The Duke of Edinburgh, whose letter to Charles had hinted at a mismatch between Anne and the army captain, had questioned his future son-in-law after the couple had been photographed kissing in public. The young officer professed honorable intentions toward the Princess, but Prince Philip cut him off.

"b.a.l.l.s," Philip retorted. "I just hope there's none of this premarital malarkey."

The Palace tried to claim the kissing photograph was a fake. They officially denied there was any relationship between the Princess and Mark Phillips. In fact, they claimed that the couple did not know each other. "They've never met," said the Queen's press secretary. He then asked Robert Edwards, editor of the Sunday Mirror, Sunday Mirror, to run a story ending speculation about a relationship between Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. The editor complied. Weeks later the Queen announced her daughter's engagement. to run a story ending speculation about a relationship between Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. The editor complied. Weeks later the Queen announced her daughter's engagement.

Marrying into the royal family at that time carried a certain responsibility for producing children. The Prince of Wales had not yet married and provided an heir, and his brothers, Prince Andrew (thirteen) and Prince Edward (nine), were too young to marry, so the prospect of children from Anne, fourth in the line of succession, became crucial. Mark Phillips was summoned to the Palace and ordered to provide a specimen of s.e.m.e.n. When his potency was a.s.sured, the Queen offered him a t.i.tle, which he respectfully declined. The Queen could not understand anyone's preferring to remain a commoner, so she tried again. But the young captain said no and was staunchly supported by Princess Anne. Later he turned down a desk job in the Ministry of Defense, preferring to be a country squire. So the Queen offered to buy Anne and Mark Gatcombe Park, a 500-acre estate in Gloucestershire worth almost $2 million. Phillips accepted. "Very nice of her, indeed," he said.

"They're gold-plated parasites," roared Willie Hamilton in Parliament. "The lot of them. All parasites."

Four months later the surly Princess earned grudging respect from the public when she faced down a gunman threatening to kidnap her. Traveling down the Mall toward Buckingham Palace one evening, Anne was riding with her husband in a royal limousine. The blue light above the windshield indicated that a member of the royal family was inside, so pedestrians and motorists were stunned when the limousine was rammed by a small white Ford Escort. The Ford's driver jumped out with a pistol in each hand and started firing. The a.s.sailant ran toward the limousine, shooting the Princess's chauffeur, her protection officer, and a pedestrian. Then the gunman lunged toward a rear door to grab the Princess. Frightened but tough, Anne and her husband held on to the door from inside until the deranged man was subdued.

Acts of terrorism were so rare in England in 1974 that policemen did not carry guns* and people did not worry about getting shot. One man who rushed to Anne's rescue was more intent on manners than mayhem. and people did not worry about getting shot. One man who rushed to Anne's rescue was more intent on manners than mayhem.

"My first thought was that the two cars had b.u.mped each other, and that the driver of the Escort had lost his temper," recalled Ron Russell, manager of a London cleaning firm. "Obviously he didn't realize he was embarra.s.sing a member of the royal family. Someone should tell him. With this in mind, I pulled off the road."

The public was shocked by the attack on a member of the royal family but praised the composure of the Princess, who seemed to dismiss her a.s.sailant with the dispatch of Mary Poppins.

"The girl's got steel britches," a London cabbie told the Daily Mail. Daily Mail.

Her father agreed. Anne had called him in Indonesia, where he was on a royal tour with the Queen. The Princess did not want to talk to her mother about the attempted kidnapping, only her father. "G.o.d help that cretin," Prince Philip said. "If he had succeeded in abducting Anne, she would have given him a h.e.l.l of a time while in captivity." Upon her return to London, the Queen presented royal honors to the four men wounded while trying to protect her daughter. The Duke of Edinburgh commended his favorite child on scoring a public relations triumph. "Well done," he told Anne. "You saved the Civil List."

The royal allowances remained unchallenged until Princess Margaret let a fox into the chicken coop. With her penchant for weak men, she had become romantically involved with an effete young man who had lived with an avowed h.o.m.os.e.xual. Margaret was forty-three years old when she met Roderic ("Roddy") Llewellyn at a party. He was seventeen years her junior. As the second son of Sir Henry Llewellyn, he was an aristocrat, which was not insignificant to the Princess. His father seemed amused by their relationship. "You mean Roddy's new friend?" he asked. "Well, it makes a change from his usual Italian waiters." Margaret said the long-haired youth, who lived on a commune in Wales, reminded her of a younger version of her husband "back in the days when Tony was sweet." The Princess and the hippie began an affair known only to their friends. In deference to the Queen, the couple did not socialize in public.

