"We weren't invited," Sarah told a reporter. "Not grand enough."

"The inference is unwarranted," snapped Barbara Cartland. "After all, my daughter gave up a sixteenth Earl for an eighth Earl. Hardly social climbing."

Raine relished the Spencer t.i.tle, the fortune, and the estate. In fact, she loved everything about her new marriage, except the children. "I'm absolutely sick of the 'wicked stepmother' lark," she said years later. "You're never going to make me sound like a human being because people like to think I'm Dracula's mother, but I did have a rotten time at the start.... Sarah resented me, even my place at the head of the table, and gave orders to the servants over my head. Jane didn't speak to me for two years, even if we b.u.mped in a pa.s.sageway. Diana was sweet, always did her own thing... and Charles, well, he was simply hateful."

Raine was more rancorous in the early months of her marriage. "Sarah is impossible, and Jane's all right as long as she keeps producing children. That's about all she is good for. As for Diana, how can you have intelligent conversation with someone who doesn't have a single 0-level? If you said 'Afghanistan' to her, she'd think it was a cheese."

The animosity between stepmother and stepchildren became even more vitriolic in September 1978, when Johnny Spencer suffered a near fatal brain hemorrhage. He lapsed into a coma for two months and lay in the hospital two more months. Raine visited him every day and sat by his bed, playing opera records and willing him to recover. She fought his children over his medical treatment and barred them from seeing him in a coma. She said she did not want them absorbing the life energy she felt he needed to recover. His doctors braced her for death, but she would not accept their diagnosis. She insisted her husband would live, if only he could be treated with a powerful new German drug (Aslocillin) that was not yet licensed in England. Citing legal restrictions, the doctors said they could not give him the drug, even if they could get it. So Raine moved her husband to another hospital and exerted her influence to get the drug imported for experimentation. She succeeded, and as she predicted, the Earl Spencer rallied and recovered, but not completely. He remained partially brain-damaged, which affected his speech and mobility.

"I could have saved my husband's life ten times over and spent all my money doing this," she told a writer, "but it wouldn't have changed anything in his children's att.i.tude toward me.

"But I'm a survivor, and people forget that at their peril. There's pure steel up my backbone. n.o.body destroys me, and n.o.body was going to destroy Johnny so long as I could sit by his bed... and will my life force into him."

Raine appreciated the opportunity for social advancement and welcomed Diana's new royal relationship. And her father felt flattered about his favorite daughter's catching the eye of the Prince of Wales. But her mother was troubled. Frances Shand Kydd had seen the royal brush swipe her oldest daughter, and she remembered the embarra.s.sment Sarah had suffered when she was dropped from the royal guest list. Sarah, who was fighting anorexia while she was dating Charles, had treasured his invitations and hired a clipping service to send her all the stories written about them. She proudly started a sc.r.a.pbook that chronicled her rise as one of the chosen few. After her "dustman" interview, there were no more articles and no more invitations. Now her younger sister was receiving them.

Prince Charles had been intrigued enough by his conversation with Diana during the weekend house party in July to invite her to the opera. He extended the invitation through his secretary and at the last minute. But Diana didn't care; she was thrilled. She accepted and pretended to share his appreciation of Verdi. Charles later invited her to watch him play polo at Cowdray, to watch him shoot at Sandringham, to watch him race at Ludlow. Diana accepted-and watched adoringly. "Mostly," she told her mother, "I just enjoy being with him."

Diana joined Charles aboard the royal yacht, Britannia, Britannia, to watch the races at Cowes, and a week later she accepted his invitation to join his small party for dinner at Buckingham Palace. She admitted feeling intimidated by such friends of his as Nicholas "Fatty" Soames, who were so much older, but she managed to ingratiate herself with them and fit in. They especially appreciated her youthful adoration of the Prince. "She was clearly determined and enthusiastic about him," recalled Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, the wife of one of Charles's closest friends, "and she very much wanted him." Years later Diana's biographer, Andrew Morton, would state it more bluntly. "During their bizarre courtship," he wrote, "she was his willing puppy who came to heel when he whistled." to watch the races at Cowes, and a week later she accepted his invitation to join his small party for dinner at Buckingham Palace. She admitted feeling intimidated by such friends of his as Nicholas "Fatty" Soames, who were so much older, but she managed to ingratiate herself with them and fit in. They especially appreciated her youthful adoration of the Prince. "She was clearly determined and enthusiastic about him," recalled Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, the wife of one of Charles's closest friends, "and she very much wanted him." Years later Diana's biographer, Andrew Morton, would state it more bluntly. "During their bizarre courtship," he wrote, "she was his willing puppy who came to heel when he whistled."

