted, reformed rakes!

well that's the point. They are not bodice rippers at all. The hero may have a mistress but he ends up married to an incredibly pure and usualy naïve young woman. A Bodice ripper is a book with a lot of sex in it.. BC's have no sex.

Maybe it was a different time, but the idea of a 32 year old man marrying a 19 year old girl is kind of nauseating. It makes Charles come off as a bit of a creep to be honest.

I'm 19, and I'd have more in common with a baby than a man in his 30s.

? that seems to indicate that a 19 year old woud have something in common with a child 18 years younger, so why not with a man 12 years older?
Anyway it is nonsense. Chalres had to marry a younger woman, many people marry with much bigger age gaps and the marriages work out fine.

 

[Curryong]

What about Charles trying to share some of Diana's hobbies and interests, or realising that she was bored stiff by van der Post, suggesting something lighter that they could read together (wouldn't need to be fluff) or catching a film that she would like and could discuss later? Revolutionary, eh! Why did everything always have to revolve around Charles, the philiosophies of his much older(sometimes false) gurus, his friends, his way of life, his shooting, his hunting, his hobbies?

That's why I often say he was a man out of stride with his generation. When young I went out in Norfolk with men who were of Charles's generation or a bit younger, before I married, university educated men, not yobs, and some who lived in rural areas of the county.

I just don't recognise Charles's world views, stances, attitudes, in any of them, even ones who rode or shot regularly. They were far more likely to call you up wanting to see the latest film or enjoy a great restaurant or even art exhibition than wanting to sit by the fire discussing Jung.

 

[Denville]

well yes he was an old fashioned person, he had old fashioned views. that's who he is. If Diana dated him and she DID , and didn't enjoy the shooting or fishing (thogh she went along with it) NOr the stuff about philiosophy and architechture why did she continue to date him?

 

[Curryong]

Hoping for a change in his personality or an attitude bypass, perhaps!

 

[Denville]

well that does not happen. People don't generally change that much.
And the trouble was that as far as I can see Diana very abruptly dropped "going shooting" and the country sports stuff after the wedding. Usually if someone's been "going to football matches to please her boyfriend", once they get married she would GRADUALLY drop it.
Diana seems to have done so very quickly as soon as they were In Balmoral, and was soon actng like she hated the place, that she was miserable, and hated chalres going out shooitng.. I think she could have kept up the pretence a bit longer and slowly begun to move away from "sharing" that part of his life.
I think he was entitled to feel a bit cheated if his wife had barely got the ring on her finger and she is now saying that she hates the country lifestyle that she origanaly claimed to love.
And I think that at the time Diana didn't have many interests that Charles might have tried to share. She liked reading romances.. now honestly very few men are going to take htat up!! no matter how in love they are. She liked swimming and sunshiney holidays and Charles DID go with her to sunny places, to try and please her.. but she wasn't at that stage a very developed person.. and there wasn't much on "her side" that Charles could try and find some common ground in. In a few years, yes she developed. She had the children, she got more into her charity wrok but by then she and Charles were at odds with each other.
I think that at first the children were a common interest and C liked being in the nursery.. but as they grew a bit older he was conscious that they were royal kids and "had to behave in public" and Di I think was inclined to spoil them. ANd he did like her being a very loving mum but knew that as royals they had to behave "perfectly" in public.. (remeber Williams behaviour at Sarah and Andrew's wedding?)

 

[Osipi]

I do think that when Diana married, she had the "happily ever after" scene where the husband is always adoring his wife, living on her every word and being right by her side through everything. Most Barbara Cartland (and Harlequin) romances basically all have that fairy tale feeling to them. I was hooked on them myself around 15 or so.

Diana had basically no idea or experience in a long term relationship and the give and take of every day life and those "I love you but I don't like you much right now". When things weren't all rainbows and unicorns, Diana hadn't a clue how to handle it. She was not only fighting against her husband's past times and hobbies but also feeling the demands of his role of Prince of Wales which took him away from her quite a bit.

One of the biggest drawbacks I think that hampered the marriage getting onto a more even keel is that Diana would rant and rave and cry and, in other words, throw a temper tantrum. That is not a way to go about solving a problem.