Snowdon, who was involved in his own love affair, was desperate for a divorce. The Princess unthinkingly gave him grounds in 1976 when she took her young lover to Mustique. The couple were photographed there in a cozy island bar with another couple. A picture of Margaret and Roddy sitting on a wooden bench in their bathing suits was published on the front page of the News of the World. News of the World. The other couple was cropped from the photograph so Princess Margaret appeared to be dining intimately with a man who was not her husband. Under the headline "Margaret and the Handsome Young Courtier," the article described the two lovers walking arm in arm on the beach, adding that "Roddy rubs suntan oil on her bronzed shoulders. She can suddenly look radiant in a way the public have not seen for a long time." In a later edition, the headline was changed to "The Picture a Husband Just Couldn't Take." The other couple was cropped from the photograph so Princess Margaret appeared to be dining intimately with a man who was not her husband. Under the headline "Margaret and the Handsome Young Courtier," the article described the two lovers walking arm in arm on the beach, adding that "Roddy rubs suntan oil on her bronzed shoulders. She can suddenly look radiant in a way the public have not seen for a long time." In a later edition, the headline was changed to "The Picture a Husband Just Couldn't Take."

Even people who had suspected that Margaret's marriage was not perfect were grateful for the royal facade. For years the public made allowances for Princess Margaret, tolerating her minor transgressions such as smoking in public and showing up late for royal events. People said she had suffered extraordinary heartbreak when she was forced to give up Peter Townsend, so they relaxed the standards for her. They overlooked her imperious behavior and sympathetically referred to her as "poor Margaret." That gave her further license to be naughty. But now, on Mustique, she had gone too far.

No longer was there tolerance for a married royal Princess, who received $70,000 a year from the public purse, who left her children in England and flagrantly cavorted in the Caribbean with a raffish young man of ambiguous s.e.xuality from a hippie commune in Wales.

"If she thumbs her nose at taxpayers by flying off to Mustique," said Willie Hamilton, "she shouldn't expect the workers of the country to pay for it."

This time another Member of Parliament agreed. "The Princess is a parasite," said Dennis Canavan, a Labor MP from Scotland. "She should not get any money at all."

Sensing the mounting public outrage, Snowdon pounced. He said he was humiliated by his wife's flagrant indiscretion and that continuing their marriage under any circ.u.mstance was intolerable. Alarmed by the uproar, the Queen summoned Margaret to London, so she left Mustique-without her lover. The Palace told Snowdon to meet her at the airport for the sake of public appearance. He arrived in a royal limousine accompanied by his young son and thoughtfully carried Margaret's fur coat so she would not freeze in her summer cottons. In front of photographers, he kissed her on the cheek and draped the coat over her shoulders. Afterward she said, "Lord Snowdon was devilish cunning."

Two months later Kensington Palace issued a statement:*

Her Royal Highness, the Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and the Earl of Snowdon have mutually agreed to live apart. The Princess will carry out her public duties and functions unaccompanied by Lord Snowdon. There are no plans for divorce proceedings.

"I remember the night the announcement was made," recalled one of Margaret's friends. "The Princess was terribly upset. She kept running to the loo to cry, but we kept her going, took her to a premiere, and then to Bubbles [a nightclub] for champagne. We stayed with her until four-thirty in the morning. She needed the support."

British law requires a formal two-year separation before granting an uncontested divorce. If one party objects, a five-year waiting period is imposed before the divorce can be granted. Margaret never believed that the separation would lead to divorce, but Snowdon was determined. He said he felt like a prisoner serving time and he wanted his freedom.

The Queen was so disturbed by what she saw as her sister's self-destructiveness that she didn't speak to her for several weeks. She said Margaret was leading the life of a "guttersnipe," and the Queen's disgust soon led to snickering about Margaret's promiscuity. One joke making the rounds had the Queen and her lady-in-waiting driving in the country when the Queen's Rolls-Royce was overtaken by bandits. The gunmen, who did not recognize the pa.s.sengers, demanded money and jewels but got nothing except an empty white handbag. So they threw the two women out of the car and drove off with the Rolls.

The Queen dusted herself off. The Queen dusted herself off."Where is your beautiful ring?" asked the lady-in-waiting."I hid it," said the Queen. "Where?" "Where?""In a very private place."The Queen looked at the lady-in-waiting and asked about her tiara."I hid it," said the lady-in-waiting.The Queen raised her eyebrows inquiringly."Same place," said the lady-in-waiting.The Queen looked at her and smiled. "Pity Margaret wasn't here," she said. "We could've saved the Rolls."