Diana was not discovered by the press until the autumn of 1980, when she was sitting beside Charles on the bank of the river Dee, watching him fish. The high-powered binoculars of newspaper reporter James Whitaker and his photographer, Arthur Edwards, spotted her through the trees. When she saw them watching her, she slipped away discreetly. They tracked her down in London, and days later, "the wicked Mr. Whitaker," as she teasingly referred to the leader of the royal tabloid pack, introduced his readers to "Lady Di."

"She was pretty, but not staggeringly so," he recalled. "She had charm, but no magic. Yet, before my eyes, she performed a miracle and transformed herself into the most glamorous woman in the world, worshipped by the media and the ma.s.ses."

The portly reporter, who wore silk handkerchiefs in the breast pocket of gold-b.u.t.toned blazers, became to Diana what the fairy G.o.dmother had been to Cinderella. Whitaker waved his magic wand of publicity and, in story after story, presented her as "the most suitable choice for our future Queen." He praised her "innocence," her "delightful charm," her "blessed modesty." He rhapsodized about her "abundant freshness" and her "regal carriage." His colleagues followed his lead in varying degrees.

Within two months the Earl's sweet daughter had captivated the kingdom that wanted nothing more for its bachelor Prince than a beautiful blond princess. Diana was perfect. More British than Charles, who was her sixteenth cousin through King James I, she was an aristocrat with five lines of descent from Charles II. "She's also related to practically every single person in the French aristocracy," said Harold Brooks-Baker, editor of Debrett's, Debrett's, the bible of bloodlines. "She's even related to Napoleon's brother and eight American presidents, including George Washington." the bible of bloodlines. "She's even related to Napoleon's brother and eight American presidents, including George Washington."

Most important, Lady Diana Spencer was a Protestant without a past. Her virginity validated her as the most worthy candidate to become Queen and beget an heir. Even Prince Philip approved. "She can breed height into the line," he said as if she were a brood mare.

The British press was as beguiled as the public and couldn't get enough of the young woman they glorified as "Shy Di." They put her picture on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, with her head tilted coyly to one side or her eyes demurely cast down. "She's 19 and a perfect English rose," gushed the Sun. Sun. In her frilly blouses, she was the epitome of schoolgirl innocence. " In her frilly blouses, she was the epitome of schoolgirl innocence. "DIvine" raved the Mirror. Mirror. Reporters dogged her on foot, chased her small red car through traffic, and climbed over rooftops to photograph her. They pursued her every day down the street, on the phone, to her job. Reporters dogged her on foot, chased her small red car through traffic, and climbed over rooftops to photograph her. They pursued her every day down the street, on the phone, to her job.

"Darling, how do you put up with the b.l.o.o.d.y creatures?" Charles asked.

"I love working with children, and I have learned to be very patient with them," said Diana. "I simply treat the press as though they were children."

She gently reprimanded photographers who became too familiar. "Hey, Di," hollered one. "Cheat [turn] to the left."

She smiled sweetly. "My name is Diana," she said evenly. She never stopped smiling.

Unshakably poised at first, she gave way to tears when a posse of press cars almost drove her off the road. On another occasion, contrite reporters left a note on the windshield of her car: "We didn't mean this to happen. Our full apologies." She agreed to pose only after a photographer frightened the children at her nursery school by crawling through the lavatory window with his clattering gear.

"You've got two minutes," she told him sternly. He fired off four flashes, startling two nursery school tots, who clung to her for protection. The photographs became the world's first glimpse and most lasting impression of the winsome beauty. Balancing one child on her hip and holding the hand of another, she did not realize the sun was shining through her gauzy skirt and revealing what Prince Charles appreciatively described as "a great pair of legs." The caption was "Lady Diana's Slip." British newspapers called on Charles to make the guileless girl England's future queen.

The Sunday Times Sunday Times said she was perfect: "serious but not boring; sweet but not said she was perfect: "serious but not boring; sweet but not too too sweet; funny, not silly; sporty, not horsey; and s.e.xy without being bra.s.sy." sweet; funny, not silly; sporty, not horsey; and s.e.xy without being bra.s.sy."

"I'm told she's ideal," said the Daily Mail Daily Mail's Nigel Dempster. "She has been p.r.o.nounced physically sound to produce children." (Years later, Diana denied that she had to submit to a premarital physical exam by palace-dictated doctors.) One headline advised, "Charles: Don't DI DIther." Another screamed, "To Di For."

The press expected the Prince to propose on his thirty-second birthday in November 1980, when Diana spent the weekend with him and the rest of the royal family at Sandringham. So reporters camped out at the estate, waiting for an announcement. They watched Diana arrive on Friday and leave on Sunday. After her departure, Charles strolled by them as he walked his dog.

"Why don't you all go home to your wives?" he said. "I know you were expecting some news Friday, and I know you were disappointed. But you will all be told soon enough."