 

[Countessmeout]

Or because she was a highly sheltered 19 year old with little life experience and education. She got caught up in the fairy tale of it all, and assumed things would work out. Charles on the other hand grew up in a world where princes had mistresses and wives looked the other way. He was expecting a virginal young bride who could bear him kids and be a nice companion, while keeping his own personal life. Instead he got a woman who was incompatible with his interests, too insecure in her new role, and who wasn't able to over look his affairs.

A man at 32 and a woman if 19 in many ways have as much in common as a 19 year old a toddler, that is to say nothing. A toddler and a 19 year old might both like cars And horses but that means different things to different people.

In modern royal marriages, 13 years is a huge gap. Back in the day gaps were common as marriages were not love matches but political unions.

Not to say the gap can't work. But it takes a level of maturity and security Diana lacked. Diana was very much a teenager, not ready for an adult relationship. My sister and brother in law are fourteen years apart and together almost 20 years. But they had more then common interests, though those help too. They were both adults. They were mature, educated, had life experience. And they took their time as well. the bigger the age gap, the more important things like shared interest and goals, and both people having a level of maturity, is needed.

Unfortunately no one in Diana's family told her it wasn't a fairy tale book. She would likely have been so much happier with a nice aristocratic husband,mliving a private but posh life like she grew up in. With someone with a nice city home and not just country estate.

 

[Denville]

I agree Osipi. I don't like to put all the blame on her though. Everyone thorws tantrums!! I do! even when I'm a lot older than Di. Charles got angry as well, he was easily frustrated because he's used to being spoiled and he had little experience of give and take in a marriage/ relationship because his women mostly problaby went along with what he wanted because of who he was..
But if she had not fooled herself intot believing that she enjoyed so many of C's hobbies then they would have had something to start with. Even if say she said one day "I hate fishing", she could still have enjoyed watching him shoot.. or if she found Van der Post boring, she might have tired learning about architechture or some other interest. but apart from music they had almost nothing.

A
In modern royal marriages, 13 years is a huge gap. Back in the day gaps were common as marriages were not love matches but political unions.
.

I dotn agree. Many ordinary people marry iwht bigger age gaps and work out ok. Just as many couples marry with short courtships and work out fine.
I can't remember names _ will check later... but i know that there are at least 2 or 3 other royal couples in the present day who have like 10 or more years between them.. and they seem to be happy and faithful couples. (Prince Nicolaus of Lichtenstein is 10 years older than his wife, and P Albert II of Monaco is a good bit older than Charlene.. for example)
IMO the problem was more to do with Diana's lack of maturity, which was exceptional.. and her lack of any "mental furniture"....She might have been a 19 or 20 year old who read a lot, and at least knew a lot from her books if she had not got much real life experience of jobs or travel or the like. But she didn't. The problem was that she wanted C to be iwht her a lot but they had little to talk about.

I think that once the courtship phase was over, Diana became open about her dislike for things that during their courstship she had shown an interest in.. I suspect that just as she seemed to love outdoors life and sports, she also looked enthuasitic when Charles poured forth about architechture.. and the like.. and he thought
"well she did not do well at school but that's because she' wasn't motivated, now she IS keen to learn about stuff like this and will be ready to read and learn with me..."
And so he was surprised to find she was obviously bored and mutinous, and she found that instead of finding his conversation fascinating as she had when dating, she was now bored stiff by his yakking on about saving the planet.. and equally bored by him and the RF talking about shooting.

 

[Denville]

rincess Grace was asked her opinion about then Lady Diana when she met the Royal fiancee shortly before the wedding. Grace's face clouded over and she reportedly responded "she's young...way too young for him. I think it will not end well" or something like that.

.

Did she? I'm kind of surprised as I would have thogth that Grace was very very discreet and wouldn't have said anyitng like that about anyone.. esp a fellow royal. And I dot think that anyone much predicted problems for the "happy couple" at that stage...

 

[loonytick]

Her tantrums, as reported by multiple sources, do seem to have been of a nature and frequency that few relationships could survive. She was out of control. And you see that in her own accounts, even, when she admits to throwing herself down a staircase for attention or to her resurgence of bulimia (a disorder that is all about trying to gain control in one area of life as a proxy for those other areas in which one feels in a tailspin).

