Diana and James Hewitt


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
The double standards in this thread are amazing IMO


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community
 
Hewitt is a dreadful man and deserves the animus he is receiving. He is apparently broke, living with his mother and in desperate need of money. It made me proud that no legit American auction house would buy these letters. He needs to crawl back into his hole, away from polite society.
 
Hewitt is a dreadful man and deserves the animus he is receiving. He is apparently broke, living with his mother and in desperate need of money. It made me proud that no legit American auction house would buy these letters. He needs to crawl back into his hole, away from polite society.

Why is he 'dreadful'? :sad: How does any human being 'deserve' such public vitriol? I can think of some instances, by the way, but lover is not one of them.
 
Wouldn't an officer in the Household Cavalry have been considered to be a gentleman? A gentleman wouldn't sell those letters.
 
I feel they're his letters and what he does with them is his decision. If the butler and biographer/s can make money from Diana's life and death why is it not ok for James. William's correspondence is perhaps different and perhaps in an ideal world these should be returned to him. Maybe I feel this way because I would be one of the first to read them!!
 
Hewitt is a dreadful man and deserves the animus he is receiving. He is apparently broke, living with his mother and in desperate need of money. It made me proud that no legit American auction house would buy these letters. He needs to crawl back into his hole, away from polite society.

And you would have him continue to be broke, living with his mother and in desperate need of money rather than sell valuable assets and improve his circumstances?
 
The man is still trying to make money off of Diana (may she rest in peace) and her son. That's just stupid and sad at the same time. He's so irrelevant it's not even funny. The DM will do anything for a good headline.
 
Those that want the letters sold are just hoping the DM buys them so they read them and fill pages here of what a terrible person Diana was etc etc. be different if one of Charles mistress's was selling letters.
 
Wouldn't an officer in the Household Cavalry have been considered to be a gentleman? A gentleman wouldn't sell those letters.

Wouldn't a Princess of the Royal House have been considered to be a lady? A lady would not have treated an officer and a gentleman the way Diana did.

:whistling:
 
Those that want the letters sold are just hoping the DM buys them so they read them and fill pages here of what a terrible person Diana was etc etc. be different if one of Charles mistress's was selling letters.

I'm an equal-opportunity perv. I'm just as interested in what Charles might have said as what Diana said. Though, having heard one of his telephone conversations with Camilla, I'm not sure I want to hear any more. I doubt he'd write that stuff in letters, but he might. However I don't particularly want to read Diana's letters, I simply think that Hewitt has the right to sell them and should not be pilloried for doing so.

I've never criticised Diana for having affairs, just for being hypocritical about them.
 
Here is a novel thought:

If James Hewitt needed money, he could... work? :ermm: - Rather than selling letters. And on top of that from a child!
 
And you would have him continue to be broke, living with his mother and in desperate need of money rather than sell valuable assets and improve his circumstances?

I think this is key. :cool: They are his property. He is in need. One does what one must. To have kept them so long, these must mean something to him. Poor guy.

BTW someone mentioned the DM buying them. Now there is a motive for stalking Hewitt. Pure speculation, of course, but maybe the DM has made an offer and Hewitt has refused. Maybe Hewitt wanted a more discreet buyer, and the DM is flouncing it's skirt as the scorned one. :p That would make sense why the DM is 'going after' Hewitt. The DM sure has power. They spew their pay-back (if that's what it is) and the hounds come baying at the scent of blood.

Wouldn't a Princess of the Royal House have been considered to be a lady? A lady would not have treated an officer and a gentleman the way Diana did. :whistling:

Exactly so. :sad: There is no excuse for what Diana did to a man who was devoted to her. Fact is, it's very likely that Diana 'taking up his time' ruined his chances for a more normalized relationship with someone, with marriage and children. Instead he got himself tangled up with the Princess of Wales and has been paying the price ever since. Fool him, because it appears the man really loved her and would likely have stayed devoted to her had she treated him with courtesy and regard. JMO.

Here is a novel thought: If James Hewitt needed money, he could... work? :ermm: - Rather than selling letters. And on top of that from a child!