When the Prince did not propose, he was chided by an editorial in the Guardian: Guardian: "The Court Circular that issued from Buckingham Palace last night," wrote the newspaper, "was profoundly disappointing for a nation which, beset by economic and political dissent, had briefly believed that the sound of distant tumbrels was to be drowned by the peal of royal wedding bells." "The Court Circular that issued from Buckingham Palace last night," wrote the newspaper, "was profoundly disappointing for a nation which, beset by economic and political dissent, had briefly believed that the sound of distant tumbrels was to be drowned by the peal of royal wedding bells."

The romance was almost derailed on November 16, 1980, when the Sunday Mirror Sunday Mirror ran a front-page story headlined "Royal Love Train." The newspaper cited an unidentified police officer, who claimed that Lady Diana had spent two secret nights with Prince Charles aboard the royal train. The train, with its elaborate kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom suite, was used only by members of the royal family for travel on official business. The story alleged that Charles was spending the night aboard the train after engagements in the Duchy of Cornwall and had summoned Diana, who was secretly escorted through a police barricade in the middle of the night. The caption accompanying a photo of the secluded train in Wiltshire: "Love in The Sidings." ran a front-page story headlined "Royal Love Train." The newspaper cited an unidentified police officer, who claimed that Lady Diana had spent two secret nights with Prince Charles aboard the royal train. The train, with its elaborate kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom suite, was used only by members of the royal family for travel on official business. The story alleged that Charles was spending the night aboard the train after engagements in the Duchy of Cornwall and had summoned Diana, who was secretly escorted through a police barricade in the middle of the night. The caption accompanying a photo of the secluded train in Wiltshire: "Love in The Sidings."

"Absolutely scurrilous and totally false," thundered the Queen's press secretary. "Her Majesty takes grave exception." The Palace demanded a retraction and an apology, but the editor, Robert Edwards, stood firm. He said he had a sworn statement from an eyewitness who saw a woman board the train on two nights, spend several hours with the Prince in his private bedroom compartment, and leave clandestinely. But the editor made one mistake: he identified the blond as Diana.

"It was Camilla Parker Bowles," said John Barratt. "She had started up again with Charles after Mountbatten's death, when she called to offer her condolences. I know because I was wrapping things up at Broadlands then and [was] in regular contact with the Prince. He did not hide the fact that Mrs. Parker Bowles was back in his life. He said she was helping him sort things out. They spent hours together-riding, hunting, shooting. She acted as his hostess at dinner parties, and arranged luncheons and country weekends, and, naturally, controlled the guest lists. Charles called her his Girl Friday.

"She was perfect for him-horsey and accommodating. Charles is like all the Windsor men, and I include Lord Louis and Prince Philip. They like women who look like men. Long legs in riding breeches. They want their tarts to look like their horses. Mountbatten's women, Philip's women, Charles's women-all cut the same, beginning with Sasha [the d.u.c.h.ess of Abercorn], who is the Queen's cousin. She was Mountbatten's before he pa.s.sed her on to Philip, which is what they do in that family. Lord Louis and Philip also shared that chinless wonder [Barratt names a woman married to one of Prince Philip's close friends] whom Charles also inherited. Camilla was different. She didn't come in under Mountbatten or Philip before she got to Charles. She was under him from the start."

The Prince of Wales continued seeing Camilla during the time her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Parker Bowles, was posted to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)* to help the emerging British colony make its transition to independence. She did not accompany him on his overseas a.s.signment. to help the emerging British colony make its transition to independence. She did not accompany him on his overseas a.s.signment.

"Charles said he couldn't bear for her to leave, so she didn't," said a friend who boarded her horses with Camilla. "It was no hardship for her husband not having her with him because Andrew Parker Bowles was already involved with another woman."

Diana did not realize the complexities facing her. She did know that Camilla was a constant presence whenever she turned around, and she wondered how the older woman always knew so much about her relationship with Charles. But she didn't feel secure enough yet to question the Prince about his former lover. She confided her discomfort to her roommates and her sisters but said nothing to Charles. She felt slightly rea.s.sured by his anger over the royal train incident; he lashed out at the press and called them "b.l.o.o.d.y vultures." When the editor refused to apologize and retract the story, Charles insisted the Palace issue a second denial.

He left for India days later on a trip that had been planned for months, and Diana accompanied him to the airport to say good-bye. As he nonchalantly skipped up the steps of the royal plane without looking back, she burst into tears.

Reporters followed Charles on his visit to the Taj Mahal and asked what he thought about the great monument to pa.s.sion built by a Moghul emperor in memory of his wife. "A marvelous idea," said Charles, "to build something so wonderful to someone one loved so very much." An Indian reporter asked about the Prince's own prospects for a wife, and Charles left him breathless with his odd response. "I'm encouraged by the fact that if I were to become a Muslim," he said, "I could have lots of wives."