Despite the public derision, the Princess continued her relationship with Roddy Llewellyn because she said he was the only person who was kind to her. "I need him," she sobbed. "He's good to me." The Queen, aware of public opinion, begged her to reconsider. Margaret refused.

"That friendship may be in the modern trend," said Willie Hamilton on the floor of the House of Commons, "but it has turned the Princess into a royal punk." This time few members of the Tory Party rose to object. In fact, the only person to defend the Princess was her young lover.

"I would like to see Willie Hamilton or any of the others do all her jobs in the marvelous way that she does," said Roddy Llewellyn. "People love the monarchy and appreciate with their whole hearts the job Princess Margaret does."

By then the public had turned against the Princess. A national opinion poll reported that 73 percent of the country felt her way of life had harmed her public standing and that of the monarchy. So the Queen told her sister she must make a choice: either give up her lover or give up public life.

Margaret cursed the "prayer makers" in the church and mocked the establishment newspapers for their pious editorials against her. She called them all "slop buckets of hypocrisy." But in the end she caved in to public pressure and agreed to do her duty.

Looking worn and tired, she carried out her official duties but frequently arrived late or left early, pleading fatigue. Her doctors warned her to stop smoking and drinking, but she did not listen until she was hospitalized with gastroenteritis and alcoholic hepat.i.tis. Even when faced with a lung operation, she continued smoking sixty unfiltered cigarettes a day, which she puffed through a tortoisesh.e.l.l holder. She suffered a nervous breakdown, and shortly before the divorce announcement, she threatened suicide.

Margaret had not reckoned with her husband's determination to be rid of her. Despite their separation, she never believed they would divorce. So she was surprised when Snowdon asked to dissolve their marriage. She said she wouldn't stand in his way, especially if he wanted to remarry, but he said he had no such plans. He simply wanted a divorce. The announcement was made on May 10, 1978. But seven months later Snowdon remarried. His lover, Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, was pregnant. Margaret read about the marriage in the newspapers. "He didn't even have the courtesy to call me beforehand," she told a biographer, "and he never told the children."

The first royal divorce since King Henry VIII's divorce from Anne of Cleves in 1533 placed unremitting pressure on the Prince of Wales as he approached his thirtieth birthday. "This is the Year," headlined one newspaper, printing a photo montage of all the "suitable" young women Charles had dated and discarded. Another newspaper announced, "Prince Stranded Between Altar and Abyss."

Prince Philip teased his son about the press coverage. "You'd better get on with it, Charles," he said, "or there won't be anyone left."

Charles celebrated his thirtieth birthday on November 15, 1978, with a grand ball at Buckingham Palace attended by more than four hundred people. The invitations from the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh specified "no tiaras" the way other rich parents might specify "no gifts." The Prince took the tall, blond actress Susan George as his date, but he danced most of the evening with his friends' wives, Dale "Kanga" Tryon and Camilla Parker Bowles. As G.o.dfather to both their eldest children, Charles admitted he felt more relaxed with them than the eligible beauties pursuing him. "Married women are safe," he later explained to his fiancee. "Because of their husbands, they understand discretion."

As Prince of Wales, Charles was accustomed to adulation. He expected it and received it in full measure, especially from the wives of two of his friends. These married women gave freely and expected nothing in return, unlike single women, who required the time and attention of courtship. For Charles's married lovers, sharing his bed was like owning a wine chateau or a Gulfstream jet: it added to their prestige. They enjoyed being whispered about as his "confidantes," and their husbands felt honored to share their wives with the future King. The arrangement enhanced their stature within the aristocracy.

"Poor Charles even feels more comfortable with bossy old women like me than he does with young single women his own age," said the sixty-five-year-old Viscountess he invited to Windsor for lunch a few days later. "I'm one of the old aristos who grew up with Her Majesty and Princess Margaret at a time in this tiny country when we all knew one another and understood our place. I'm part of a world no longer visible: the bloated upper cla.s.ses where the echo of deference still lingers and allows for amiability toward our royal family, which is unfortunately German, and part of the vaulting arrogance of the middle cla.s.s. We recognize them [the royal family] for what they are-they are undereducated and ill-informed Germans, and they need our help. We feel protective toward them, particularly the heir apparent, which is the reason Charles seeks me out.

