Word: mortons
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These scandals capped a spring and summer of monarchical discontent. In April the palace announced that after two years of separation, Princess Anne would divorce Captain Mark Phillips, her husband of 18 years. June saw the publication of journalist Andrew Morton's best seller on Princess Diana, portraying in excruciating detail the travails of a young woman trapped in a cold and loveless marriage. Morton's accounts of her five suicide attempts and struggles with the eating disorder bulimia were shocking enough. Worse, by monarchists' reckonings, were the signs that Morton had enjoyed the cooperation of Diana's friends...
Charles dithered his way through a lengthy list of girls, some suitable, some not. But Camilla Parker-Bowles, one that got away early and married another, has remained his very dear friend -- and Diana's nemesis. In Morton's book she is depicted as a schemer, vetting the prince's girls, not for their potential as royals but "to see how much a threat they posed to her own relationship." When the naive Diana said she didn't enjoy hunting, Camilla, a horsewoman, brightened at once. Then there was the discovery of Fred and Gladys -- the pet code names...
...birth of Prince William in 1982 brought the couple closer together; Prince Harry's arrival in 1984 did not. Charles wanted a girl and, according to Morton, even objected to the infant's "rusty hair," a Spencer family trait. The couple were now battling constantly. Drama came naturally to Diana. Charles loathed confrontation, and his retreat to a virtually separate life in Gloucestershire, not far from Parker-Bowles, began...
...most- admired, most-beautiful and most-popular royal lists. Closer to home, that is not the case. If her husband admires her efforts for AIDS victims and drug addicts, he keeps it to himself. By her in-laws, she is watched "in doubtful and often jealous silence," writes Morton. "The world judges that she has dusted off the dowdy image of the House of Windsor." But inside it, "she is seen as an outsider and a problem. She is tactile, emotional, gently irreverent and spontaneous." Adds Davies: "Basically separated from her husband and most of her royal in-laws...
What empire? Diana is the dominant partner in what is left of the marriage. In avoiding her, Charles has to a degree withdrawn from his sons. The boys palpably adore their mother, who lavishes time and affection on them. Was the Morton book not the impetuous blowout it seems to be but a prelude to divorce? In her more florid moments, Diana has said she may never be Queen. (A current story around London is that if Elizabeth II lives another 20 years, Charles may stand aside in favor of William.) But Diana has reportedly told the Queen she would...