Prince Harry

by Penny Junor

  Meanwhile, another face was becoming a familiar sight at the Prince’s otherwise solitary lunch table. Charles had first fallen in love with Camilla, then Camilla Shand, in the autumn of 1972 when he was nearly twenty-four and she a year older. He was in the Navy. She had an on-off boyfriend, Andrew Parker Bowles, who played polo with Charles, and had been a one-time boyfriend of Princess Anne. He was a charming, good-looking Cavalry officer who had swept Camilla off her feet when she was eighteen—she had been mad about him ever since. But when she met Charles, Andrew was stationed in Germany and their relationship was going through a rocky patch. She and Charles had an immediate rapport; they made each other laugh and he thought he might have found someone he could share his life with, but he was young and he was about to set sail for eight months in the Caribbean, and was too reticent to dare talk about the future. By the time he came back, she had married Andrew. When Charles heard he was heartbroken. As he wrote to a friend, it seemed particularly cruel that after “such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship,” fate had decreed that it should last no more than six months. “I suppose the feeling of emptiness will pass eventually.”

  Despite the disappointment, he and the Parker Bowleses all remained good friends. Charles became a frequent weekend visitor to their house in Wiltshire, and godfather to their first child, Tom, born in 1974. Princess Anne became godmother to their daughter, Laura, born four years later. For many years their friendship was entirely platonic but, because of that earlier attachment, it was a particularly close and trusting friendship. And so it would possibly have remained. But things were not right in her marriage and, after Laura’s birth, Camilla increasingly found herself sitting at home alone. By the late 1970s, she and Charles had begun an affair, both knowing that it was never going to lead anywhere. Camilla didn’t want to leave Andrew and break up the family; even if she had done, Charles could never have married a divorcée.

  As Charles’s romantic interest in Diana developed, the physical side of his relationship with Camilla came to an end, as he assured Diana. What he failed to realize was that an insecure nineteen-year-old would be jealous of past relationships and that verbal reassurances would not be enough. She remained suspicious, but after their engagement he and Camilla scarcely saw or spoke to each other. He was sincere about wanting his marriage to work. He’d been lonely; he’d longed to find someone to share his work and his future with; he wanted to have children and the sort of cozy home life that his friends had. But by the mid-1980s, Charles had given up all hope of ever being able to change things. He was once again seeing some of the friends Diana had disliked, while she was separately seeing her own friends. They did fewer public engagements together and spent more and more time apart.

  Two of the friends he saw were Charlie and Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, neighbors in Wiltshire, with whom he used to go skiing each year in Klosters. They were not alone in being worried about how dramatically he had changed. Charles hadn’t spoken about his marital problems to any of his friends and they were shocked by the difference in him. He had always been prone to melancholy, but all the humor and sparkle had gone, all the fun. He was not in a good way. They rightly guessed that if anyone could cheer him up it would be Camilla, for whom nothing had changed. Knowing that Camilla had always been able to make him laugh, Patti put them in touch.

  He started to laugh again, and slowly began the long haul out of the abyss. Along the way, they became lovers once more. She was interested in him and what he was trying to do with his life; he could speak to her openly and honestly, pour out his heart—and she would listen. She understood him, believed in him, loved him and gently teased him. They had everything in common—children, horses, dogs, hunting, gardening, art, music—and there was no tension, no suspicion, no jealousy, no games, no manipulation. It was an easy, happy, uncomplicated secret relationship that endured the test of time.

  Diana’s love affair with James Hewitt didn’t. In 1991, at the start of the first Gulf War, he was deployed to Iraq following the British invasion. He had been stationed in Germany for some time before that; in his absence, Diana had been seeing someone she had known from her teens, James Gilbey. Despite the risk, she sent Hewitt over a hundred long, loving, handwritten letters. Every day throughout the conflict she anxiously watched the television news, terrified that he was going to be killed, while Harry, not quite seven years old, snuggled on the sofa beside her. William by then was at boarding school, at Ludgrove. Harry would follow in September. But, for the time being, he was at home with his mother, trying to comfort her but no doubt confused by her anguish.