"He was never more endearing than on that day after his thirtieth birthday," she said. "I arrived for lunch, and he said, 'Oh, G.o.d, I hope you are not very hungry. When Mummy's not here, nothing much happens. So my valet is making us a little omelet.' He eyed my dog. 'Thank G.o.d Mummy isn't here. Her corgis would've made a sandwich out of your Labrador. They're perfectly dreadful.'

"Charles is very sweet, but not too bright. He has a slender understanding of the world. Humbly nice and well mannered, but there's a dimension missing. He said he'd become so set in his bachelor ways and habits that he didn't think he'd ever find a wife who'd fit in and want to share his life. 'Sad, isn't it?' he said. 'What woman would ever put up with all this? With me?'

"After lunch he showed me his horse, Mantilla, and then I left, feeling more protective than ever toward the future King of England, who seemed to have everything but actually had nothing. At least, nothing that mattered much."

TWELVE.

Charles was in Iceland to fish when he received a call on August 27, 1979, from the British Amba.s.sador. "Your Royal Highness," said the Amba.s.sador, "I'm afraid I have some tragic news.... Lord Louis has been... Sir, I'm so sorry.... Earl Mountbatten of Burma is dead."

Charles was too stunned to cry. Stammering in disbelief, he asked for details, but the Amba.s.sador said he knew only what he had heard on the BBC news flash. So Charles called his mother at Windsor Castle. She told him that "Uncle d.i.c.kie," on holiday in Ireland, had been blown up by an IRA bomb.

Mountbatten, seventy-nine, had been aboard his boat with his daughter, Patricia; her husband, John Brabourne; their fourteen-year-old twin sons, Nicholas and Timothy; and Lord Brabourne's elderly mother. They were going lobstering in Mullaghmore harbor when the bomb was detonated. The explosion instantly killed Mountbatten; his grandson, Nicholas; and an Irish boat boy hired as crew. Lord Brabourne was severely wounded, and his wife almost died. She spent days on a life-support system and underwent several operations to save her eyesight, then weeks in intensive care. Their son Timothy was knocked unconscious but recovered; Lord Brabourne's eighty-three-year-old mother died the next day.

Prince Charles was heartbroken. He wired Mountbatten's private secretary: "This is the worst day of my life. I can't imagine going on without him." That night he poured his grief into his journal: "I have lost someone infinitely special in my life. Life will never be the same now that he has gone...."

Days later Charles met his mother and father for lunch at Broadlands to discuss Mountbatten's funeral arrangements. Still distraught, he said he didn't think he could get through the service without breaking down.

"He's gone now, Charles," said his father. "You've got to get on with it."

The Prince of Wales started crying and left the room. The Queen, who did not respond, just continued eating. She dropped bits of chicken from her salad on the floor to feed her corgis. Prince Philip threw down his napkin.

"I hope that has ensured that Charles will shed no tears when he goes out in public," he said. The Queen sipped her water and said nothing.

"Sounds cruel," recalled John Barratt, "but the Duke of Edinburgh was determined to put some steel in his son's spine. Her Majesty couldn't have given a tinker's cuss. Poor Charles was destroyed. He was so dependent on Lord Mountbatten. They spoke every day and wrote weekly. He was everything to Charles-his grandfather figure, his father, his tutor, his best friend."

Although Philip sometimes chafed at this closeness, he mourned his uncle's death and never forgave the Irish Republican Army. Two years later, during a tour of Australia with the Queen, he pa.s.sed a group of IRA demonstrators. The Queen ignored them and stared straight ahead; Philip raised his hand to wave and gave them the finger.

On the day of Mountbatten's funeral, Charles stepped sadly onto the podium at Westminster Abbey to read the prayer that his great-uncle had selected years before when he planned his state funeral. The Prince of Wales had pinned to his own naval uniform all his ribbons and medals because, as he told his valet, that's what Mountbatten would have preferred. Tapping his chest, he said, "If the IRA want to get me through the heart, they'll have a hard job."

In a quavering voice, Charles recited Psalm 107 in memory of the Admiral of the Fleet: "They that go down to the sea in ships... These men see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep...." He struggled to keep his composure, but as the buglers sounded the last post, he broke and brushed away a tear.

His emotion contrasted starkly with that of his mother, who sat a few feet away, as impa.s.sive as stone. On the day of the bombing, ten days before the funeral, the Palace had issued a statement that Her Majesty was "deeply shocked and saddened," but she did not write a letter of condolence to Mountbatten's children, who were her cousins and her closest friends from childhood. Nor did she interrupt her vacation at Balmoral, where she was joined the next day by her daughter, Princess Anne, for a picnic. The Queen was seen walking in her garden with her corgis and playing with her two-year-old grandson, Peter.

