by Tim Clayton
Diana was an avid reader of the star signs at the back of her favourite magazines and considered herself to be a typical Cancerian. For several years she had shared Sarah Ferguson’s enthusiasm for society astrologers, previously consulting well-known practitioners such as Penny Thornton. Perhaps the movement of the stars would now guide her to the right decision about Andrew Morton’s book. Colthurst invited Lyle to the pub for a drink.
James approached me out of the blue and said, ‘How do you fancy doing an astrological reading for Diana?’ And I looked at him and I thought, Hmm, you’re winding me up, aren’t you? But no, he meant it. Diana was thinking about doing a book, The Revenge of the Princess, basically, and she wanted some astrological advice on it. And I thought, Perhaps you need a bit more than astrological advice! But I was very keen to do it.
People have said, if she had astrologers of her own, why did she not go to them? But James felt that I would give her an objective picture of what I saw.
One evening in August, Diana drove to Fulham, parked down a quiet side street, left her detective waiting in the car, and rang the doorbell of James Colthurst’s terraced house. Waiting inside was Colthurst, his wife Dominique and a rather tense astrologer.
I caught myself by surprise by how nervous I was. But she just swooped in and said, ‘Hi.’ Very effortless and very naturally. James and Dominique scurried off upstairs, and hid themselves away for the duration of the consultation, which lasted about two hours.
In the first consultation the focal point was the book. She asked me what the auguries were for publishing the book.
The strongest message coming back from Diana’s chart was perhaps the most predictable:
I said, ‘There’s scandal here.’ There was Neptune playing quite a devious game in her chart, and also Pluto playing a very strong role, and so there was a complete transformation coming.
Diana was impressed. She then took Felix through the story of her marriage.
There were real feelings of anger there – it’s strong in her chart anyhow. She felt unloved, she felt used, and she felt that there was another person in her husband’s heart. Did he have a mistress or did he not, and was it acceptable to Diana or was it not? She took the view that he did have one, and that it was unacceptable, and this is not why she married him.
And the future?
She had serious worries and reservations about the book. And we talked all about that. Pluto in the transformation takes a very long-term approach to things, so as it unravels, you unravel with it. And she said, ‘Well, if this is what’s happening anyhow, I might as well facilitate it, you know, make it easier.’
* * *
As she sat under the Sign of Fulham in the House of Colthurst, what was going through Diana’s mind? The path of the Sun through the zodiac of Wapping? Hewitt in retrograde motion? The Moon was in Capricorn, Mercury was in Aries and Camilla was still in Highgrove. Scandal and transformation were coming. ‘Oh well, I might as well facilitate it, then.’ Decision made.
Members of Britain’s ruling family have long flirted with the occult. But no seance, no turn of a tarot card and no finger run along a royal palm ever had an impact like this. The future Queen was poised to break the rules of secrecy and loyalty that had sustained the Windsors for generations. And no one could predict the consequences. Although one astrologer did try:
We talked about the possibilities and the mud-slinging that would come out as a result of it, and the likely reaction of the Royal Family, which isn’t exactly tame in the way that it protects interests.
But she wanted revenge – there’s no question about that. That was a very strong motivating factor in bringing the book out. She had her story to tell, and she felt that the only way to gain some kind of composure was to hit back. I think at that stage she was bitterly, bitterly hurt, and would see the tearing down [of the Royal Family] as a perfectly justifiable end.
Colthurst and his wife could bear the tension no more.
James and Dominique started making scuffling noises at the top of the stairs, oversized mice noises, and decided that they wanted their house back. We could have carried on for another hour and a half. So they came down, and that was it. We smiled at James and said, ‘Well, that’s it, then, we’re going ahead. The book is going ahead.’ And James said something like, ‘Well, that’s excellent.’
Most of Diana’s loyal society friends, like Lord Palumbo, say that had she consulted them they would strongly have advised her against the book. They would have told her that to raise the stakes in this way would be catastrophic.
If she’d come to somebody like me or others, and said, do you think we should do this, do you think this book is a good idea, we would’ve all said, ‘No’ – or I would’ve done, anyway – and that was not what she wanted to hear. So she went ahead anyway because she was an instinctive creature.
Diana knew what her more conservative friends would say and so she did not ask them. Felix Lyle had one more conversation with Diana over a dinner table, and then Colthurst called him with exciting news.
‘I’ve got the whole thing rolling!’ The whole thing was rolling. The information was being gathered. She gave the lot. It was a very slick operation because Morton never had to meet her. It’s a bizarre thing to write, isn’t it, a biography about somebody that you never meet, when she’s still alive?
James was the centrepiece, he was the linchpin for the whole thing. It was the contact between James and Diana, James and Andrew Morton. And I was never very clear about whose idea it was. I’m not sure that it was hers. I’m pretty certain that it wasn’t actually.
Colthurst and Diana made dozens of tape recordings that were passed to Andrew Morton. He would listen and then send supplementary questions back to Diana. At the same time some of Diana’s friends were approached for their testimony about her and to act as on-the-record repositories for Diana’s own words. In return Diana demanded only one thing from Morton.