The British reporters glanced at one another uncomfortably, wondering if the Prince was joking. None quoted him verbatim. Even with the arrival of Australian Rupert Murdoch and his tabloid papers, Britain's reporters remained deferential to royalty. They softened their stories on the Queen and her heir by withholding newsworthy details and, in this case, ignoring the revealing quotation. Instead they wrote as Her Majesty's obedient servants. They reported that Charles said: "I can understand that love could make a man build the Taj Mahal for his wife. One day I would like to bring my own back here."

In England, reverberations from the royal train story were still rattling Diana, who became hysterical when she read the Sunday Times Sunday Times report of the "tawdry" incident. "Whatever the public expects of her," wrote the newspaper on November 30, 1980, "the monarchy demands that her copybook be unblotted. Part of Lady Diana's suitability is held to be the fact that she is, in the Fleet Street euphemism, 'a girl with no past'-that is, with no previous lovers." report of the "tawdry" incident. "Whatever the public expects of her," wrote the newspaper on November 30, 1980, "the monarchy demands that her copybook be unblotted. Part of Lady Diana's suitability is held to be the fact that she is, in the Fleet Street euphemism, 'a girl with no past'-that is, with no previous lovers."

Up to this point, Diana had carried her own pedestal wherever she went. Every word written about her had been laudatory. Now she was scared and called her mother in tears. Frustrated and angry, Frances Shand Kydd fired off a letter to the Times, Times, deploring the "malicious lies" and "invented stories" printed about her daughter. She demanded that reporters stop hara.s.sing Diana, and her letter prompted sixty members of Parliament to draft a motion "deploring the manner in which Lady Diana Spencer is being treated by the media." An editorial ent.i.tled "Nineteen and Under Siege" followed in the deploring the "malicious lies" and "invented stories" printed about her daughter. She demanded that reporters stop hara.s.sing Diana, and her letter prompted sixty members of Parliament to draft a motion "deploring the manner in which Lady Diana Spencer is being treated by the media." An editorial ent.i.tled "Nineteen and Under Siege" followed in the Guardian, Guardian, stating that no teenager deserved to be put through such an ordeal. stating that no teenager deserved to be put through such an ordeal.

Fearing that her mother might have overreacted, Diana quickly called James Whitaker at the Daily Star Daily Star to disavow the letter. She said she did not want to alienate the press but needed to proclaim her innocence. to disavow the letter. She said she did not want to alienate the press but needed to proclaim her innocence.

"Diana wanted nothing more than to become Charles's wife," recalled Whitaker. "Everyone wanted it, the Queen included. Diana called me to deny that she had been involved in the royal train incident. 'Please believe me,' she said. 'I've never been on that train. I have never even seen it.' I ran the story and quoted her as saying she'd been at home all evening, watching television with her flatmates."

Most people, with the possible exception of her stepmother, a.s.sumed that Diana was as pure as Portia. She never proclaimed her virginity-directly-but years later her biographer Andrew Morton did it for her. He claimed that even as a young girl she had a sense of destiny about her future marriage. "I knew I had to keep myself tidy for what lay ahead," she supposedly said. Her stepmother thought she knew differently. Raine suspected that Diana's virginity had vanished in 1978 when she was dating James Gilbey, a member of the wealthy Gilbey's gin family. Lady Spencer had overheard conversations between her seventeen-year-old stepdaughter and the playful London bachelor, who occasionally stood her up to take someone else out. Diana got back at him by making a secret midnight run to his apartment building. His car was parked in front, and she and her roommate doused it with flour and eggs.

Raine had watched disapprovingly as Diana continued to pick up Gilbey's dirty laundry each week, lovingly wash and iron his shirts, and deliver them on hangers to his apartment. During an earlier infatuation, she had done the same thing for Rory Scott, a lieutenant in the Scots Guards.

Concern over Diana's tarnished image in the press was shared by Raine's mother, Barbara Cartland, who had made millions because she understood the importance of the soft lie over the hard truth: one fuels a fantasy while the other breaks your heart. She accepted the unspoken agreement between royals and commoners: they pretend to be superior and we accept the pretense. So the eighty-year-old novelist wrapped herself in pink marabou feathers and summoned a reporter to her house to declare Diana's innocence. She conducted the interview from her bed surrounded by five poodles in rhinestone collars.

"Prince Charles has got to have a pure young gel," she said, "I don't think Diana has ever had a boyfriend. She's as pure as one of my heroines. This is marvelous. Quite perfect."