Such ordinary activity in the face of tragedy jolted one royal reporter, who watched the scene through high-power binoculars. He said he was stunned to see the Queen skipping and laughing as if she didn't have a care in the world. "This was the day after Mountbatten had been blown to bits," he recalled, "and I've never seen Her Majesty so relaxed and happy* in all her life." Ever the loyal subject, the reporter filed a story for his newspaper, saying that the grief-stricken sovereign walked through the gardens of Balmoral in solitary sorrow. in all her life." Ever the loyal subject, the reporter filed a story for his newspaper, saying that the grief-stricken sovereign walked through the gardens of Balmoral in solitary sorrow.

Charles mourned his great-uncle's death for months and turned for guidance to Laurens Van der Post, a writer who had served as an aide to Mountbatten in India. Charles was in awe of the older man, who now replaced Mountbatten as his guru, spiritual mentor, and political adviser. Van der Post, a friend and biographer of Swiss psychoa.n.a.lyst Carl Jung, talked to Charles about the concept of the collective unconscious, which is expressed through myths and dreams. He encouraged Charles to believe in the supernatural and to be open to the world of spirits. He accompanied the Prince to the Kalahari Desert in Southwest Africa to commune with the ghosts of bushmen. Charles was fascinated by the elderly mystic and soon sought the consolation of seers, mediums, and psychics. He dabbled in the paranormal, took part in seances, and consulted clairvoyants to communicate with the departed Mountbatten.

"Charles tried to summon the shade of Lord Louis on a Ouija board," said John Barratt, "but when the press found out, the Palace made him deny it because he looked barmy."

During this time, Charles became intensely involved with a beautiful Indian-born actress who had been the mistress of Hollywood director John Huston. Zoe Sallis, who gave birth to Huston's son in 1962, was a Buddhist and devoted to swamis. Her influence on Prince Charles disturbed the Palace. She espoused transcendentalism and the doctrine of many divinities, which is inconsistent with the Anglican belief in one omnipotent G.o.d.

Charles was enraptured by his new lover, who was ten years his senior, and he began practicing what she was preaching. She had given him a book ent.i.tled The Path of the Masters The Path of the Masters and said that her mission was to convert him to belief in reincarnation. To the dismay of his staff, she succeeded. He began talking about the transmigration of souls and speculated about the form that Lord Mountbatten might a.s.sume when he returned to earth. and said that her mission was to convert him to belief in reincarnation. To the dismay of his staff, she succeeded. He began talking about the transmigration of souls and speculated about the form that Lord Mountbatten might a.s.sume when he returned to earth.

The Prince's private secretary, Edward Adeane, became alarmed by what he saw as incoherent ramblings. The tough-minded barrister, whose father, Sir Michael Adeane, had been private secretary to the Queen, expected more of the future King of England than Charles was demonstrating. Adeane was dismayed by the hairshirt mentality, the do-good speeches, and the forays into alternative medicine. Mostly he was concerned about Charles's att.i.tude toward religion. Adeane tried to redirect him back to the conventional teachings of the Church of England. He stressed the responsibility of the heir apparent to his future subjects, but Charles was not receptive. He was too enthralled by the message of nirvana. Under the influence of his new lover, he became a vegetarian and resolved (temporarily) to stop killing animals. "I want to purify myself," he declared, "and pursue a oneness with all faiths."

"It's got to be stopped," said Adeane to other members of the staff. a.s.serting himself, the private secretary told the Prince his relationship with the beautiful Buddhist was potentially harmful to the monarchy. Adeane felt the older woman's influence was warping Charles's perspective. He said Charles was destined to become Defender of the Faith-not, as Adeane put it, defender of many faiths. He recommended that Charles end the relationship, but Charles refused-until Adeane threatened to go to the Queen. Then Charles relented. At the age of thirty-one he was still afraid of his mother.

Charles ricocheted from casual dates to one-night stands and, in between, pursued brief relationships with tall, beautiful blondes whose fathers were rich landowners. "I fall in love so easily," he told reporters, trying to explain away the numerous women drifting into and out of his life. He proposed marriage twice-once to Davina Sheffield and again to Anna Wallace-but neither blonde accepted his proposal, and both fell out of favor once their pasts were revealed in the press.

"Oh, G.o.d," Charles moaned to his valet, "will I never find a woman worthy enough?"

