Charles and Diana

[Osipi]

Actually, at the onset of their courtship and their subsequent engagement, I do believe there were three in the picture. Diana, Charles and The Prince of Wales.

Diana hardly had time to get to know Charles, the man, on a deeper level considering how short the courtship and engagement was. It went the other way too. Charles hardly had time to get to know Diana, the person, too.

Camilla was an external factor. No denying that she was there but had Charles and Diana really gotten to know each other, that issue of what was, what is real at that time and how it should be perceived by both parties would have and could have affected the entire outcome of their relationship.

Definitely a good lesson in look before you leap.

 

[Curryong]

I do believe Diana was head over heels in a Barbara Cartlandish romantic mist sort of way, and that Charles hoped that love would come. I certainly don't believe that he ever intimated to Diana before their marriage that he didn't love her.

However, I remain convinced that if Charles had decided he and Diana would take one year to get to know each other, if he had resisted the pressure to wed that was coming from many directions, then after more dating they both would have realised they just weren't meant for each other. Both would have then gone on to other loves. Who was it who said 'What if..?' is the saddest phrase in the English language'?

 

[Pranter]

I think he 'intimated' to millions of folks with Diana present he didn't know that he loved her....whatever love is....


LaRae

 

[Osipi]

However, I remain convinced that if Charles had decided he and Diana would take one year to get to know each other, if he had resisted the pressure to wed that was coming from many directions, then after more dating they both would have realised they just weren't meant for each other. Both would have then gone on to other loves. Who was it who said 'What if..?' is the saddest phrase in the English language'?

This puts into a nutshell what I was trying to point out earlier. I seriously believe that when Charles married, it was The Prince of Wales at the altar rather than Charles, the man. Charles, the man, wasn't being pressured to marry. The Prince of Wales was.

 

[Queen Claude]

yes well you're wrong there. She was In love with him.. in a chldish way. and if it was after the engagement was announced there was no way that Charles or Di cold have called off the wedding.
and while yes Diana seems ot have said that Charles said something like "whatever love means" at the proposal I don't believe he did. I don't believe he was "gushing" over her, but I don't believe that he made it clear at the proposal, that he didn't love her...

So what was it about Charles himself that engendered Diana's "childish" love?

 

[Pranter]

I don't think there's anyone who doesn't agree if they had waited a year more than likely they would of parted ways.

As for the attraction to Diana, he was the only man in England that couldn't divorce her. I think she empathized with him over his loss and was drawn to his sensitivity. He probably appeared very glamorous to her as well. She knew the family somewhat ..but she might not of known enough. Teenage girl ..older man. Not the first time that's happened.


LaRae

 

[Denville]

So what was it about Charles himself that engendered Diana's "childish" love?

how can anyone say what makes anyone love another person? She thought he was dashing and sporty, he was portrayed In the press at that time as "Actionman", doing a lot of exciting sports.. he'd been in the Navy.. he was seen around with pretty girls..
And she thought of him as very clever, a "deep thinker", who knew lots of stuff that she didn't know about..
The fact that he coudlnt divorce..was a plus because she wanted a secure marriage for her and her children.. and clearly she hoped he would be (because he was super rich and as she saw it had no serious resposnbilities) home a lot, a doting husband and a father who was there to provide security and companionship for her and her children. If she had "only been in love with his position", why would she have cared about his loving another woman?

 

[ladongas]

I was in love with an older man when I was 19. He was handsome, gallant, charming, not rich, but brilliant and ambitious. I married him. In short order, I learned that he was cold, controlling, possessive, jealous, and selfish. He didn't have another woman, but I divorced him anyway. You just don't know things when you are a teenager, and you make mistakes accordingly.

 

[Osipi]

how can anyone say what makes anyone love another person? She thought he was dashing and sporty, he was portrayed In the press at that time as "Actionman", doing a lot of exciting sports.. he'd been in the Navy.. he was seen around with pretty girls..
And she thought of him as very clever, a "deep thinker", who knew lots of stuff that she didn't know about..
The fact that he coudlnt divorce..was a plus because she wanted a secure marriage for her and her children.. and clearly she hoped he would be (because he was super rich and as she saw it had no serious resposnbilities) home a lot, a doting husband and a father who was there to provide security and companionship for her and her children. If she had "only been in love with his position", why would she have cared about his loving another woman?

If the part in bold was, in fact, how she perceived things to be, I think she was seriously delusional. The courtship would have proven that to her. The reason why they didn't spend too much time together during the courtship and the engagement was actually because of the serious responsibilities of his role as The Prince of Wales and also his burgeoning projects that were to define his role as The Prince of Wales to him personally.