He has worked, not so? But he's had some reverses. Who is anyone to be the judge of James Hewitt?
 
Last edited:
Here is a novel thought:

If James Hewitt needed money, he could... work? :ermm: - Rather than selling letters. And on top of that from a child!


I so agree with you and I'm so dismayed with others.


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community
 
Neither party [Hewitt or Diana] could sink further in my estimation, so i'm not in the least surprised...
 
Here is a novel thought:

If James Hewitt needed money, he could... work? :ermm: - Rather than selling letters. And on top of that from a child!

I completely agree with you. I may even be able to help him find a role
 
Here is a novel thought:

If James Hewitt needed money, he could... work? :ermm: - Rather than selling letters. And on top of that from a child!

I find the idea that William's letters to Hewitt were written by William as a young child to be particularly interesting, because they would, or could be, so revealing for that very reason. How did William address him? What did he say? What did the innocent child give away about his mother - and, possibly, his father - in his naive ramblings? I'd love to read those letters.

I don't criticise Hewitt for selling the William letters. Not now that William is a grown man in his 30s. If Hewitt had sold them 15 years ago, yes, I'd think it was wrong, because William was still a teenager and processing the issues relating to his parents' marriage breakdown and mother's death, but not now. William is a grown man and not a vulnerable child. Hewitt has waited long enough, in my opinion.

Anyway, if anyone is to be chastised for the William letters, I think it should be Diana, for letting them be written, or, at least, sent. Her little boys had a very long, in little-boy terms, relationships with their mother's soldier boyfriend - her illicit lover - and they were sure to have formed a bond with him, and those letters might reveal that bond. But, if they do, then Hewitt should not be the one to be castigated for it. Diana was the one who was married to someone else at the time. Hewitt was just the poor fool who was caught up in it and strung along by her. There could be no happy ending for him in that relationship. Diana held all the aces.

We are, however, unlikely to ever know the text of those letters. Hewitt owns them, and has the right to sell them, but maybe the purchaser is not, even if he has the desire to do so, which we do not know, able to publish them. The text may be held to be owned by those who wrote it, so William may have his day in court about that, and may prevail. But I would still love to read them.
 
Last edited:
The notes from William age 6 at the time are probably thank you notes. One is dated the same day of Diana's which thanks Hewitt for letting her and the boys visit an army barracks. So William's note from the same day is probably a short thank you note that his mom probably made him write. Probably not much personal insight from a six year old. Just learning how to write and spell.


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community
 
Here is a novel thought:

If James Hewitt needed money, he could... work? :ermm: - Rather than selling letters. And on top of that from a child!

You make it sound as if Major Hewitt has done nothing. After 17 years of military service (with despatches as tank commander in the Gulf War) Hewitt opened a golf driving range in 1994. In 2009 Hewitt opened The Polo House in Marbella, which closed two years ago. Major Hewitt remained in Spain to pursue other interests. This means:

17 years of military service
15 years the golf driving range
4 years The Polo Club
2 years pursuing other Spanish interests
---
38 years of working for living
 
Selling William's letters is unsavory but I don't think it is anymore unsavory than photographers who took his picture and sold it (many times with Diana's consent). Other people have written books about his childhood. As long as there is money to be made, someone will want to make it.


I can't fault Diana for having William and Harry write thank you notes. It is a great habit and more parents should encourage their children to do so.


I'm not sure there is more hypocrisy on one side than the other. The people who are condemning Hewitt would be thrilled if Camilla sold Charles' letters. The bottom line is that Diana chose to become involved with Hewitt. She chose to send him letters knowing that there was a chance the letters could be leaked--and not necessarily by Hewitt. They could have been stolen. Letters are different than bugged telephone conversations--letters are supposed to be durable.


Furthermore, I don't understand the arguments about whether Hewitt or Diana was more innocent or to blame than the other. Diana chose to have an affair even though she was married with children. Hewitt chose to get involved with a married woman with children.


Diana chose to break up with Hewitt in a way that was likely to hurt him deeply. He became vindictive--Diana and her fans should be able to understand that.
 