I'm curious, have any of you come across any indication that friends or family had suggested she seek help before she met Charles? She'd had problems with bulimia, her own sister had received treatment for that and anorexia nervosa, but was it recognized that Diana might also need treatment? There are so many red flags in stories of how she reacted to her parents' divorce that cry out (to my 21st century self) as signs that she needed mental health assistance from a young age. Her tantrums seem to mirror the lively fights that she and her brother are said to have witnessed between their parents. I've never read anything to suggest that anyone had sat her down to suggest she seek help as a child or at anytime, really, before she was engaged.

It seems as though The Firm did the right thing and offer therapy, but that kind of suggestion is rarely well-received without a strong foundation of mutual trust. Her relationship with the whole royal machine had gotten off on the wrong foot so quickly that couldn't have been much of a chance to establish that trust.

But no matter how much of a brat she could be (and, oh, was she sometimes ever bratty), or how good Charles' intentions could be (and I do think he tried very hard, in his own inept way, to be kind to her), I think she had reason to be wary and reason to be upset. It's one thing to tell your fiancee or new spouse "yes, she's my ex-lover, but now we're just very, very close friends" if you also are lavishing attention on your fiancee/spouse. In their case, though, she had to sort out what to make of Charles and Camilla in the context of him being out of the country and away from Diana more than he was with her. And when he did things that were meant to be nice for her, he didn't seem to think much about trying to find out what she would enjoy. For example, he's said to have put a lot of care into planning every detail of a concert celebrating their impending nuptials, saying that he wanted it to be a very special night for her. But the program was entirely made up of his favorite music and musicians; not a lick of it had anything to do with her taste. He wanted to spend time with her on the Britannia, but only if they were discussing philosophy (his taste) and not socializing (hers). After enough instances of that, especially combined with that other close relationship looming over things, I think it's only natural that any woman would wonder if she ever had a chance of actually mattering to him in a real way, or if his intentions were as kind as he said they were.

If he could have seen beyond his own little bubble of self to get to know her for who she was, if she'd had help earlier in life to develop healthier ways of expressing her concerns, then who knows? But neither of those things happened.

 

[loonytick]

But if she had not fooled herself intot believing that she enjoyed so many of C's hobbies then they would have had something to start with. Even if say she said one day "I hate fishing", she could still have enjoyed watching him shoot..

I really don't buy into the idea that she portrayed herself as liking "country life" when she didn't. I don't know that she was ever as into it as the royal family; her family doesn't seem to have been anywhere near as fixated on it as the average member of the aristocracy, so she wouldn't have had the level of intense exposure to it that Charles grew up with. But I think it's important to take into account the timeline:

As I understand it, she only had a single weekend (or was it a week? either way, relatively short trip) to Balmoral before the honeymoon. Most importantly, it happened before she found out about Camilla. The accounts of that visit don't seem to indicate that she was any good at the shooting or fishing or whatever brand of country sportiness was on the agenda that time out, but that she was good-natured about being out in the mud, the group got a little silly and she played along well, etc. It seems to me that she had never found her niche as a "country girl," but that weekend showed that she could have settled into it if she'd kept feeling comfortable with the company of people around her in those outings.

However, by the next time they returned to Balmoral she was, according to her own accounts of that time in her life, riding a particularly strong wave of worry about Charles and Camilla. Sporty country activities were very much Charles' and Camilla's thing together, and Diana was so upset about anything Camilla, so the spectre of the other woman had to have been hanging over that time for her. Plus, they'd just come off a disappointing couple of weeks on the Britannia. The biggest complaints you hear about Diana at Balmoral after the honeymoon is that she stayed in her room too much. Honestly, I think most people in her situation would have needed some space. There probably were ways to find that space without upsetting the entire family (Charles seems to have been good at it) but she didn't know their family ettiquette very well and the person who would normally be a new spouse's guide to fitting in (her husband) was exactly the person from whom she needed to escape.

And then, by the next time the family was all at Balmoral again, she was fully into tantrum/pout mode with Charles, and he was completely into the just walk away from her to paint watercolors or whatever zone.

