The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor

by Penny Junor

  By the end of the first week the Prince of Wales authorized Colleen Harris to release a fierce condemnation on behalf of his sons. It was instigated by Prince William, whose blood began to boil with the first day’s revelations and by Friday he had had enough. He was at St Andrews at the time, rang Harry in Australia and they agreed a statement that accused Burrell of ‘cold and overt betrayal’. Prince Philip was also furious. Some of his letters to Diana had been published, one of which said, ‘We do not approve of either of you having lovers. Charles was silly to risk everything with Camilla for a man in his position. We never dreamed he might feel like leaving you for her. I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla.’ He sought legal advice but was advised action would be unwise. In the midst of their discomfort, Mark Bolland, by now cut loose and fancy free, and more than a little disenchanted, wrote an article in the Daily Mail criticizing the Royal Family’s ‘disgraceful’ treatment of Paul Burrell and suggesting that Britain could become a republic unless aides served their masters better. His invitation to Colleen Harris’s leaving party at Clarence House the following night was summarily withdrawn and he sat in the car outside while his partner, Guy Black, enjoyed the Prince’s hospitality.

  One of the Queen’s former press secretaries agrees about the quality of advice, but says that the Prince of Wales is a difficult man to advise. Looking back through the catalogue of disasters as far as the Dimbleby interview, he says:

  It’s bad enough dealing with your infidelities within your own home but to go parading them in public, and then not just to do it but to do it without telling anyone you were going to do it. The Prince told some people, yes, and his Private Secretary advised against it. It was madness, and everyone at Buckingham Palace thought it was a huge mistake. The Duke of Edinburgh was livid at the whole thing, thought it was disgusting and so infantile. Who was the Machiavelli in all that, do we think? Were people just going along with what he wanted to do? Everyone needs advice, particularly in moments of crisis.

  The trouble with the Palace is always there are advisers and courtiers; advisers are in the best professional civil service type, they will give impartial advice, the courtiers will blow with every wind that’s blowing and their main objective is to keep in their job and to tell their principal person what they want to hear. That’s what I saw in my time, and why you have a whole lot of private secretaries to the Prince of Wales walking; like Edward Adeane and John Riddell and the man who was there for a year, Christopher Airey. The Prince of Wales didn’t want to hear impartial advice; he wanted to hear people agreeing and he’s always been a bit like that. The Prince of Wales has a fearsome temper. It’s never been directed at me, but I’ve seen several members of the Royal Family break down and cry in my presence over the years. They are human beings like everyone else, with tempers; fury is inbuilt in several of them. I’ve never seen Prince Andrew furious; he’s a very reliable, honourable man.

  He might very well say that … but the Press Secretary had never woken him up for breakfast in the morning. According to Ryan Parry, the Mirror plant, the Duke of York, depending upon his mood, would either say ‘Good morning’ or tell the footman to ‘Fuck off’. I would like to believe Parry was making it up but I suspect he’s not. Some years ago the Prince of Wales gave a concert in memory of Lady Fermoy, Diana’s grandmother and old friend and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. Belinda Harley in the Prince’s office had organized it and she and her colleagues were all deputed to meet members of the Royal Family and show them up to the room in which it was being held. ‘They all behaved entirely in character,’ recalls one of them. ‘The Queen Mother was charming, Princess Margaret said, “I hope it won’t last too long, there’s something good on TV at 9.30”, and Princess Michael said, “What handsome young men”.’ After the concert, Prince Andrew, who was the only one not dressed in a dinner jacket, walked up to three of the Prince’s staff who were standing at the side of the room. ‘Who are you three?’ he said in a particularly graceless manner. ‘We work for the Prince of Wales,’ they said. ‘Oh. Well you three are in big trouble for not telling me it was black tie,’ and without waiting for a reply stalked off. ‘It was childish and stupid and his office had been told,’ says one of the three. Two of the three were private secretaries. ‘Robert Fraser had been chief barrister in the Navy, Stephen Lamport had been a diplomat at major embassies in the world, he’d been Private Secretary to Douglas Hurd, and compared to them I thought what has this chap ever done in his life apart from fly a helicopter? How dare he speak to us like that? Loyalty has to be earned and I’m not sure how good some of the family are at doing that.’ Princess Anne could be equally rude, according to Parry, and swore at servants if they made a mistake, but Sophie, Duchess of Wessex, was everyone’s favourite, always kind and grateful.