Selling William's letters is unsavory but I don't think it is anymore unsavory than photographers who took his picture and sold it (many times with Diana's consent). Other people have written books about his childhood. As long as there is money to be made, someone will want to make it.


I can't fault Diana for having William and Harry write thank you notes. It is a great habit and more parents should encourage their children to do so.


I'm not sure there is more hypocrisy on one side than the other. The people who are condemning Hewitt would be thrilled if Camilla sold Charles' letters. The bottom line is that Diana chose to become involved with Hewitt. She chose to send him letters knowing that there was a chance the letters could be leaked--and not necessarily by Hewitt. They could have been stolen. Letters are different than bugged telephone conversations--letters are supposed to be durable.


Furthermore, I don't understand the arguments about whether Hewitt or Diana was more innocent or to blame than the other. Diana chose to have an affair even though she was married with children. Hewitt chose to get involved with a married woman with children.


Diana chose to break up with Hewitt in a way that was likely to hurt him deeply. He became vindictive--Diana and her fans should be able to understand that.

Hear, hear ! Terrific post !
There's of course a huge hipocrisy about James Hewitt. He's, after all, the living proof that Diana was an adulteress too : an unbearable though for many.
I don't like the man but his life was more or less destroyed by this affair because he's seen, unfairly, a the sole responsible of it.
He's one of the worse collateral damage of the war of the Wales. I've more pity for him than some real sympathy.
 
:previous: Then why else sell the letters, if not for money? Or is it a "look-at-me-I'm-still-around"?

Whatever, publishing letters, especially by a child, is a breach of trust in my eyes.
William is still around. There is no historical significance to the letters. They are not controversial. They are not even newsworthy.
They were written by a child who in all likelihood happened to like Hewitt and wanted to send him a letter. - I doubt they were ever intended for publication by William.

It's not like you getting a letter from a nephew and then scanning and posting it on Facebook because you thought it was cute. That's one thing.
But William is not normal and he was not a normal child.

So unless Hewitt got permission from William, and why should he give permission, that's a breach of trust.
So William will ask himself in a few years when George and Charlotte are beginning to learn how to write: Should I allow them to send these letters to X, Y and Z? Who can I trust not to publish the letters? Well, not Hewitt it appears. Sorry, George and Charlotte, you can write X, but not Y and Z.

A personal letter, even an innocent one from a child, is just that - personal.
 
I still think a true gentleman would have kept his mouth shut!

Hewitt always says how much he adored Diana, but he never hesitates to make money off the bones of their long-ago affair any time he has the opportunity.

And, why shouldn't we judge him? We are constantly judging people by their actions, and I find Hewitt's actions disgusting!
 
I still think a true gentleman would have kept his mouth shut!

Hewitt always says how much he adored Diana, but he never hesitates to make money off the bones of their long-ago affair any time he has the opportunity.

And, why shouldn't we judge him? We are constantly judging people by their actions, and I find Hewitt's actions disgusting!

I'm not saying that people shouldn't judge Hewitt. He's opened his private life to the public and being judged is one of the consequences of that. By the way, Diana also chose to open her private life to the public (although she failed to admit the affair until she absolutely had to).

I would have preferred that Hewitt not gone public, but I also believe Diana should have kept her mouth shut--for her children's sake, if nothing else.

That said, I agree that people shouldn't make money off of the children (I refused to click on links to photos of George and Charlotte) but if your going to criticize Hewitt for using William, you have to criticize Diana. Diana didn't need to use William for money but she used him to bolster her public image, even though she knew he hated being paraded in front of photographers.

It seems to me that Diana and Hewitt were two peas in a pod.
 
This is about James Hewitt trying to remain relevant, making money off a dead woman and a future King. He knows there are some media outlets that would eat up anything he's doing or saying. He's just a silly man.
 
That said, I agree that people shouldn't make money off of the children (I refused to click on links to photos of George and Charlotte) but if your going to criticize Hewitt for using William, you have to criticize Diana. Diana didn't need to use William for money but she used him to bolster her public image, even though she knew he hated being paraded in front of photographers.

