No it was for real. The RF ddn't want the papers picking into the past of a girl that Charles was dating, or esp the future Queen having ex boyfriends who talked about her sexual history. Charles was the First POW who was dating in the age when upper and middle class girls COULD have a sexual past before marraige.
Until the "dating times" of Charles and Anne, there didn't NEED to be a "royal rule" that his wife had to be a virgin. Upper class girls usually were, until they married.. they might have affairs after marraige but usually prior to ti they held on to their virginity...
Even so I think that it was still considered a bit louche esp if a woman had several boyfriends she was intimate with..
When Ferg and Andrew married, he was the second son, so it was considered Ok for her to have had a past..
But it is as with all social processes a gradual change.
It wasn't until the time of Kate and Will dating that it was SO utterly commonplace and so much a part of modern courtship for a couple to spend a long time as a sexually engaged couple and live together... that people wouldn't bother to talk about it...
Charles said more than once in the 70s to reporters, that he "couldn't live with a girl" like they could prior to marriage and get to know her well.. he had to get it right...
I think that Charles and Diana had an up and down marriage but the earlier years were more up than down. There are plenty of pictures showing them looking at each other with affection, and to my recollection Charles often looks more into her, you see him put his hand over hers, try to get her attention, be playful. etc.
To
That is probably true Queen Claude that it wasn't bad ALL the time in the first few years and that at the time of their split up, both of them remembered the bad times exclusively and dwelt on them and put that story of complete misery out to the public.
I think they both loved the children and had some happy times when they were small, and it wasn't all a show in public, there was a genuine feeling between them...
In the aftermath of Charles' Dimbleby interview one of the journalists who had followed them on holiday in the early days and snapped them kissing in the water, unaware that they were being photographed.. and siad "Did my camera lie"? when Charles had intimated that he never loved Diana...
However I do think that from early on, there were a lot of problems and while to be fair to both of them I think they DID both try to adapt it was realy trying against the grain for them both. She was jealous of Camilla, and I would imagine that when they had had a row or things weren't great she woudl beleive he was seeing Camilla on the sly or phoning her.. and accuse him..and he would probably longingly think of how good natured and easy Camilla was..
And he found the bulimia and the mood swings it caused hard to put up with, who wouldn't? I think she was not miserable all the time but when she was, she was very bad, and moody and while she could hide it in public she was angry and upset in private..
JMd that his future bride have the appearance of being a good girl and there was always speculation about the previous sexual activity of anyone with whom he was linked. And I think Charles and the family knew it would be an unwise PR move to marry anyone who had been known to shop around.
Perhaps the spectre of Wallis Simpson was still hanging about in Charles's pre-married life. Heaven forbid another future king make such a lousy choice - love match or not.
Indeed it was. Mountbatten and others in the RF were worried in the 1970s that a left wing govt mgiht want to get rid of the monarchy, so it was very important that the RF be seen to be behaving well, to be respectable and give value for money to the public, and for Charles to get married in due course to a nice ladylike girl, who did not have a scad of lovers in her past.. and to settle down and have a family.
He told Charles off about being selfish and thoughtless, reminding him of how his uncle David had become a selfish spoiled man, who didn't think of others...
And Im sure they were worried that if it got out that Charles was involved with a few married women, the public might think of him as a cad who interfered in marriages or as someone who might go and marry a divorcee like David had done.. so they were keen when he hit around 30, that he was seen as marrying well and NOT being involved in an on and off affair with the married Camilla.
I'm s
Not everyone of Charles's romances were with bed-hoppers. Why has an insistence grown over the years on Charles 'having' to choose a (very young) virgin? Why has that scenario played a role in the inevitability that people insist on of Charles proposing to Diana, (as if there was no other choice,) when there were probably dozens of aristocratic women in their early to mid twenties around in 1975-1980 with only a couple of mild romances in their pasts?
Becuase even one romance was enough. Davina Sheffield was apparently someone that Charles was very fond of, but once her boyfriend talked, it was all over. And I dont beleive that Charles would have dated Diana, at 30 plus, just because she was a pretty girl. He was I think genuinely attracted, but his preference was for older girls who were experienced socially and sexually. SO I think that at the time he met her, he knew he was getting to the age when he really should marry, and here was a girl who was sweet nice and very pretty but amazingly seemed to be completely free of any past, or even any real boyfriends...
AND she was from the right background, had relatives who were courtiers and was into country life etc. He problaby was so thrilled ot find such a prize, even if she wasn't his usual kind fo girl,that he was "ready to love her."