During the summer of 1980, he found her sitting on a bale of hay. The fresh and lovely nineteen-year-old Lady Diana Spencer seemed too young and too innocent to have a past. Charles, who was thirteen years older, noticed her during a weekend house party at the country home of his friends Philippa and Robert de Pa.s.s. The Prince had met Diana in 1977, when he briefly dated her oldest sister, Sarah, and spent a shooting weekend with the Spencers at Althorp, their family estate in Northamptonshire, about seventy-five miles northwest of London. So she was not a stranger when he saw her three years later. He noted how much she had grown up from the sixteen-year-old girl he remembered. "No more puppy fat," he said.

Diana blushed, lowered her eyes, and looked down at her long legs. "I'm just taller now," she joked. "I've stretched the puppy fat."

Amused by her self-deprecating humor, Charles laughed and sat down to talk. They chatted about her sister, Sarah, who recently had married Neil McCorquodale, a former officer of the Coldstream Guards. Charles mused about how pleased he was to get away from his royal duties and be with friends. (The "never-ending b.l.o.o.d.y" burden of being Prince of Wales would become a constant refrain in the next few months, as Charles complained about his workload.) Diana listened sympathetically and told him how wonderfully he performed his duties. She mentioned how touched she had been watching him on television at Mountbatten's funeral.

"You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at the funeral. It was the most tragic thing I've ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched it. I thought: It's wrong. You are lonely. You should be with somebody to look after you."

She later recounted this conversation to her roommates and said that she had talked to the Prince as if he were one of her nursery school charges. She added that he drew close to her, just like the little children she looked after at the Young England kindergarten. Charles, leaving early, asked her to drive back to London with him, but she demurred, saying it might be impolite to her hosts.

"That was a good move on her part," said one of her roommates. "She didn't want to appear ill-bred, and she certainly couldn't look too eager."

For Diana, the courtship had begun. She was excited to be noticed by the Prince of Wales and told her roommates that if she had a chance with him, she would not treat him as dismissively as her sister, Sarah, had when she'd talked to the press. "I think of the Prince as the big brother I never had," Sarah had told a reporter. "I really enjoy being with him, but I'm not in love with him. And I wouldn't marry a man I didn't love, whether it was a dustman or the King of England. If he asked me, I would turn him down." Diana, who read the romance novels of Barbara Cartland, had fantasized about marrying a prince. She would never turn him down.

Diana confided her fantasies to her roommates, who started ransacking their closets to find the right clothes for her to wear on her royal dates. They never saw the future King of England because he never visited Diana's apartment. Nor did he pick her up when they went out. "There weren't many presents, either," recalled one roommate. "A book at Christmas, a watercolor he had painted at Balmoral, one bouquet after they got engaged that was delivered by his valet but without a card, and a little green plastic frog, which Diana kept on the dashboard of her car. She had teased Charles about not having to kiss any more frogs because she'd finally found her prince. I guess he agreed."

During their six-month courtship, Charles rarely telephoned Diana, and he relied on an equerry to issue his last-minute invitations. She was expected to provide her own transportation to wherever he might be. "We referred to him as 'sir,' " said one roommate, "because that's what Diana had to call him in the beginning.... We helped her plot her strategy. It was great fun, and a bit of a game."

The young women, whom Charles referred to as Diana's "silly flatmates," shared an apartment at No. 60 Coleherne Court in London, near Harrods department store. Diana had bought the three-bedroom apartment with money she had inherited from her great-grandmother. "It was my coming-of-age present," she said. Like her two older sisters, she had received the money ($75,000) on her eighteenth birthday. Her mother advised her to invest in London real estate, so Diana bought the apartment. To meet the mortgage, she collected rent from three friends and a.s.signed them cleaning ch.o.r.es. "Truth to tell, Diana did most of the housework," said one roommate. "She loved to clean. Pride of place and all that."

Growing up, Diana had been the meticulous member of the family. She spent hours cleaning and scouring, rearranging her dresser drawers, and hanging her clothes. She lined up her shoes by color and made her bed every day, tucking the corners precisely. She vacuumed constantly and learned to launder because she said she loved the smell of freshly ironed shirts. Like Cinderella, she worked cheerfully as a maid for her oldest sister, who paid her $2 an hour to clean her London apartment. Years later Diana told friends that her psychiatrist explained this compulsion to clean as an attempt to impose order on the chaos around her. Recognizing her obsessive nature, she avoided medications like tranquilizers, fearing that if she ever got started, she would become addicted.