Raine knew she needed more than her mother's breathless proclamation. She consulted a lawyer because she also was concerned about rumors that nude photos of Diana might surface in the press. "She particularly feared Private Eye, Private Eye," recalled one lawyer. Raine had remembered Diana's giggling on the phone with girlfriends about pictures* that had been taken of her at a pool in Switzerland, where she had taken off her bikini. The lawyer rea.s.sured Raine that an injunction might be obtained before such photos could be published. He then advised her to turn to someone within the aristocracy to publicly proclaim Diana's good name. So Raine contacted Lord Fermoy, who was Diana's uncle, and asked him to uphold the family honor. The n.o.bleman, a manic-depressive who would commit suicide four years later, readily agreed to talk to the press. that had been taken of her at a pool in Switzerland, where she had taken off her bikini. The lawyer rea.s.sured Raine that an injunction might be obtained before such photos could be published. He then advised her to turn to someone within the aristocracy to publicly proclaim Diana's good name. So Raine contacted Lord Fermoy, who was Diana's uncle, and asked him to uphold the family honor. The n.o.bleman, a manic-depressive who would commit suicide four years later, readily agreed to talk to the press.

"Diana, I can a.s.sure you, has never had a lover," he told a reporter. "Purity seems to be at a premium when it comes to discussing a possible royal bride for Prince Charles at the moment. And after one or two of his most recent girlfriends, I am not surprised. To my knowledge, Diana has never been involved in this way with anybody. This is good."

"The consensus," declared Newsweek, Newsweek, "virtue is intact." The press coverage of the royal romance heated up as zealous reporters followed the Prince of Wales everywhere, pestering him about his intentions. By January of 1981 the royal family felt as if they were under house arrest at Sandringham, where reporters and photographers gathered outside. "virtue is intact." The press coverage of the royal romance heated up as zealous reporters followed the Prince of Wales everywhere, pestering him about his intentions. By January of 1981 the royal family felt as if they were under house arrest at Sandringham, where reporters and photographers gathered outside.

"It's like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned death watch," Prince Philip said to his aide as he looked out the window.

The Queen complained that she couldn't go riding without being pursued by "a ragtag band of reporters."

"Her Majesty, if you'll excuse me, behaved like a fishwife one morning and told me to 'eff off,' " said James Whitaker, who recalled the incident at Sandringham more vividly than he reported it. "I simply quoted the Queen as saying, 'Go away. Can't you leave us alone?' But she was more explicit than that.

"I was camped out with two photographers when she came out of her stables on the royal steed. She drove there to avoid the press and then rode out of the stables on her horse, but we were close enough to get to her. There were three of us: Les Wilson and Jimmy Gray, both photographers, and myself. The Queen galloped toward us, looked directly at me, and hissed. 'Get away, you fu--.' I started moving before she could finish the sentence.

" 'Ma'am,' I said, 'I'm just about to do exactly that. To get away.' I scampered off and yelled over my shoulder for the two photographers to carry on. One froze, and the other reared back. 'If you think I'm going to knock the f.u.c.king Queen off her own f.u.c.king road to take her f.u.c.king picture,' he said, 'you're f.u.c.king crazy.' He ran off, too. None of us was brave enough to pursue the story."

When reporters approached Prince Philip later in the day to say "Happy New Year," he was just as vulgar. "b.o.l.l.o.c.ks," he snarled. Putting his head down, he barreled through the swarm of reporters and photographers, swearing at them as he pa.s.sed.

A reporter for the Sun Sun said a hunting party that included Philip and Prince Charles peppered her car with shotgun pellets. And a said a hunting party that included Philip and Prince Charles peppered her car with shotgun pellets. And a Daily Mirror Daily Mirror photographer was warned away from a public road near the family estate by sixteen-year-old Prince Edward. "I wouldn't stand there," the Prince said. "You could get shot." photographer was warned away from a public road near the family estate by sixteen-year-old Prince Edward. "I wouldn't stand there," the Prince said. "You could get shot."

Charles was incensed at being hounded, and when he encountered reporters, he struggled to be cordial. "May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy new year," he said through clenched teeth, "and your editors a particularly nasty one."

Diana arrived a few days later, prompting a commotion among photographers, who blocked the entrances to Sandringham, trying to get pictures. Exasperated, the Queen admonished her son, "The idea of this romance going on for another year is intolerable for all concerned." Prince Philip was more explicit. He told his indecisive son that he had to make up his mind one way or the other before he ruined Diana's reputation.