It seems to me that Diana and Hewitt were two peas in a pod.

I am not trying to excuse Diana; her behavior does her no credit.
To me, it reinforces my idea that her judgment when it came to men was simply appalling.

But- I don't blame her for feeling betrayed by Hewitt. Perhaps she even bought into the old expression: An officer and a gentleman.

Hewitt definitely wasn't the latter, and I've heard some of his former colleagues also felt betrayed by his actions.
What I find especially sickening is the way he tries to present that rather tawdry affair as some great love story. (If he truly regarded it as such, he wouldn't be cashing in).
 
Funny...I just recalled something...

In my jewelry box I have a loving letter, not a love letter, from a man who became quite renowned in the years after I lost touch with him. We had a very sweet romantic relationship when he was 19 and I was 30. The letter was written when he was dying, and my husband has read it (with my permission, of course).

Because of various reasons, this letter and the personal history it reveals, would be of great interest to "Jon's" biographer and other researchers if I chose to share it. It is not in the least salacious, but it does have some historical significance, and if I chose to, I might be able to sell it for a modest, yet significant sum.

But I never would. It was personal, and the sentiments and remembrances belonged to him, and to me, not to the world. A person of honor would never despoil those memories by auctioning them off to the highest public bidder.
 
I find the idea that William's letters to Hewitt were written by William as a young child to be particularly interesting, because they would, or could be, so revealing for that very reason. How did William address him? What did he say? What did the innocent child give away about his mother - and, possibly, his father - in his naive ramblings? I'd love to read those letters.

I would agree. :flowers: What I don't understand is why some feel they know the content of the letters. That puzzles me. How is the content public knowledge?

I don't criticise Hewitt for selling the William letters. Not now that William is a grown man in his 30s. If Hewitt had sold them 15 years ago, yes, I'd think it was wrong, because William was still a teenager and processing the issues relating to his parents' marriage breakdown and mother's death, but not now. William is a grown man and not a vulnerable child. Hewitt has waited long enough, in my opinion.

Yep.

Anyway, if anyone is to be chastised for the William letters, I think it should be Diana, for letting them be written, or, at least, sent. Her little boys had a very long, in little-boy terms, relationships with their mother's soldier boyfriend - her illicit lover - and they were sure to have formed a bond with him, and those letters might reveal that bond.

They most assuredly formed a bond. There is every evidence that Harry was deeply effected by his mother's love for Hewitt, as she sat anxiously watching the television of his deployment. One could reasonably speculate that Harry's fervent desire to be 'in the fray' stems from those dramatic times watching his mother worry over the beloved James Hewitt. Beloved by Diana - and her sons. We are told the boys adored being with Hewitt.

We also have to recall how abruptly Diana yanked William away from his first beloved Nanny because she could not bear that William was loving the nanny possibly more than she. Could it have been that her sons were evincing a pretty fierce love of the devoted Hewitt that set Diana off? Possibility. (We know what she did with Charles, keeping the boys away from him).

Clearly a despicable man, to stimulate such dear love from a woman and her children.

But, if they do, then Hewitt should not be the one to be castigated for it. Diana was the one who was married to someone else at the time. Hewitt was just the poor fool who was caught up in it and strung along by her. There could be no happy ending for him in that relationship. Diana held all the aces.

More than that, it was a completely unequal relationship (in status conscious, class conscious Britain). Had a man engaged in such an unequal relationship he would have been pilloried for it and rightly so. The woman would have been seen as victimized. Here we have the strange reverse-side of sexism: a man can be victimized by a woman, but our cultural biases still require that he be 'the man' and take the brunt of the responsibility and abuse.

We are, however, unlikely to ever know the text of those letters. Hewitt owns them, and has the right to sell them, but maybe the purchaser is not, even if he has the desire to do so, which we do not know, able to publish them. The text may be held to be owned by those who wrote it, so William may have his day in court about that, and may prevail. But I would still love to read them.

But apparently posters here think they know the content of those letters, so my question stands: how is it that the contents of the letters have been made public?