Her family had been torn apart by divorce, alcoholism, and violence. For the first ten years of her parents' marriage, her father had blamed her mother for not producing an heir. "It was a dreadful time for my parents and probably the root of their divorce," said Diana's brother, Charles, "because I don't think they ever got over it."

Diana's father, Edward John Spencer, was known informally as Johnny Spencer. As Viscount Althorp, he was heir to a large fortune and a thirteen-thousand-acre estate, Althorp House, which his ancestors had acquired in the sixteenth century. A former equerry to two monarchs, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, he was destined to become the eighth Earl Spencer; when he inherited his t.i.tle, he needed a son to pa.s.s it on. In 1954 he married Frances Roche, the beautiful blond daughter of the fourth Lord Fermoy. They moved into Park House in Norfolk, on the Sandringham estate. Their first child, Sarah, was born the next year, and two years later, 1957, they had another girl, Jane. Johnnie Spencer wanted a boy and insisted his wife be examined by specialists to find out why she produced daughters. Willing to try again, Frances became pregnant in 1958 and gave birth to a boy in January 1959. The baby was named John in his father's honor. "I never saw him. I never held him," Frances said. "He was an eight-pound baby boy who had a lung malfunction, which meant he couldn't survive." Ten hours after he was born, he died. Frances tried again, and eighteen months later, on July 1, 1961, she gave birth to a third daughter, whom they named Diana Frances. "I was supposed to be the boy," said Diana many years later.

Johnny Spencer started drinking too much and abusing his wife. He sent her back to London's Harley Street specialists to find out what was "wrong" with her. Three years later, when she was twenty-eight, she produced a son. "Finally," she said, "I've done my duty." The Queen was named G.o.dmother.

The heir, Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, was known as the Honourable Charles Spencer, while his grandfather, the Earl Spencer, was alive. Upon the Earl's death in 1975, Johnny Spencer inherited his father's t.i.tle and his son, Charles, then nine years old, became Viscount Althorp.

"Waiting for dead man's shoes," is how Frances bitterly described her husband's life before he inherited his father's t.i.tle. By then she had fallen in love with a dynamic married man, who she said gave her life pa.s.sion and purpose. Although Peter Shand Kydd, forty-two, did not have a t.i.tle, he was wealthy and glamorous and had a wild sense of humor. Unlike Johnny Spencer, a courtier who approached royalty with reverence, Kydd was unimpressed. After dinner with the Queen, he told his children that Her Majesty "was as boring as ever" and "Buckingham Palace was a bit of a f.u.c.king Trust House Forte [hotel]."

Kydd was heir to a wallpaper fortune and a former naval officer who owned land in England, Scotland, and Australia. He was the father of three young children.

"That didn't stop Frances," said one of Peter Shand Kydd's sons. "She's tough-a predator. When she moved on my father, my mother didn't stand a chance."

Diana was six years old in 1967 when her mother left her father and moved into a rented apartment in the Chelsea section of London to be closer to her lover. Frances told her husband that she wanted a divorce and expected to receive custody of their children. Johnnie drunkenly raged at her as "a bolter" and beat her. When he sobered up, he sobbed and begged her to return home. She tried a reconciliation but said it was torture, so she moved out of Park House and returned to London.

Shortly after that, Mrs. Peter Shand Kydd sued for divorce and named Frances as corespondent. Johnny Spencer was so humiliated by his wife's adultery that he sued for custody. He was supported in court by Frances's mother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother. Lady Fermoy testified under oath that the Spencer children appeared to be happier with their father than their mother. She also swore that she had never seen Spencer lose his temper.

"Ruth was an old royalist-humbly born in Scotland but incredibly sn.o.bbish-and she's been in royal circles all her life," said a Spencer family member. "I adored her and she was wonderful to me, but I must admit that she was rotten to her children, especially Frances. In the custody fight, Ruth sided with Johnny because, as she told me, and testified in court, she'd never seen him actually strike Frances. Ruth hadn't been around for the drunken thrashings, so she could swear without compunction that she'd never witnessed Johnny's physical violence. And Frances would never have told her mother about the abuse; she and Ruth weren't that close to begin with, and the subject wasn't one you discussed freely in those days.

"Ruth would never be party to anyone-let alone her own daughter-embarra.s.sing one of the Queen's courtiers. But the real reason she turned on her daughter was to protect her grandchildren. She didn't want them living with a commoner when they could be living with an aristocrat. Frances never forgave her mother. They didn't speak for nine years and then just barely."