Always the more involved parent, Philip monitored the women Charles dated. He disapproved of his son's attraction to black women, and he ignored Charles's fling with a Penthouse Penthouse centerfold. He knew about the affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and warned Charles that such an illicit relationship could endanger the monarchy. Pushing him toward marriage, Philip was concerned about the woman Charles would marry because that woman, whoever she might be, represented the future of the Firm. Philip had invested his life in the monarchy and intended to protect his investment. After Charles turned thirty, centerfold. He knew about the affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and warned Charles that such an illicit relationship could endanger the monarchy. Pushing him toward marriage, Philip was concerned about the woman Charles would marry because that woman, whoever she might be, represented the future of the Firm. Philip had invested his life in the monarchy and intended to protect his investment. After Charles turned thirty,* his father became especially vigilant and did not hesitate to say who was suitable, who was not. When Charles was dating Sabrina Guinness, from the banking side of the brewery family, he invited her to a house party in the country with friends of the royal family. The invitation was leaked to the press, and it triggered another spate of speculative stories about the new woman in Charles's life. "Is He in Love Again?" asked one headline. It so infuriated Philip that he called the hosts and instructed them to disinvite the young woman. To ensure that they did, he mentioned that he would be arriving at five his father became especially vigilant and did not hesitate to say who was suitable, who was not. When Charles was dating Sabrina Guinness, from the banking side of the brewery family, he invited her to a house party in the country with friends of the royal family. The invitation was leaked to the press, and it triggered another spate of speculative stories about the new woman in Charles's life. "Is He in Love Again?" asked one headline. It so infuriated Philip that he called the hosts and instructed them to disinvite the young woman. To ensure that they did, he mentioned that he would be arriving at five P.M. P.M. that weekend. Mortified, the friends did as they were ordered and told Miss Guinness that she was "welcome to leave" by a certain time "to avoid confusion" with Prince Philip's visit. that weekend. Mortified, the friends did as they were ordered and told Miss Guinness that she was "welcome to leave" by a certain time "to avoid confusion" with Prince Philip's visit.

Philip arrived early and met the young woman as she was leaving. He told her to join him in the drawing room. There were no break-the-ice pleasantries when she walked in and not so much as a perfunctory h.e.l.lo. As exacting as a guillotine, Philip told her to get out of his son's life. He said he never wanted to see her name linked with Prince Charles again. Philip tidied up the landscape by telling her to get out of the house. She fled in tears.

Philip spoke to his son in the same gruff manner about marrying Diana Spencer. He didn't tell Charles to marry her, simply to make up his mind. "Get on with it, Charles," he said.

"The difference between father and son," explained one of the Queen's secretaries, "is that Charles dithers, and Philip decapitates."

Charles spent the next four weeks agonizing over whether to marry Diana. He recorded his "confused and anxious state of mind" in his diary, and he consulted his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles. She said she approved and described Diana to friends as "a mouse." In a letter to a friend, Charles wrote: "It is just a matter of taking an unusual plunge into some rather unknown circ.u.mstances that inevitably disturbs me, but I expect it will be the right thing in the end.... It all seems so ridiculous because I do very much want to do the right thing for this Country and for my family-but I'm terrified sometimes of making a promise and then perhaps living to regret it." Years later he blamed his father for forcing him into a marriage that he was reluctant to embrace.

Yet despite his doubts, he proposed on February 6, 1981, in his third-floor quarters at Buckingham Palace over dinner for two. Diana accepted eagerly, and he apologized for not having a ring to give her. A few days later he contacted Garrard's, the Crown jewelers, who arrived with several black velvet trays filled with rings. Diana chose a six-carat sapphire surrounded by eighteen diamonds. Price: $50,000. "The Queen's eyes popped when I picked out the largest one," she said, giggling, "but I love it."

The engagement of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer was officially announced on February 24, 1981. "I couldn't have married anyone the British people wouldn't have liked," said Charles. Most of the country joined the royal family in rejoicing. But Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, was afraid for her daughter.

"I cried for six weeks after that," she admitted to a relative. "I had a terrible feeling about what was going to happen to Diana when she married into that family."

THIRTEEN.

The prize for best performance in a supporting role should go to Lady Diana Spencer's gown-bold, black, and strapless.

When Diana wore it-barely-to London's Goldsmith Hall in 1981, she-and the gown-drew gasps. It was her first public appearance with Prince Charles since they'd become engaged, and the press pounced on them like condors on carrion. Flashbulbs popped and hydra-headed microphones closed in.

As the couple swept into the Royal Opera benefit, the BBC commentator stuttered as he tried to describe the eye-popping dress. He stumbled on the word "decolletage" and struggled not to look at Diana's cleavage. Spilling out of her low-cut gown, she smiled shyly. Off-camera, the BBC man whispered, "Now there's a bosom built to burp a nation." An American reporter whistled softly and quoted Raymond Chandler in Farewell, My Lovely Farewell, My Lovely: "It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-gla.s.s window."

Diana had carefully selected her dress for the evening. The black taffeta confection, which sold for $1,000, was given to her by the designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, who were making her wedding dress. She told them she needed to look "drop dead gorgeous" because she was meeting her movie star idol, Grace Kelly, at the benefit and dining with her later at Buckingham Palace. Diana did not realize that Her Serene Highness had probably been invited to the Palace only because she was performing for charity.