Balmoral was only one country item on the calendar, of course, but the rest involved Camilla or that set of friends, so...

 

[Denville]

don't know what you mean. Her family were country gentry, and her father was very dedicated ot the land and to his life at his family estate.. once he inherited.
It was his wife who began to find it all very boring and long for a London outlet.
Diana grew up in the country. I think she enjoyed it as a kid, found it boring as a teenager and longed to get away to London..
but any girlfriend of charles' had to like the Balmoral and other shooting parites etc part of his life.. because he was passionate about it. Other girls he had dated hadn't always been able to hide their boredom.. and those relationships hadn't lasted. Anna Wallace was a hunting type, so was Camilla...
I don't say that Diana deliberately lied, but I think that she convinced herself that she liked it all, gardening, walking in the outdoors, stalking and shooting etc. She did watch Charles shooting and fishing.. that was parlty why he came ot Althorp, to shoot. She IMO acted like she did enjoy it all, and Charles thought that she did.. and given his love of country life, any wife of his was going to have to.
She spent several weekends in the country near Highgrove, staying with Camilla and visiting C at Highgrove. so I think that he was entitled to feel that she seemed to be a simple girl who enjoyed simple things, wasn't a wild partier or crazy bout shopping and London life.. and IIRC she said that she loved the country and it was something she had in common with Charles, at her pre wedding interview.

 

[Pranter]

I think there's a difference between loving the country (spending time in it) and doing the 'country' things like fox hunting/shooting/stalking etc.

She fell into the former and he in the latter category. It could of worked...but I think as things became worse between them it magnified those differences.

LaRae

 

[Denville]

she didn't like the country "spending time in it". She problaby liked it as a child but I think she certainly didn't find it interesting as a young woman. Women aren't always expected to shoot etc though many do, but as C's wife she would be bound to have to host shooting parties, watch the men shooting, or see them off hunting..
But I think that after a few days at Balmoral during the honeymoon Diana was hating it, hating the rain, the talk about sports, Charles wanting to get out and shoot, and her not wanting to go...
And the Spencer family men as far as I can see, enjoyed country life, were dedicated to farming and sports, though Charles S is more of an intellectualy minded man than his father was... Diana said to her friend Rosa Moncton that her son were "out killing things", with their father and that she understood that way of life because she had been brought up in it.. but clearly didnt' enjoy it as an adult

 

[Pranter]

Wives tolerate a lot of things for the sake of their husband when they don't really enjoy doing them...however that is more dependent on a good relationship. As their personal interaction deteriorated so did her willingness to tolerate Charles's activities. The country became less appealing with Charles in it.


LaRae

 

[Osipi]

One thing I've garnered from everything I've read on Diana is that when she got a bee in her bonnet about something, its almost like she became fixated on it and the more she fixated, the worse the problem seemed to be and the more she lashed out at Charles about it.

Many authors seem to think she fixated on one cause that affected just about every aspect of her life with Charles. Actually, I think that one cause got so very blown out of proportion in Diana's head that there really was no solution to it or anything that anyone could have done to alleviate her suspicions, her total hatred of another person and her mistrust of Charles.

This played a large part of why she didn't like the country or its activities. She probably would have felt so much more secure should she and Charles took up residence somewhere in Wales that was way far away from everything that Charles knew and loved. She would have been less afraid of someone or something taking Charles away from her.

Fear makes people do strange things sometimes.

 

[Mermaid1962]

Yes, I often wonder how Charles' life would have been different had George VI lived to be 65 or 70. Then Charles would have had a kingly grandparent to advise him, and his parents would have had more time for him in his growing-up years. I think that Mountbatten wasn't entirely a good influence.

Forgive me for not citing above the most important example Charles would have had in matters of indifidelity, his "grandpapa" Earl Mountbatten. The two were tremendously close in the first decade of Charles' adulthood. The prince has credited the Earl on many occasions as having been a trusted and beloved mentor. The Earl and his wife were completely open about their affairs. The Earl himself said he an Edwina spent their married life "getting into other people's beds" and their daughter, Pamela Hicks, has said their lovers were accepted as family.