The straightforward deal was that she would always be in the background, that she had total, utter deniability – so that I would take the flak for it, it would be my responsibility. Some of her friends would bear the burden of it as well, and that was it. And she could then say to the Queen, say to Prince Charles, say to the Prime Minister, ‘Nothing to do with me.’
* * *
As Morton’s project got into full swing, high-level steps were being taken to curb the intrusive instincts of the British press. Senior journalists were alarmed that new laws might be directed against them, and so they took action to maintain self-regulation. In January 1991, a new body named the Press Complaints Commission took over from the old Press Council as journalism’s governing authority. It promised to take a much firmer line on the invasion of privacy, and all editors and publishers agreed to abide by its code of practice. Lord McGregor was appointed chairman. After a rash of intrusive tabloid stories, the privacy of the Royal Family was at the top of his agenda. McGregor was particularly anxious about the Prince and Princess of Wales.
He had lunch with Sir Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary, and Charles Anson, her new press secretary. Sir Robert later invited Lord McGregor and his PCC colleagues to a lunch at the Palace. The courtiers told them that stories about problems in the royal marriage were all untrue, but McGregor was soon advised otherwise. The Daily Mail’s owner, Lord Rothermere, explained to him that both Diana and Charles had sought to use national newspapers to place their versions of their marital problems before the public.
* * *
Thoroughly amused by Colthurst’s story of how his project had been authorised, Andrew Morton went to Lyle for a reading too.
And it became a merry little party. I seem to remember he quotes me in his book as saying something fairly banal like, ‘It’s gonna be a hard ride.’ Well, I don’t have to be an astrologer to come up with that kind of observation. And that was it – he went away and wrote it. And I think he wrote it quite quickly because it must’ve been one of the easier job
s for him because he didn’t have to do much of the research!
I did actually make an invoice in the end, and it was agreed that the Morton estate, as it was called, would pay for the consultations. So it makes it look as if it was a bit of a conspiracy, but it wasn’t really, it’s just that I wanted to be paid, I needed the money.
Some of Diana’s friends were contacted by Andrew Morton with messages such as ‘I’m doing a book. I know you are very important to Diana. Can I come and talk to you?’ All immediately contacted Diana, who said to most, but not all, that she had no objection to them talking. James Hewitt
received a letter in Germany from Andrew Morton . . . asking me to contribute to a book that he was doing. And I . . . rang up Diana and said, ‘What’s all this about?’ And she was particularly vague about it actually. I hadn’t spoken to her for a while. And I said, ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ And she said, ‘You must do what you feel you must do.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s not very helpful, for heaven’s sake.’ She said, ‘Well, do what you want.’ . . . So I wrote back to Mr Morton and said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what good it would do to speak to me and I would have nothing to add to your book about the Princess of Wales.’
While Hewitt refused, most others accepted. James Gilbey and Carolyn Bartholomew were major contributors. Angela Serota consulted a friend in the media, Andrew Knight, the executive chairman of News International.
I heard from Angela Serota that this book was being written and that she had been asked to co-operate in providing material for it. She was saying, ‘Look, you’re in newspapers, you know more about this world than I do, what do you think I ought to do? I’ve been counselled by the Princess of Wales that I should tell all that I know, in as responsible a way as I can, to Andrew Morton – do you think that’s right?’ I was slightly amazed but I said, ‘Well, if that is the case, yes, I think you should.’
Diana visited Angela Serota at home, to give her blessing in the most positive terms. Serota invited Morton over for an interview in which she talked about Adrian Ward-Jackson. Another confidant approached by Morton was Diana’s masseur, Stephen Twigg.
She hoped that other people close to her – her family, the Royal Family, her husband even – would understand more than they seemed to do how she felt and the situation she was in. Because she felt entirely helpless. She felt that she was trapped and she said to me, ‘There’s no way I can get out of this.’ And I told her that, in fact, the Royal Family were stuck with her until she decided differently, because you have lots of other options than to stay in the situation that you’re in.
* * *
Felix Lyle met Diana again.
She came to Fulham again. She wanted to talk about the meaning of life. She liked the alternative and the occult view. She was looking to turn up stones and looking for answers.
She was particularly mindful of what she called the cruel streak in the Windsors and she said that Charles had shown this to her. . . . And that bothered her. She was concerned for William’s development. She really didn’t want him to follow in the footsteps of the Royal Family. She wanted him to be different, she wanted him to be a modern monarch. I think she’d put a lot of thought into the upbringing from that perspective. Of all the royals that were around her at that time, she was the only one who really understood the importance of having the public on your side.
* * *
As the book was written, draft chapters were sent to Diana. She annotated them and sent them back. To further satisfy Morton’s desire for proof, she showed him some of Camilla’s recent letters to Charles.
On 15 January 1992 the Daily Mail published photographs of Sarah, Duchess of York, with an American named Steve Wyatt. The photographs had been found in Wyatt’s Belgravia flat. Sarah believed they had been planted. For two more days the tabloids revelled in the story. After six days of this Sarah told Andrew that she thought they should separate, and the next morning they went to see the Queen. They agreed not to make anything public until after the general election that had been called for April.