The Queen of England still considered the Princess of Monaco a bit of Hollywood fluff, who had married a poseur from a tiny princ.i.p.ality. Her Majesty was not moved by the enthusiasm of her husband, Prince Philip, for the beautiful blond American, who also had been a favorite of Lord Mountbatten's. When Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier in 1956, the Queen declined to attend their wedding. "Too many film stars," she had said. As far as she was concerned, the Rainiers did not count as royalty, although Prince Rainier had reigned longer* than any crowned head in Europe. than any crowned head in Europe.

"Her Majesty can be stuffy about that sort of thing," admitted one of her ladies-in-waiting. "Too many jewels, fur coats, and fast cars. Jet-setters, you know. Prince Philip, on the other hand, does not feel that way, particularly if the wife is pretty."

Diana, too, was fascinated by the former film star and sat spellbound through her poetry reading at the benefit. After the hour-long recital, Diana walked into the press reception rubbing her side. Someone asked if she had hurt her back.

"No, not at all," she said brightly. "It's just that I've pins and needles in my bottom from sitting still so long."

Her spontaneity charmed everyone. "She was enchanting then," said British journalist Victoria Mather. "So fresh and beguiling. At that reception, she spilled a little red wine on her gloves, held up the stain for us to see, and laughed. 'Oops,' she said, 'Guess I'll have to nip round to Sketchley's [a London cleaner].' "

Seconds later Diana showed off her engagement ring and offered to let an admirer try it on. "I'll have to have it back, though," she quipped. "Otherwise they won't know who I am."

The woman gazed at the ring on her finger. "Oh," she exclaimed. "It's beautiful. I've never seen such a large stone."

"I know," said Diana. "The other day I even scratched my nose with it. It's so big-the ring, that is."

Someone asked what it was like now that she had moved from Clarence House to Buckingham Palace. "Not bad," she chirped. "But too many formal dinners. Yuck."

A young man stepped forward. "May I kiss the hand of my future Queen?" he asked.

Diana smiled coyly and tilted her head. "Yes, you may," she said, extending her hand.

The young man kissed her wrist lightly and everyone clapped. He blushed with pleasure.

"You'll never live this down," Diana said, teasing him.

Delighted reporters crowded around her, and the cameramen bore in, jostling guests and pushing them to the edge of the room. Prince Charles headed off to greet someone, expecting the media to follow him, but they were taken with Diana. Feeling self-conscious about the disturbance she was causing, she excused herself and escaped to the powder room with Grace Kelly. The Princess-to-be confided her distress over the unrelenting press coverage and asked Her Serene Highness how she she coped with it. The movie star who became a princess comforted the teenager, who would become royalty's movie star. Princess Grace, accustomed to unwelcome media attention, told Diana to treat it like the weather. "It'll get worse," she said with a warm smile. coped with it. The movie star who became a princess comforted the teenager, who would become royalty's movie star. Princess Grace, accustomed to unwelcome media attention, told Diana to treat it like the weather. "It'll get worse," she said with a warm smile.

And it did-the very next day. The tabloids were full of breathless reviews of Diana and her gown, accompanied by revealing photographs and suggestive headlines. "Lady Di Takes the Plunge," blared the front page of the Daily Mirror. Daily Mirror. "Di the Daring," exclaimed the "Di the Daring," exclaimed the Sun. Sun. "Shy Di Shocks," the "Shy Di Shocks," the Daily Express Daily Express reported. Even establishment newspapers noted the dress that seemed so startling for the modest kindergarten teacher. "Shy Di R.I.P.," read the photo caption in the reported. Even establishment newspapers noted the dress that seemed so startling for the modest kindergarten teacher. "Shy Di R.I.P.," read the photo caption in the Times. Times.

Diana was puzzled. "I don't know why everyone is making such a fuss," she said to Prince Charles's valet. "It's the sort of dress I would have worn anyway."

The valet lowered his eyes. "Well, it certainly caught everyone's attention," he said disapprovingly. He was fired a month after the wedding.

The Daily Express Daily Express reporter praised Diana's decision to go strapless. "Her Gone-With-the-Wind dress... takes courage, and a lot more, to uphold it," wrote Jean Rook. "All Di must learn to watch, which the TV cameras noticed, is the ounce or two of puppy fat which boned bodices tuck under a girl's arms." reporter praised Diana's decision to go strapless. "Her Gone-With-the-Wind dress... takes courage, and a lot more, to uphold it," wrote Jean Rook. "All Di must learn to watch, which the TV cameras noticed, is the ounce or two of puppy fat which boned bodices tuck under a girl's arms."

Diana cringed as she read the reviews of her "bounteous figure" and "blooming physique." She shrieked when she saw the television coverage.

"I look hideously fat," she wailed. "Fat as a cow. I can't stand it."