  The Queen was furious about Ryan Parry’s intrusion – although no one, no matter what they do, can ever hurt her as much as Crawfie did. ‘Though few books were written so mawkishly,’ wrote A. N. Wilson in his preface to the reprint in 1993, ‘few can have been written with such obvious love.’ For the Queen, however, the sentiment was secondary to the abuse of trust, but it inured her to further acts of betrayal. She was angry that she had given house space to a liar and a cheat but her anger is always immediate and rarely articulated. Those around her simply know that she is thoroughly displeased. But then she moves on. It is not in her nature to dwell on what is past and the Queen doesn’t go looking for scalps. She is enormously loyal to the people who work for her. As Charles Anson, her Press Secretary during the turbulent nineties says, he only ever had to look out for enemy fire. No matter how bad things were, and during the War of the Waleses when the publicity was disastrous at times, he never feared a bullet in the back. He knew that provided he had consulted and kept the Queen and Robert Fellowes, her Private Secretary, in the picture about what was happening, he could count on their support. ‘And you would know that support was going to stay with you right through, whether things went right or wrong. The Queen expects loyalty and she gives all of it back. She’s terrific. However wrong it goes, she’ll either say, “Look, just keep going”, or “This is simply untenable, let’s look at it again”. She would never say, “Who got me into this position?” or even imply it. She would take it on; you never had to worry for an instant.’

  The Prince of Wales doesn’t have such a good track record. Sandy Henney should never have lost her job over Prince William’s eighteenth birthday photographs, and if the Prince didn’t know the detail of what went on he should have made it his business to find out. She had wanted to find a way of getting some good, relaxed shots of William and knew that if she organized a general photocall dozens of photographers would turn up, William would be tense and none of them would get close enough to produce anything very special. And so, without announcing it to the rest of Fleet Street, she approached two easy-going, likeable photographers, Ian Jones from the Daily Telegraph and Eugene Campbell from ITN. She thought they would both get on well with the young, shy Prince and they would get some good shots that could be distributed to all the newspapers and television channels. It was a good idea; they got on famously and some wonderful photographs were produced as a result. The deal was that there would be no exclusives, no preferential treatment, and the photographs would be embargoed so that they all appeared on the same day. She discussed this entire deal at every stage with Stephen Lamport, the Prince’s Private Secretary, with Mark Bolland, also with Les Hinton and Guy Black at the Press Complaints Commission. Everyone gave it their blessing.

  However, when Charles Moore, Ian Jones’s editor at the Telegraph, saw the photos, which he had electronically stored on the office system, he liked them so much he wanted to maximize the impact by running them in the glossy Saturday magazine which goes to print earlier than the main body of the paper. He therefore wanted them before the agreed date. Sandy Henney cleared this with Lamport and Bolland and the photographs were released. Shortly afterwards some
one tipped off the Daily Mail and The Times about what was happening and Lamport agreed to let them have a set of photos early for their magazines too. Charles Moore was indignant and refused to let the photographs go. The Telegraph had provided the photographer, who had worked for five months on the project, it had provided the facilities and had undertaken to release the photos to every other newspaper free of charge; it was not unreasonable, he felt, for the Telegraph to have this slight advantage over its competitors. At this point Piers Morgan, then editor of the Daily Mirror, got wind of the story, turned on Sandy, wound up the rest of Fleet Street and it all turned very ugly. Sandy had nothing in writing; she had relied on a gentleman’s agreement and, crucially, had not secured the copyright of the photographs. The final outcome was not catastrophic. The photographs were released to every newspaper at the same time, they all honoured the embargo and Ian Jones surrendered the copyright of his pictures to St James’s Palace. As one commentator said at the time, it was a storm in a Fleet Street teacup.