The writer Penny Junor concurred. "Lady Fermoy really could not believe that her daughter would leave a belted earl for a man in trade."

The court ruled in favor of Viscount Althorp, so Diana and her brother, who had moved to London with their mother, moved back to Park House to live with their father. Their two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, remained at boarding school. That year, 1969, Frances married Peter Shand Kydd, who was so torn about abandoning his children that he almost backed out of the marriage. "He never got over the guilt," said one of his closest friends, "and that, coupled with drink later on, probably led to the divorce from Frances in 1990."

A child of a broken marriage, Diana had trouble learning to read. Her brother teased her about being slow and dull-witted because she barely made pa.s.sing grades. The only award she received in school was in the fourth grade when she won the Palmer Cup for Pets' Corner for being nice to her guinea pig. She loved to dance and spent hours in front of the mirror practicing toe, tap, and ballet exercises, but she was not scholastic. So she dropped out of school at the age of sixteen, and her father, who worried about her lack of education, enrolled her in a Swiss finishing school (Inst.i.tut Alpin Videmanette in Gstaad). She went reluctantly and studied cooking and French halfheartedly. She spent most of her time skiing. After three months she said she was too homesick to complete the term. She badgered her father to let her come home, which, upon her grandfather's death, had become the grand Jacobean mansion of Althorp.

Her father continued to worry about her future, but Diana was unconcerned. After reading an article in the Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph about academic failures who later became roaring successes in life, she clipped the story and slipped it under his door. Then she pestered him about moving to London. She wanted to get an apartment like her older sisters. about academic failures who later became roaring successes in life, she clipped the story and slipped it under his door. Then she pestered him about moving to London. She wanted to get an apartment like her older sisters.

"I couldn't bear Althorp anymore," she said. "A hard Raine was falling."

Raine was the daughter of the flamboyant Barbara Cartland. More subdued than her mother, Raine, forty-seven, was known as Lady Dartmouth after her marriage. She was a Tory disciple in the lacquered mode of Margaret Thatcher. She had met Johnny Spencer at a local political meeting and invited him to dinner at her London apartment when her husband was away. Spencer, so lonely since his divorce, fed on her attention. Drawn to her strength, he turned to her for advice, especially about running Althorp. She advised him to renovate his estate and to pay for the work by selling off some of his family heirlooms, including three Van Dyck paintings. She suggested pitching an immense tent on the grounds, filling it with huge bouquets of plastic flowers, and serving tea in paper cups to paying customers. She recommended converting the stables into a gift shop and selling souvenirs. She even drew up a list of items to appeal to tourists, including rape whistles and her mother's romantic novels.

The Spencer children were aghast. "We didn't like her one bit," said Charles. "As a child, you instinctively feel things, and with her I very much instinctively felt things."

Diana was less direct than her brother but equally hostile. Behind her back she made fun of Raine's elaborate ball gowns, which she said were borrowed from film studios. She called her "Countess Come Dancing," after a British television show about Ballroom dancing. Diana's sister Jane treated Raine like dust on the closet shelf, but Sarah was more outspoken.

"Since my grandfather died and we moved to Althorp," Sarah told a friend, "Lady Dartmouth has been an all-too-frequent visitor." When a reporter called asking to speak to the new Earl Spencer, Sarah said, "My father is in bed with Lady Dartmouth,* and I wouldn't dream of disturbing them." and I wouldn't dream of disturbing them."

Diana ran up and down the corridors of Althorp with her brother, chanting the nursery rhyme "Rain, Rain, Go Away." They called their father's lover "Acid Raine" and sulked in her presence. Charles refused to talk to her, and Diana bedeviled her with anonymous poison-pen letters and hang-up phone calls-a scare tactic she allegedly used on others years later. When Raine insisted on dressing formally for dinner, the children came to the table in jeans.

Like Frances Shand Kydd, Raine was still married when she began her love affair. She, too, was publicly humiliated by being cited for adultery in her husband's divorce action, and she also lost custody of her children. "It was quite a traumatic time for all of us," said one of her sons. "My father never forgave her."

Raine's husband, Gerald Legge-the Earl of Dartmouth-was so embittered that he commissioned an artist to paint her out of a family portrait; he replaced her with a tree.

By then Raine had moved into Althorp with her Vuitton trunks. The Spencer children pleaded with their father to send her away, but he was bewitched. In 1976 they married and she became the Countess Spencer.* None of their children attended the civil ceremony. None of their children attended the civil ceremony.