Charles, who never forgot the embarra.s.sment of being called "Fatty" by his cla.s.smates, kidded her. Fanatic about staying slim, he exercised like a fiend and ate like a monk. On tours he carried snack bags filled with wheat germ, linseed, and prunes. His dinners at home consisted of two strips of dried fish or a yolk-free mushroom omelet. That was followed by green salad and a drink of lemon squash and Epsom salts, which Diana p.r.o.nounced "revolting." Charles said he needed the concoction "to keep regular." He twitted her about her pa.s.sion for sweets and called her "Plumpkin." As she agonized over her newspaper photographs, he teased her again. "No more puddings for you," he said. He had tossed off the remark casually, not realizing that she would plunge into bulimia. But after seeing herself on television, Diana was so distraught that she soon began bingeing and purging.

The eating disorder was seeded in the wreckage of her parent's marriage, which had thrown her oldest sister, Sarah, into anorexia. As a young woman, Jane had starved herself to the frightening weight of a child, until her family forced her to seek help. Diana, too, reacted to her insecurities by secretly starving herself. But then she caved in to her hunger cravings and ate several bowls of cereal with sugar and rich Guernsey cream. She devoured bags of soft jelly candies, followed by vanilla cookies lathered with white frosting, which she quickly threw up.

She had moved into Buckingham Palace a few months before the wedding so she could learn the royal routine, and when Charles was traveling, she ate alone. Most of her meals were served in her room. At first she left her trays untouched, which concerned the chef, who felt he was not pleasing her. After he began asking, she flushed the food down the toilet.

"She nicked so many boxes of Kellogg's Frosties from the pantry," said royal reporter Ross Benson, "that one of the footmen was accused of stealing and nearly lost his job. Diana stepped forward then and admitted she was to blame."

At first no one believed her. The staff was not ready to accept the image of their future Queen as a glutton who regularly gorged and vomited. "The picture of Lady Diana wrapped around the porcelain chariot-no, no, no," said a member of the royal household with a shudder. "That was inconceivable to us." The staff refused to see any dark shadows beneath the sunny exterior. "You've no idea how sweet she seemed-on the surface," said one of the Palace maids. "The few flashes of temper we saw we put to wedding jitters and worked harder to be of help." The staff did not believe that Diana was the culprit consuming the missing food. Even when she admitted it, they thought she was protecting a footman previously suspected of petty theft. They did not accept what was happening until the upstairs maids, who cleaned Diana's suite, reported evidence of her throwing up in the bathroom. Even then most of the staff did not accept it.

As Diana began losing weight, she increased the pernicious cycle of bingeing and purging until she was going through it five times a day. Within three months she'd lost twenty pounds. Charles was unaware of the problem because he was not with her all day every day.

For five weeks during the spring of 1981, he traveled on previously scheduled visits; he toured the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, where he explored the possibility of a real job. The Queen and Prince Philip had been concerned for some time about the way Charles flitted from one cause to the next without direction. "He never sticks to anything," complained Philip, who once blamed his wife for being an inattentive mother. At a private dinner party attended by an American, Philip jerked his head toward the Queen and referred to Charles as "your son." Both parents despaired whenever he made impa.s.sioned statements about the jobless, the homeless, or the penniless. The Duke of Edinburgh, especially, had no patience with his son's concerns for the downtrodden and disadvantaged. "He wrings his hands like an old woman," said Philip after one of Charles's speeches. "Why can't he leave the weltschmerzen to the vicars?" Philip warned Charles not to become embroiled in politics and not to comment on "sacred cows" like the Church of England and the National Health Service. He said the one inst.i.tution that could be insulted was the press-"I've relished doing it myself," Philip said-but nothing else. Charles ignored his father's advice. As Prince of Wales, he resented being cast as a pitchman for Britain. He wanted to be taken more seriously than a salesman who dressed up in gold braid and waved. "I'm not good at simply being a performing monkey," he said. His father disagreed. He thought Charles was perfect in the part. son." Both parents despaired whenever he made impa.s.sioned statements about the jobless, the homeless, or the penniless. The Duke of Edinburgh, especially, had no patience with his son's concerns for the downtrodden and disadvantaged. "He wrings his hands like an old woman," said Philip after one of Charles's speeches. "Why can't he leave the weltschmerzen to the vicars?" Philip warned Charles not to become embroiled in politics and not to comment on "sacred cows" like the Church of England and the National Health Service. He said the one inst.i.tution that could be insulted was the press-"I've relished doing it myself," Philip said-but nothing else. Charles ignored his father's advice. As Prince of Wales, he resented being cast as a pitchman for Britain. He wanted to be taken more seriously than a salesman who dressed up in gold braid and waved. "I'm not good at simply being a performing monkey," he said. His father disagreed. He thought Charles was perfect in the part.