  Sandy offered Stephen Lamport her resignation as a matter of formality, never for a moment believing it would be accepted. How could it be? She had consulted at every stage, she had had everyone’s agreement at every stage; her mistake had been to trust men she thought were honourable. If it was a cock-up it was a collective cock-up. But she was wrong. Her resignation was accepted and by three o’clock that afternoon she had cleared her desk and was out on the street and out of a job. And the Prince of Wales, to whom she had given years of loyal service, and whose sons she had helped, guided and looked after with such care, didn’t even say goodbye.

  Yet Michael Fawcett, his former valet, who has caused terrible damage to the Prince’s reputation – and continues to do so – and who countless people have tried to unseat over the years, remains firmly in favour. Although he resigned from the staff in 2003, and is now running his own event-management business, he continues to work alongside the Prince. He handles all his party arrangements, makes decisions for the Prince in this area and earns thousands of pounds from those jobs and from other highly prestigious jobs that his association with the Prince has brought him.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Allegations and Denials

  The Burrell trial opened a very large can of worms and revealed the undisciplined and chaotic nature of the Prince of Wales’s household. Taking home unwanted gifts that had been given to the Prince and/or Princess of Wales had been seen as a perk of the job; some people kept them as mementoes, others flogged them. Gifts of any sizeable value were often sold and the proceeds given to charity, or the Prince might buy something he wanted with the money in place of the gift he couldn’t use. And Michael Fawcett, nicknamed ‘Fawcett the Fence’ by the newspapers, had handled those sales. The media stirred up the nation’s sense of indignation, planting in its mind the image of presents lovingly given by loyal pensioners being callously cast aside. Some things were even put on the bonfire at Highgrove, although, in truth, most of the presents were impersonal corporate gifts that the Prince of Wales had no use for and thought his staff might enjoy. However, it was not good housekeeping and it was disastrous public relations.

  But it was what happened after the trial that really caused the damage. Male rape was the topic that gripped the nation – and the intriguing mystery of what the footman saw. The missing mahogany box, which came up in the course of the trial, had contained a tape recording made by the Princess of Wales, in 1995 or 1996, which Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Diana’s sister, had told the police contained ‘sensitive’ material. It was common knowledge in Fleet Street that the tape was a recording of George Smith, a former valet, telling Diana that another member of the Prince’s household had raped him in 1989, some six or seven years earlier.

  Ten days after the collapse of the Burrell trial, at the end of a week of sensational stories in the Mirror, the Mail on Sunday topped them all. ‘I WAS RAPED BY CHARLES’S SERVANT’ screamed the headline alongside a picture of a dapper-looking George Smith. The aide he accused wasn’t named, but through his solicitor this man strenuously denied the allegation that Smith had been raped in his own home one night in 1989 when he was very drunk. Smith, now in his mid-forties, was a Falklands veteran, who had been severely traumatized. He had a history of depression and alcoholism and was in every sense an unreliable witness, which is why, when the story first came to their attention as a domestic matter in October 1996, the Prince and his advisers quickly dismissed the allegations. He had not reported the rape at the time, and when he did report it to the police in 1996 he almost immediately decided not to pursue it. He had a record of ill health, and, given the situation, could not continue working alongside the man he had accused of raping him. And so, in an attempt to see him right and stave off further accusations, he was given a £30,000 payoff by the Prince – which was inevitably interpreted as hush money.