Then again, there was the anecdote told often about Diana riding a tricycle with a tiara on her head chanting "I'm going to be Princess of Wales!". Whether or not that actually happened and is a reality we'll probably never know but I've read it often enough.

 

[Denville]

She wasn't "delusional".. She was naïve and problaby thought that yes he has to be POW, but he is still going to have lots of time to spend with me and the kids. And Charles HAS a lot of leisure.. just he had his own way of spending it and it didn't mostly involve "taking the baby for a walk".. though I think he did try for a bit.
I agree that Diana didn't fully understand the work that Charles does, and how dediciated he is to his self imposed tasks. But she only found htat out after they were engaged..
And I dont know where you got this idea of her "riding a tricylcle" with a tiara on her head.. The story, which seems to come form some equerry, and sounds to me anyway "sourced"..
was that the night before the wedding, he met Diana, who was at a loose end, and asked her to come for a drink in the equerries room
She went along. found a bike in the room and rode it around singing "IM going to marry the POW".
I dont quite see what is wrong with that, except that the version with the "tiara" etc seems to make her sound ridiculous.. If true, the "bike" story shows that she was happy, hopeful, keen to marry Charles.. and not as gloomy prior to the wedding as she later made herself out to be.
Yes of course his being POW was bound to be a part of what attracted girls to him.. but with most of them it was only a part. They were upper class, while they were impressed by his royal positon -it did not overwhelm them. They knew the RF, and possibly other Royals.. they were accustomed to great wealth and big historical homes.
So IMO Diana was impressed and pleased with the idea of marrying the Prince and being queen one day, but she was also in love with Charles as a person.

I was in love with an older man when I was 19. He was handsome, gallant, charming, not rich, but brilliant and ambitious. I married him. In short order, I learned that he was cold, controlling, possessive, jealous, and selfish. He didn't have another woman, but I divorced him anyway. You just don't know things when you are a teenager, and you make mistakes accordingly.

well yes that's one experience. Diana was in love with Charles.. it was a mistake because she didn't know him well enough. But other girls of 19 marry older men and it works out fine...

 

[Curryong]

I think that was a tale told fondly by Billy the Page, a favourite member of staff at the Queen Mother's Clarence House. He wrote that after Diana arrived at CP from Buckingham Palace on the evening before her wedding everyone was in a state of euphoria including Diana.

She, according to him, seized the bike of a member of staff which was parked in the entry hall, and ringing its bell, chanted two or three times 'I'm going to marry the Prince of Wales in the morning!' as she rode the bike round and round in a circle. Billy thought her very young and very sweet and that it was lovely.

 

[Denville]

I wonder, if Diana was really miserable, wanting to get out of it, threatening suicide etc...which was true? THis tale, or the "Your face is on the tea towels" stuff?

 

[Curryong]

They could both have been true. I actually don't think that Billy would have made something like that up. Diana was troubled by thoughts of Camilla as the engagement went on more and more. However, she was also a very young twenty year old, looking forward to marrying the man she loved and caught up in the euphoria of that night before the wedding when everyone was happy. Her feelings probably went up and down day by day.

 

[Denville]

I thought that it was an equerry but yes C you're right,it was Wiliam Tallon, "backstairs Billy".
I think that its true, I can't imagine anyone making it up...
but I think that it does show that perhaps Diana's moods were very volatile.. or she wasn't as down and depressed and "trying to get out of it", as she made out later.

 

[Osipi]

I wonder, if Diana was really miserable, wanting to get out of it, threatening suicide etc...which was true? THis tale, or the "Your face is on the tea towels" stuff?

We'll probably never know. That's why a lot of reading from a lot of sources add information is a good idea. Mostly likely, like everyone else approaching a marriage, there is wonderful feelings of anticipation, love and everything is right with the world along with what is called "getting cold feet" and having those doubts creep in. Life is balance with both positive and negative emotions being having to be dealt with.

It was the same with Diana and Charles' marriage. There were periods of abject misery on both sides but also times of everything being right with the world and themselves with pure happiness. This was reflected earlier when we were discussing how the cracks in the marriage were becoming evident but also that the period of Diana's pregnancy with Harry being deemed by her as one of the happiest times in the marriage.

There is another thought that occurred to me about the courtship and engagement period. They did spend very little time together and most likely, that time was spent getting along with each other. What I'm wondering now is if they ever really had a chance to experience not getting along with each other during that period. Did they even have a chance to fight with each other before heading to the altar or were their reactions to each other when the fights started after the marriage a new experience?

It makes sense to me then a quote I believe I used elsewhere earlier. "Know what we call a couple that never fight? Divorced." How Charles and Diana handled disagreements before their marriage could have been another eye opener.

