"I can't believe you just said that," said Charles.

"Oh, well, if you two are having a sense-of-humor failure, I'll leave you to it," said Diana as she left the table.

Miserable, Charles wrote to a friend on March 11, 1986, that his marriage "is like being trapped in a rather desperate cul-de-sac with no apparent means of exit." He dipped into the poetry of Richard Lovelace (1618 1658) to describe his despair: "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage...." Diana's demands for attention exasperated him, and he was not willing to pump her up for every public appearance. In the past he had quoted Shakespeare's Henry V Henry V and told her (to) "Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood...." Now he ignored her or else snapped with irritation, "Just plunge in and get on with it." He complained to his biographer about her self-absorption and extraordinary vanity, saying that she spent hours every day poring over newspapers and magazines, examining her press coverage. and told her (to) "Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood...." Now he ignored her or else snapped with irritation, "Just plunge in and get on with it." He complained to his biographer about her self-absorption and extraordinary vanity, saying that she spent hours every day poring over newspapers and magazines, examining her press coverage.

Acknowledging Diana's preoccupation with herself, her friend Carolyn Bartholomew defended her to author Andrew Morton. "How can you not not be self-obsessed," she asked, "when half the world is watching everything you do?" be self-obsessed," she asked, "when half the world is watching everything you do?"

Charles, previously controlled and gracious in public, started losing his temper. He clashed with Diana at a polo game when she posed for photographers while sitting on the hood of his 1970 Aston Martin convertible. The rare automobile, then worth $125,000, had been a twenty-first birthday present from his mother.

"Off, off! What are you doing to my wonderful car?" he shouted. "You can't sit there! Get off! You'll dent the bodywork."

Diana was mortified by his outburst. She quickly slid off the fender and slyly stuck out her leg to kick him. Startled, he grabbed her arm and pushed her against the car, but she slipped away and leaped inside. He started to cuff the back of her neck but realized that people were gathering around, so he pulled back. He smiled thinly and pretended the incident was a joke.

During another screaming argument, Charles threw a wooden bootjack at Diana. "How dare you speak to me like that?" he yelled. "Do you know who I am?"

At first he had responded to her outbursts with grim silence. Now he struggled to restrain his temper but was not always successful. Once he stalked out of the room, strode into his bathroom, and, in front of his valet, Ken Stronach, ripped the porcelain washbasin from the wall and smashed it on the floor. "I have to do it," his valet recalled him saying. "You do understand, don't you? Don't Don't you?" The wide-eyed valet nodded. you?" The wide-eyed valet nodded.

Despite his violent outbursts, Charles denied ever striking his wife. In fact, he blamed her for throwing lamps and breaking windows. During one of their visits to Althorp, her family estate, they stayed in a newly decorated suite that Diana's father admitted Charles and Diana left "somewhat damaged." An antique mirror was smashed, a window cracked, and a priceless chair shattered. "It was an almighty row," said the Earl Spencer, who added quickly that every married couple had fights. "It's nothing," he said. "Diana is still very much in love with Charles."

Diana stopped going to Althorp because of her father's wife. So the Earl Spencer had to go to London to see his daughter and grandchildren. After her brother's wedding, Diana said she could no longer bear the presence of "that woman [her stepmother]." The sight of Raine presiding over the Spencer ancestral home during a prenuptial party for her brother had incensed Diana. She felt that her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, had been slighted. Frances had recently been abandoned after nineteen years of marriage when her husband left her for another woman. Although she had left Johnny Spencer before he inherited Althorp, Diana and her siblings felt, perhaps without justification, that Raine had usurped their mother's rightful place. Even as adults they continued to revile their stepmother.

During a prewedding party for her brother at Althorp, Diana watched Raine go into the nursery and graciously pour tea for her husband's grandchildren. When Raine left the room and headed for the grand staircase, Diana followed her. As Raine started down the first flight of stairs, Diana lunged forward and knocked her over with her shoulder. The fifty-eight-year-old woman fell to her knees and tumbled down the steps, coming to a stop on the first landing. Diana walked around her and, without a word, proceeded into the party.

The a.s.sault alarmed the Countess's personal a.s.sistant, Sue Ingram. "I wanted to run upstairs and ask Her Ladyship if she was all right, but I was too embarra.s.sed, not only for myself, but for her," she said. "The servants and I pretended that nothing had happened-we just looked away."

Later Raine mentioned the outburst to her a.s.sistant. "What has happened to Diana?" she asked. "Why such an occurrence? I just don't understand that girl."

Beset by her eating disorder and her husband's infidelity, Diana was volcanic and erupted frequently. After another of their incessant fights, Charles found her in tears in her bedroom, pouring out her heart to her detective about Charles's late night telephone calls to Camilla Parker Bowles and his unexplained absences. Charles was appalled by her lack of discretion.

Within days the detective, who had guarded the Princess for a year, was suddenly transferred into the Diplomatic Unit. A member of the Prince's staff told a reporter that the abrupt change was due to the sergeant's "overfamiliarity" with the Princess.

"He's just punishing me," Diana told friends bitterly.

