Word: queen
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...royal flummery, no one beats the British. Last Wednesday, accompanied by retainers with ancient titles like the Rouge Croix Pursuivant, Queen Elizabeth processed into the House of Lords to open Parliament by reading a dull speech in a firm voice. But underneath the imperial crown, the 76-year-old monarch looked drawn and frail, perhaps because of something else the British are best at: royal scandal...
...Paul Burrell, the man she called "my rock," who, as one of his last duties, dressed her after she died. His trial for stealing a stash of her goods collapsed spectacularly this month when police couldn't deliver on their claim that Burrell had been peddling them, and the Queen then provided proof of his good intentions by recalling that he told her in 1997 he would take these belongings for safekeeping...
Burrell is still devoted to Diana--besotted is more like it--and to the Queen. Though he sold his story for $650,000 to a British TV network and the Mirror, a London tabloid, he carefully protected Diana's and the Queen's reputations as he blabbed, and even turned down a rival offer of $3 million to dish all the dirt he knew...
...into Kensington Palace in the trunk of his car; he drove her around London at night so she could give away money to prostitutes; she once greeted her lover Hasnat Khan wearing only a fur coat and jewels; she bought pregnancy tests in drugstores for fun; Prince Philip, the Queen's husband, was said to have written Diana calling her a "trollop." Most of this did not really change what is known about Diana or the Windsors, though it sure moved papers...
...Thrown in for good measure is a tale of a gay orgy aboard the royal yacht Britannia and gay sex between an undisclosed member of the royal family and a servant. All the careful p.r. work that had burnished the monarchy's image in this 50th year of the Queen's reign dissolved in a chorus of public amazement and anger. Charles ordered an inquiry into the allegations concerning his employees and actions, to be conducted by a tough criminal barrister. But he put his private secretary in overall charge, which seemed a daft way to defeat charges...