  Hewitt returned home safely the following year, ever more besotted. But Diana abruptly ended the affair, as she ended so many of her relationships with both men and women, friends and family. She simply stopped taking his calls. He retired, confused and hurt. Three years later, when Anna Pasternak told him she planned to write a book about the affair, he cooperated with her. He claimed he made not one penny from the book, but thought that if he cooperated, at least the book would be accurate. Diana saw it as an act of gross betrayal. By the time Princess in Love was published, she had moved on to pastures new. There were several men over a period who all seemed to have a claim on her affections and who came and went from Kensington Palace at all hours of the day and night. She appeared to enjoy the power she had over them, telephoning and having them arrive at her bidding and dismissing them when she wanted them gone.

  Diana didn’t attempt to hide her dalliances—or her emotions—from her children. A friend had once suggested that it was unwise to have hysterics in front of William, who was then a baby, but Diana had replied that he was too young to notice and, anyway, he would “have to learn the truth sooner or later.” The children were partially protected by virtue of the living arrangements, and later by being away at boarding school, but even if Charles and Diana had tried to remain civil to one another it would have been impossible for two such sensitive boys not to have noticed the tension, the tears and the absences. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Harry was still very young and impressionable, the Prince and Princess could barely tolerate being in the same room together, let alone under the same roof, as everyone who worked for them was well aware. There were blistering rows, tears and hysterics, rage and fury, all heard to some degree by everyone in the house.

  What is so surprising is that Diana should have confided in her boys and sought comfort from them when they were still so young. She of all people would have known just how painful it is for a young child to see a parent in distress. She must have remembered how she felt when she saw her mother cry every weekend, knowing that her children were going to leave her, and how it felt to listen to her brother calling out in vain for their mother during the night. These were the very feelings that had led to her sadness and insecurity. Yet now she was a mother, she seemed unconcerned that William and Harry should see the full range of her emotions.

  But then everyone who saw Diana behind closed doors encountered the full range of her emotions. In a good mood, she couldn’t do enough to help people, be they friends, family, strangers or staff. But that could change within seconds. If she took against someone or suspected them of disloyalty or of plotting against her, they were cut out of her life. Even her own mother suffered long periods of estrangement from Diana.

  William and Harry were, arguably, the only people Diana loved consistently. She would repeatedly say, “They mean everything to me.” They undoubtedly did, and their sense of security today must be partly down to that; but it wasn’t entirely healthy: she couldn’t leave them to be quietly confident of her love for them. It was as if she was afraid that if she didn’t demonstrate it with treats and hugs or verbalize it, it might not be real, they might not be aware of it. Her love for them was almost obsessive, and it was possessive. Another of her favorite phrases was, “Who loves you most?”

  The real problem was that Diana had never been properly mothered herself and therefore didn’t know how to b
e a mother. She behaved more like a big sister to William and Harry—at times, the nannies must have felt as though they had three children to look after. She told Andrew Morton, “I want to bring them up with security, not to anticipate things because they will be disappointed. That’s made my own life so much easier. I hug my children to death and get into bed with them at night. I always feed them love and affection. It’s so important.” What psychologists might say is that it is equally important for a mother to protect her children from emotions that they are too young to be able to process safely.

  Their nannies could keep them occupied and their PPOs could keep them safe, but no one could protect them from the emotional extremes of their mother.