 

[Denville]

but that's another odd thing, that Di said that her pregnancy with Harry was such a happy time and then when he was born, it all went downhill.
She's making out that Chas just was waiting to "have the second child" and once H was born he was then returning to Camila full time. So I'm sceptical!
it doesn't make a lot of sense.. esp when she threw in the bit about Chas wanting a girl etc. If he were really planning to go back to Camilla, why would he care what sex the second child was?
I agree that its possible that Charles and Di did not have rows during their courtship.. though she did say they had a filthy row about Camilla prior to the wedding.
I think ti IS possible that they never argued, perhaps because she was keen to agree with him all the time.. and I suppose that whne they got engaged and married, and rows broke out, it was something they found hard to cope with.
Also, in Tina B's book there is a bit about the film about them that was made.. in around 1984 or so.. where the interviewer asks if they ever argue.. and Diana was very insistent that "no we dont", while Charles said more reasonably "most married couples do argue."

 

[Curryong]

According to Penny Junor's new book they had a few fights about Camilla over their engagement period. Junor isn't all that complimentary about Charles's emotional deafness to Diana's insecurities actually, which surprises me. She doesn't spare criticism of Diana in this book either, but is sympathetic to her worries at the time they were engaged.

 

[ladongas]

well yes that's one experience. Diana was in love with Charles.. it was a mistake because she didn't know him well enough. But other girls of 19 marry older men and it works out fine...

Yes, some girls who marry young marry a man who is what he seems to be, and not just who he pretends to be.

 

[Osipi]

but that's another odd thing, that Di said that her pregnancy with Harry was such a happy time and then when he was born, it all went downhill.

I don't find it at all odd. The period where the wife is pregnant with child is a time a woman also experiences more "caretaking" by the husband. Whether it is because the husband sees it as a "delicate" matter or the fact that it is "his" child is debatable. All men react differently to their wives during pregnancy but it does garner more attention for the wife. After the baby is born, the deed is done and its back to normal business with wife and mother safe and sound. Perhaps it all went downhill because Diana missed the attention. Who knows?

 

[Lady Nimue]

Actually, at the onset of their courtship and their subsequent engagement, I do believe there were three in the picture. Diana, Charles and The Prince of Wales.

Well said! Why hasn't anyone else said this? Inspired.

This puts into a nutshell what I was trying to point out earlier. I seriously believe that when Charles married, it was The Prince of Wales at the altar rather than Charles, the man. Charles, the man, wasn't being pressured to marry. The Prince of Wales was.

Yep. And if we consider the character of the man, I really doubt he intended anything other than being a good (and faithful) husband to Diana. He is a man nailed to the cross of duty. Why, in this one very important instance, would he deviate? It makes no sense imo. He deviated later, but not from the get-go.

I don't think there's anyone who doesn't agree if they had waited a year more than likely they would of parted ways.

As for the attraction to Diana, he was the only man in England that couldn't divorce her. I think she empathized with him over his loss and was drawn to his sensitivity. He probably appeared very glamorous to her as well. She knew the family somewhat ..but she might not of known enough. Teenage girl ..older man. Not the first time that's happened. LaRae

Exactly. She likely also mistook his honed polite style (with a stranger) for what he would be like as an intimate 24/7. It was a train-wreck waiting to happen. She had no clue how different a man can be day-in-day-out, and for that matter, how she herself would change, how she would be under the strain of 24/7 intimate living.

If she had "only been in love with his position", why would she have cared about his loving another woman?

Because she was a controller/manipulator, maybe? She was jealous by nature. Jealous of his time, his friends, his dog, his servants. Possessive. From a distance and with Diana's spin it seems she has a point regarding Camilla, but I wouldn't take that spin to the bank. It's all hindsight. Look at the pictures of Diana in the mid to late 80's, she looks pretty darn content and happy, and very much at ease with skewering Charles in public (and delighted to be doing so, in fact).

 

[Iluvbertie]

Originally Posted by Denville

yes well you're wrong there. She was In love with him.. in a chldish way. and if it was after the engagement was announced there was no way that Charles or Di cold have called off the wedding.
and while yes Diana seems ot have said that Charles said something like "whatever love means" at the proposal I don't believe he did. I don't believe he was "gushing" over her, but I don't believe that he made it clear at the proposal, that he didn't love her...

No 'Diana seems to have said' about it.

The entire world heard him say it in the engagement interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUtF034h41Q

His actual words are 'whatever in love means' as clearly heard here.