In February 1992 Charles and Diana toured India, looking unhappy in each other’s company. Many of their engagements were separate. The Prince of Wales dutifully attended meetings on behalf of British business. Diana visited hospitals and met Mother Teresa. The most damaging moment came from an apparently innocent day of tourism. While Charles talked to more industrialists, Diana visited the Taj Mahal. Charles had been there before and did not want to overcrowd his schedule. Inevitably, the press followed Diana. Photographer Jayne Fincher could not believe how clumsily the schedule had been arranged:
We were told that it would be very bad of us if we all went to the Taj Mahal and nobody went with Prince Charles. I mean, what a stupid thing! . . . When the Princess of Wales, the most photographable woman in the world, is sitting by the Taj Mahal for a photograph, who on earth is going to ever expect any photographers to go and photograph a man in a suit at a business forum?
The officials failed to see the danger. The photo opportunity with Diana sitting sadly alone outside the world’s most famous monument to love was laden with ironic potential. But only Diana knew that she was about to publish a tale of cruelty and neglect. Now the woman who had dreamed of marrying a Prince was happy for the world to see that the fairytale had no happy ending. Judy Wade asked her a question:
I said, ‘What do you think of the Taj, ma’am?’ And she went into some very cryptic description about it being ‘a very healing experience’ to be there. And we all got the message that she needed this experience because she was so neglected and abandoned by her husband and that’s what made front pages around the world the next day.
Two days later there was a polo match in which Charles would take part. Diana was to present the prizes to the winning team. Not to have done so would have been rude to the magnificent Indian cavalry who were competing. On the boundary, Diana agonised with her staff over what to do if Charles’s team won. One of them told us:
Diana said to me, ‘I’m not sure if I can kiss him in public’ She didn’t want to maintain the myth. I knew there would be trouble.
They all watched in horror as, from sixty yards out on the boundary, Charles scored one of the luckiest and most spectacular goals of his career. Charles, stoic as ever in public, was also expecting trouble as he walked over to kiss Diana. But it had never occurred to the equerries who had arranged the schedule that to photographers like Jayne Fincher the date was crucial:
It was the thirteenth of February, the day before Valentine’s Day. And everybody wanted a picture of them kissing to run in the paper on Valentine’s Day. And Diana always kisses Charles when she presents him with a prize. We used always to get them kissing on the lips at polo and giggling into each other’s faces. This one, it was a turned head and a quick peck here [on the neck] and both looked pretty miserable. So we all ran the story that this kiss symbolised the bad marriage.
* * *
The opposition was deploying heavy artillery. In London, Richard Aylard let Patrick Jephson know that the lawyer Lord Goodman was now engaged on the Prince’s behalf. He took this as an indication that the Prince’s side might be looking for a separation. The Princess hired her own lawyers.
Meanwhile, in deepest secrecy, Diana’s forces were drawing up their own howitzer. While she was in India, Andrew Morton and Michael O’Mara were trying to sell the newspaper serial rights to his book, now called Diana: Her True Story. The Mail on Sunday had already bid £300,000 when they approached their favoured target, Andrew Neil, editor of the Sunday Times. They pursued Neil because of the credibility that the Sunday Times could bring to the book.
Andrew Neil’s first instinct was to dismiss it all. The author told Neil that his key sources had all signed statements backing up their contributions to his book. Neil was still not convinced. Then the Mail withdrew their offer. Morton feared the worst.
And we had an awful week, I remember, in February 1992 when David English, the editor of th
e Daily Mail, turned the book down because . . . he didn’t think there was enough new information in it – which is a bit like the guy who turned down the Beatles. It looked almost as if we couldn’t even get a serialisation for the book in either the Daily Mail or the Sunday Times.
At this point News International chairman Andrew Knight intervened and told Andrew Neil that he knew the book was authentic because one of the sources, Angela Serota, was a completely reliable friend of his. Neil, a well-known republican, was still not convinced, and Knight found himself having to persuade him:
So there we were in a rather curious position – me, as a rather soppy royalist, urging Andrew to take seriously a book which he would’ve been far more likely than me, you would’ve thought, to want to publish. It was really only when it became more and more evident that the book was likely to be true and explosive that he became very interested in it.
It was ‘to end the fairy story’, that was the phrase that the Princess of Wales was using over and over again.
Sue Douglas at the Sunday Times scrutinised the book’s more controversial statements. Knight several times asked Serota to check a fact, and five minutes later she would call him back, having spoken directly to Diana. This, and continued firm support from the other witnesses, slowly convinced Douglas and Neil that Diana truly stood behind the project. The serial deal was signed.
Meanwhile, at the Sun, Stuart Higgins was negotiating a secondary interest in the rights:
I had to go and read the book – sign confidentiality clauses, all that sort of thing. So I was privileged enough to know that there was hot property, massive material in this book that I thought was going to blow the whole marriage up in the air and was very, very exciting. I obviously quizzed him [Morton] about the authenticity of it and his words, which will stick with me for ever, were, ‘Well, you can treat this book as though she has signed every page of the manuscript!’