  THE THREE Rs

  Throughout his childhood, Harry followed everywhere in the wake of his big brother, who for so many years overshadowed him. He found himself constantly compared to William, from his nursery school to his public school and, academically at least, he was found wanting. There were tears when his parents took him to Mrs. Mynors’ nursery for his first day, in September 1987, as there are with so many children on their first day at school. He started off doing just two mornings a week; he was just three, still very unsure of himself and probably already feeling unease at the domestic situation. Barbara Barnes had vanished and his father had been absent for long stretches. Charles had left in March for a walk in the Kalahari Desert with Sir Laurens van der Post; no sooner was he back from that than he was off on a week’s painting holiday in Italy, followed by his usual stint at Balmoral. Diana had stayed firmly in London. The press, ever vigilant, had calculated that they had spent one day in six weeks together. It was not surprising that Harry tried to run after them when they left him that first morning at Mrs. Mynors,’ but he was quickly lassoed and distracted. School did not come easily to him.

  Harry didn’t yet have his brother’s outgoing nature and didn’t find it easy to mix with other children. They very swiftly picked him out as different and, in those early years, he was not up to defending himself from bullies. He had never been without his brother, his wingman. He might have driven his brother mad at times, and vice versa, but they had been a unit; suddenly for the first time he was having to face life and other children without his protective shield. But he had his moments. In the Christmas play one year he was a goblin, dressed in green tights with a red hat and tabard. He pulled the role off with aplomb, except for the moment when he stuck his tongue out at the expectant photographers. It was a sign of things to come. The next year he had his first speaking role, as a shepherd in the nativity play.

  From Mrs. Mynors’ he progressed aged five to Wetherby in 1989, starting with mornings only for the first few weeks. Having a September birthday, he was younger than most of the other children in the year; but at the end of that first term he sang a solo in the Christmas concert. He would come home most days clutching artwork that his mother proudly put up in her dressing room. Diana tried whenever possible to take him to school in the mornings, but getting home in time for the afternoon pick-up after a day of engagements was more difficult. On the way home she would stop and pop into the local supermarket to buy Twiglets or some other treat. “I know they’re not good for them,” she would say, “but they do love them.” It was at Wetherby that Diana first showed off her athleticism—and her competitive nature—when she kicked off her shoes at sports day and triumphed in the mothers’ race, while Charles, to her glee, came last in the fathers’ race.

  Charles was no runner but, like Diana, he was an avid skier. It was one of the few activities they enjoyed together, and every year they went with friends to Klosters in Switzerland. It was the backdrop to a photo-opportunity that had become something of a tradition. The media got some good colorful shots, and sometimes a few words, and in return the photographers undertook to leave the couple alone to ski and enjoy their holiday in peace. In 1991, the press were only too delighted to learn that William and Harry would be joining them. What came as a surprise was that their father would not.

  Charles had promised the boys that now they were old enough, he would take them skiing. He was looking forward to introducing them to one of his favorite sports, to watching them experience the thrill of the mountains. And thrill it was, especially for Harry. He took to skis like a duck to water, and with the fearlessness that only a six-year-old can muster. By the end of a week he was whizzing down the runs, while William approached the whole exercise with infinitely more caution. But what should have been a happy family break—and a happy, united family photo-opportunity—was sabotaged. There had been a terrible accident in Klosters three years before when an avalanche had killed one of their party, Major Hugh Lindsay, and badly injured Patti Palmer-Tomkinson. It had narrowly missed the Prince. He had no qualms about going back but Diana, understandably, didn’t want to go to Klosters ever again. Without telling Charles, Diana quietly settled on the Austrian resort of Lech and booked a holiday for herself and the boys with a few other friends and alerted the press. The booking was for half-term, when she knew Charles would be unable to come. He was hosting a shooting weekend for eighteen friends at Sandringham, which she knew he would never be able to call off. It was not the first time, nor the last, that the boys would be used as pawns in their ongoing war.

  The year did not improve as the months passed. There was a summer holiday in the Mediterranean on the Alexander, a super-luxurious yacht that the late Greek shipping magnate, John Latsis, frequently lent the Prince. It was the third biggest yacht in the world and had a room full of computer games, which the boys fell on with delight—but nothing could entirely distract them from the tension that pervaded the ship. A tour of Canada followed, where the family stayed on the Royal Yacht Britannia, but by now they were communicating through their Private Secretaries. They hadn’t shared a bedroom in years. The wheels were rapidly falling off the marriage, as a tense and difficult Christmas at Sandringham heralded 1992, the year that the Queen, in her Christmas address to the nation, would call her annus horribilis.