 

[Lady Nimue]

Given her stalking and other various antics, if she had not been titled and attractive and rich, she would have had a long criminal record and ended up committed for her own safety and that of others. As for her relationship with her kids, parading her various lovers and her emotional issues she placed on William's shoulders she would have lost visitation rights. I get fed up with how every rotten thing Diana did to people was excused on so many grounds by so many people. Frankly after her divorce she could have really pulled it together, but chose to make even bigger messes and caused a lot of pain to a lot of people.

Even her vaunted love affair with Dodi was in fact built on a breakup; supposedly Dodi was engaged to a former model Kelly Fischer, but few people like to remember that.

Wound up looking that up. Was curious.

LINK: Dodi's ex-fiancée tells inquest of 'betrayal' - Telegraph

 

[Osipi]

In fact, when Dodi was summoned by his father to be a part of the summer vacation with Diana and her boys, Kelly was actually in the area on a different yacht at the time.

One thing about this Dodi/Diana romance is that it evolved at the speed of light and that why I could never accept it as being a serious relationship.

But... we meander once again off topic. Maybe this is best suited for Diana's Lovers and Friends thread?

 

[Denville]

I don't find it at all odd. The period where the wife is pregnant with child is a time a woman also experiences more "caretaking" by the husband. Whether it is because the husband sees it as a "delicate" matter or the fact that it is "his" child is debatable. All men react differently to their wives during pregnancy but it does garner more attention for the wife. After the baby is born, the deed is done and its back to normal business with wife and mother safe and sound. Perhaps it all went downhill because Diana missed the attention. Who knows?

I think that Diana's "agenda" there was to say that Charles was nicer to her during thte pregnancy...because he was thinking "Oh good she's about to have our second child,, the succession is now secure and I can go back to Camilla full time". But she also threw in stuff about how Charles was annoyed that Harry was not a girl and "had red hair".. and if he was really jus being nice to her because he was thinking with relief that he could now abandon his marriage, soon, he would hardly care about whether he had a daughter or a son..
I think that she was just rambling, in a way, tumbling things out, and half remembering stuff and putting the worst construction on everything Charles did.
that's why I feel that Morton is a very unreliable book and shows Diana at her most unhappy, confused and lashing out, in her unhappiness...

 

[Osipi]

One thing we can never do is presume what Charles was thinking.

All we have to really go by is the material in the book that Diana supposedly fed to Morton. What is real and what isn't real we'll never know as Diana isn't here to let us know where her mind was, defend her statements or retract them even.

I can empathize with her with what she was going through with Charles but, as I said, I also experienced quite a "fringe lunatic" mindset towards my ex-husband when the marriage was falling apart and doomed to be resolved in a divorce court. I'm not even sure I can state that "my story" if written back then would really reflect my person as a whole.

 

[Denville]

but a lot of what is said about Charles, now, is based on What Diana said.. and I think it is reasonable, to speculate on how true it is. Otherwise we are to believe that he was so heartless that he didn't care tuppence when she threw herself down stairs while pregnant.
And there is No doubt that she did tell this stuff to Morton, IMO much of it wasn't true.. and was caused by her being so unhappy and angry at the time. So since Morton has had his money out of it, I think very badly of him for re publishing it, and making more money out of the outpourings of an unhappy and mixed up woman who was vulnerable and is now dead..
As you say, what is sadi at times like this, doesn't always reflect the person as they really are.. it reflects their unhappy moods.
but I do feel that yes Diana had grievances, and she clearly was very unhappy when she made the tapes and did the book.. but as you say, a lot fo people have bad marraiges, and see their partners in a very negative light.. so is it fair of them to publicly air those grievances in such a way that it may severely damage the partners reputation?

 

[Osipi]

The best thing is to remember that what is in the Morton book is how Diana perceived Charles to be at the time. Doesn't make it true. That's why its called HER True Story in the title.

 

[Denville]

Of couse it is not true, that's my point. but people DO believe it, some of them take it for gospel.. and while I am fond of Diana I do feel ti was very unfair of her, however unhappy she was, to make a public attack on C in this way.

 

[Pranter]

No doubt about it they both behaved badly when their marriage started to fall apart. Plenty of blame to be shared.


LaRae

 

[Osipi]

That, m'friend, is exactly what the majority of the people thought after finding out for sure after Diana died that she was very much involved with the content of the Morton book. When it was first released, people ate it up as the "inside sources" were relating what was going on in the Wales' marriage and thinking "Poor Diana".

After the second release with Diana's prime involvement becoming factual, I think people started seeing Diana differently. Many people that hadn't heard of or read the Morton book when it was first released were interested in then because Diana had almost overnight become a larger than life icon struck down in the prime of her life in a horrific way. I, myself, had never seen or really heard much about the Panorama interview until I joined here in 2008.