  In the same edition of the Mail on Sunday there was a character assassination of Michael Fawcett, who had not made many friends during his years with the Prince of Wales. Promoted to a position of influence never before enjoyed by a valet, he was arrogant and a bully who made many people’s lives in the Prince’s office a misery. He had extraordinary sticking power, and having the Prince’s ear, he was able to damn anyone he didn’t like or who was foolish enough to cross him. There had long been suggestions that he exploited his friendship with the Prince, particularly in relation to suppliers, but that the Prince chose to turn a blind eye.

  Early in 1998 it looked as though Fawcett had finally come unstuck but the rejoicing throughout the office was short-lived. Although Fiona Shackleton was one of a group who persuaded the Prince that Fawcett must be removed – and the story that he was leaving appeared in the press – he never went. The Prince changed his mind, decided he couldn’t live without him and Fawcett was not only kept within the fold but was promoted from valet to consultant responsible for organizing functions – which, to give the man his due, he does extremely well and in precisely the way the Prince likes.

  Stung by such a sustained assault on the reputation of his household, the Prince of Wales announced the very day after the Mail on Sunday story appeared that he was setting up an inquiry – led by Sir Michael Peat, assisted by Edmund Lawson QC – to look into four areas that had been raised in the press following the Burrell trial.

  1. Was there an improper cover-up of the rape allegation made by Mr George Smith in 1996?

  2. Was there anything improper or remiss in the conduct of the Prince of Wales’s household with respect to the termination of the Burrell trial?

  3. Have official gifts given to the Prince of Wales been sold?

  4. Have any staff in the Prince of Wales’s household received improper payments or other benefits?

  Four months later, in March 2003, Peat held a press conference – the first time a Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales had spoken other than through a Press Secretary – to announce the results of his inquiry, which some saw as instantly flawed because of the author’s position in the royal household. Had the pecking order been reversed, had Peat been assisting Edmund Lawson, the results might have been more convincing. Nevertheless, Peat found plenty of faults under the Prince’s roof and admitted that there was work to be done in creating systems and tightening those already in existence.

  Essentially, however, he found there had been no improper cover-up of the rape allegation but that ‘A serious allegation of this sort should not, in our opinion, have been treated so dismissively, even though there was universal disbelief as to its veracity, without full and documented consideration of the decision not to investigate.’ He found that, although the Prince of Wales had serious concerns about the implications of Burrell being tried and the information and revelations that would come out and be picked up by the media, ‘there was no improper conduct by or on behalf of the Prince of Wales in respect of the termination of the Burrell trial’. He found that the whole area of official gifts being sold or given to staff was murky and promised that
guidance and procedures had already been put in place. And he found that there was no evidence of staff selling, without authorization, gifts given to the Prince of Wales or of staff taking a slice of the proceeds if authorization had been given. Discounts from suppliers, he admitted, were received, but that was not unusual in a number of organizations and there was no evidence of such gifts having influenced decisions.

  And as for Mr Fawcett:

  Insofar as the press comments and allegations have been directed at Mr Fawcett, our investigation has not produced any evidence of financial impropriety on his part. He did infringe the internal rules relating to gifts from suppliers, but opprobrium cannot attach to this because the rules were not enforced and he made no secret of such gifts. Press suspicions were understandably aroused by his involvement in the sale of gifts (which, unknown to the media, were all authorized by the Prince of Wales) and by it being widely known that he received valuable benefits from third parties. His robust approach to dealing with some people combined, perhaps, with his having been promoted from a relatively junior position within the household, undoubtedly caused jealousy and friction in some quarters. This has encouraged some to voice rumours as to his financial probity; but they are just that, rumours. There is no evidence to justify a finding by us that he has been guilty of the alleged financial misconduct.

  The same morning it was announced that Michael Fawcett had resigned. His settlement from the Prince of Wales was reported to be in the region of £1 million; he was allowed to buy from the Duchy the £400,000 grace and favour house that he and his wife and two sons had been living in and he was guaranteed freelance earnings from the Prince of £100,000 a year. Peat had achieved more than most; he had managed to get Fawcett out of the house but not entirely out of harm’s way.