  In June, Diana: Her True Story was published, but not before its serialization in the Sunday Times had received massive publicity. Under the headline, “Diana driven to five suicide bids by ‘uncaring’ Charles,” the first installment revealed her bulimia, her husband’s indifference towards her, his obsession with his mistress, his shortcomings as a father, and the loneliness and isolation she had felt for so many years, trapped in a loveless marriage within a hostile court and a cold and disapproving bunch of in-laws. No one knew at the time that it was the handiwork of the Princess herself, but it had a compelling authority and many of her closest friends and family members were openly quoted and thanked in the acknowledgments.

  Diana denied any involvement, which prompted her brother-in-law, Sir Robert Fellowes, by this time the Queen’s Private Secretary, to appeal to the Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, who publicly condemned the serialization as an “odious exhibition of journalists dabbling their fingers in the stuff of other people’s souls in a manner which adds nothing to the legitimate public interest in the situation of the heir to the throne.”

  Diana’s response was to pay a very public visit to Harry’s godmother, Carolyn Bartholomew, one of the most quoted sources in the book, and in front of the waiting photographers to give her old flatmate a big hug. The Queen refused Fellowes’ immediate offer to resign. All sorts of stories in the book pointed to Diana, stories that were almost true but never quite as everyone else involved remembered them, but it was not until years later that the whole truth emerged: that Diana had actively sought out the journalist via an intermediary to kick her husband where it hurt. Yet in doing so, she had failed to consider how hurt and humiliated William and Harry would be by this attack on their father and by this exposé of their private life.

  Diana had lived a charmed existence as far as the newspapers were concerned. She lived dangerously but she got away with it. Given the men who came to visit her by day and night, the love letters she wrot
e, the phone calls she made, the restaurants she openly ate in with male friends, the late-night hospital visits to see a doctor on the pretext of visiting patients, there was surprisingly little negative gossip about her in the press. And Morton’s book firmly established her as the injured party.

  This was because she had wooed a number of key figures, not least the late Sir David English, who ran the highly successful Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, which between them accounted for the biggest middle-market circulation in Britain. He basked in the warmth of her charms, but he also recognized that both titles had a high proportion of female readers, so taking Diana’s side against her husband’s was sound business. There were other editors she targeted, my own father—Sir John Junor—among them, plus one or two influential journalists, including Richard Kay at the Daily Mail. She rang them with stories, invited them to lunch and flattered their male egos.

  But no amount of wooing could have prevented “Squidgygate,” the transcript of a flirtatious thirty-minute telephone conversation between Diana and James Gilbey, which originally appeared in the Sun but was immediately reproduced elsewhere. The Sun set up a telephone hotline and for thirty-six pence a minute callers could hear the tape for themselves. He called her “Darling” fourteen times and “Squidgy” or “Squidge” fifty-three times, hence the name. Aside from the romantic endearments, Diana said Charles made her life “real, real torture,” and described the look the Queen Mother had given her at lunch: “It’s not hatred, it’s sort of interest and pity… I was very bad at lunch and I nearly started blubbing. I just felt really sad and empty and thought, Bloody hell, after all I’ve done for this fucking family.”

  The transcript appeared at the end of August 1992. It could not have been more upsetting or humiliating for everyone involved—although Diana’s PPO, Ken Wharfe, said she had raised the subject with him “in a fairly light-hearted way—the fact that it had reached the front of a national tabloid newspaper.” She admitted she had even rung the Sun’s hotline, which allowed readers to hear the tape for themselves. “When I asked if it was her, she said, ‘Of course it was.’ ”