BTW inconsequential letters have historical significance. Stating that they are not 'historical' is not accurate. They are. They are proof of a breach by the Princess of Wales that was really quite extreme in it's day, and would still be considered extreme.

I posit: what if Catherine were engaged (as we speak) in such an affair, allowing George and then Charlotte to form deep attachments to her riding instructor. What if Catherine spent her assignations at her lover's mother's house, having her two children be tended by her lover's mother in the downstairs kitchen while she and the lover were occupied upstairs. How would that go down? Thunderously, I would imagine.

I am not trying to excuse Diana; her behavior does her no credit. To me, it reinforces my idea that her judgment when it came to men was simply appalling.

You need to read about how long and patiently Hewitt maintained with Diana. He likely would never have left her. Hewitt was Diana's 'Camilla'. Diana had indeed found a devoted man who took all manner of abuse from Diana that no other man would. Diana did not have appalling taste in men. She just ran after men who knew better than to get involved with her, or knew when to say 'enough is enough' and walked. That may be hard to hear but it is what I have gathered from some considerable reading I did on Diana this past summer.

But - I don't blame her for feeling betrayed by Hewitt. Perhaps she even bought into the old expression: An officer and a gentleman. Hewitt definitely wasn't the latter, and I've heard some of his former colleagues also felt betrayed by his actions.

Ah, here we have the nub of it. :sad: It was what Diana was relying on, Hewitt's loyalty to her social position at the top of the class system. Sorry to put it so baldly. The 'game' as played, and likely still played (one never knows what any of the BRF may be up to) is that one does not kiss-and-tell when dallying with the aristocracy. In return, one is made welcome in countless ways. One gets to go to Ascot and the Royal Enclosure, perhaps, or attend a yearly Garden Party. One is paid back with social cache.

It is Diana who betrayed Hewitt. She cut him. She robbed him of the very social connection that would have buttered his social/economic path after they broke up (euphemism for what Diana did to him). Diana cut him dead. After that, Diana had no reason to expect Hewitt to maintain loyalty. It was her arrogance and sense of impervability that misled her. She thought she could flaunt the rules and would win regardless. Honestly, I think she was right, if one is to go by this conversation.

What I find especially sickening is the way he tries to present that rather tawdry affair as some great love story. (If he truly regarded it as such, he wouldn't be cashing in).

But it was a great love story, and I wouldn't be sickened by it, unless the married woman with children part is the concern. There is actually a pretty significant screenplay in that story but it won't happen in our lifetimes because of the clout of the BRF. (It will happen one day). It was Diana's longest and her most abiding love. It even was domestic. She was with no other man to the extent she was with Hewitt, not even her husband. Had Diana not married Charles, is it probable that Hewitt and Diana would have naturally met? Because if so, they would have certainly married. JMO of course.
 
Last edited:
But apparently posters here think they know the content of those letters, so my question stands: how is it that the contents of the letters have been made public?

Well clearly it's all just speculation and opinion. Just like the nature of James' relationship with Diana and whether or not he was truly devoted/loyal to her. We can read all the books and articles we want, but only the people involved know what really went down between them. Everything else is just opinion based on what one reads, or the feelings one has for the parties involved.
 
The 'game' as played, and likely still played (one never knows what any of the BRF may be up to) is that one does not kiss-and-tell when dallying with the aristocracy. In return, one is made welcome in countless ways. One gets to go to Ascot and the Royal Enclosure, perhaps, or attend a yearly Garden Party. One is paid back with social cache.

It is Diana who betrayed Hewitt. She cut him. She robbed him of the very social connection that would have buttered his social/economic path after they broke up (euphemism for what Diana did to him). Diana cut him dead. After that, Diana had no reason to expect Hewitt to maintain loyalty. It was her arrogance and sense of impervability that misled her. She thought she could flaunt the rules and would win regardless. Honestly, I think she was right, if one is to go by this conversation.


So what you are saying is that, if Hewitt couldn't cash in socially, then he was justified in doing so financially?

Yes, that really sounds as if he regarded his liaison with Diana as a great love story.
 
Back
Top Bottom