"I was transferred for domestic reasons," Mannakee admitted to the press, "but I have no intentions of discussing those reasons."

The Prince, who was polite but aloof with his servants, did not approve of his wife's familiarity with the help. He maintained a certain distance from the staff and expected her to do the same. But she treated her dresser, her detective, and her butler like extended family.

"Do not misinterpret the Prince's demeanor," said one of his equerries. "There's a seemly remove about him that comes from being reared as royalty."

Diana, who did not possess that royal remove, embraced servants like friends. She thought nothing of eating in the staff kitchen, where her first question upon arrival at Sandringham, Balmoral, or Buckingham Palace was usually, "What's for dinner?" She attended staff parties, brought records, and asked the servants to dance with her. Her husband rarely attended these employee get-togethers because he knew his presence would impose undue formality. Still, he regarded his wife's behavior as highly improper.

Her indiscriminate displays of affection also irked him. He said that she kissed everyone she met, even strangers. She did not discriminate between highway workers and heads of state. At polo games she kissed Major Ron Ferguson to say h.e.l.lo. After the royal wedding she kissed the Lord High Chamberlain to say thank you. On the honeymoon she kissed the President of Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, to say good-bye. In New Zealand she rubbed noses with a Maori tribeswoman. When she returned home she kissed her servants.

When the royal family attended a grand ball at Buckingham Palace for the household staff, Diana circled the room in her tiara to greet everyone. She understood how much her t.i.tle meant and how special people felt being in her presence. "I could see Charles watching her out of the corner of his eye," recalled Wendy Berry, who worked at Highgrove. "He looked on as she took the mother of one servant in her arms and kissed her expansively on the cheeks. Charles's expression was one of horror mixed with fascination that any wife of his could behave so normally with ordinary people."

Eight months after Barry Mannakee was transferred from the Royal Protection Unit, a car smashed into his motorcycle and he was killed. Charles was given the news immediately, but he waited twenty-four hours before telling Diana. When they were on their way to the airport to fly to France for the Cannes Film Festival, he turned to her moments before she was to get out of the limousine in front of photographers.

"Oh, by the way," he said, "I got word from the Protection Unit yesterday that poor Barry Mannakee was killed. Some sort of motorcycle accident. Terrible shame, isn't it?"

Diana burst into tears as the limousine pulled up to the royal flight. Charles pushed her out.

"Let's go, darling," he said sarcastically. "Your press awaits you."

Diana did not believe Mannakee's death was an accident. She was convinced that her former protection officer had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by MI5 [Britain's intelligence agency] at the instigation of her jealous husband. She blamed herself for Mannakee's death and tried to summon his spirit through several seances. When a writer published a book suggesting a nefarious plot by MI5, Mannakee's father insisted his son's death was an accident. Diana eventually accepted that, but she never forgave her husband for the cruel way he broke the news to her. She told the story to friends to demonstrate his heartlessness and to show the diabolical pleasure he took in tormenting her.

Privately the fairy tale was over, but the public did not yet see the cracks behind the facade. The first glimpse came after a polo match when Charles kissed his wife in front of hundreds of people when his team lost; she turned her head quickly as if she had just been licked by a s...o...b..ring dog. Then she wiped his kiss off her cheek.

"I suppose I should've seen something askew in 1985 when I interviewed Prince Charles for my biography of the late poet laureate John Betjeman," said writer Bevis Hillier. "But I wasn't looking for a shadow on the romance. I'm in my fifties and grew up singing 'G.o.d Save the King.' I now sing 'G.o.d Save Our Gracious Queen.' The monarchy is like religion to me, and absurd as it might sound, I want it to survive....

"The Prince and I talked in his office at Kensington Palace, where a clock chimed every fifteen minutes. He was very messy-heaps of papers on the floor and red leather boxes with gold-embossed Prince of Wales feathers all over the place. But he was sweet and could not have been more pleasant.

"My last question to him was: Which was your favorite Betjeman poem? He flipped through the book of poetry and fell upon one dealing with the aging s.e.x drive. He read the last stanza: Too long we let our bodies cling, Too long we let our bodies cling,We cannot hide disgustAt all the thoughts that in us springFrom this late-flowering l.u.s.t.

"He smiled ruefully and said, 'I'd like to choose "Late Flowering l.u.s.t," but I guess I better not.' Instead he chose 'Indoor Games Near Newbury.' " The Prince had carefully selected a poem about little children holding hands in a cupboard.

"I knew something was amiss in the fall of 1986, after an off-the-record interview with Prince Charles at Highgrove," recalled the London bureau chief of Time. Time. "As a condition of the interview, I was not allowed to ask questions about his family. We talked in his study, where there were at least forty sterling silver framed pictures-the Queen, the Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, King Juan Carlos, Mountbatten, Wills and Harry, the royal horse, the royal dogs. But not one picture of the royal wife. Although Diana was the most photographed woman in the world, her picture was nowhere to be found in her husband's study." "As a condition of the interview, I was not allowed to ask questions about his family. We talked in his study, where there were at least forty sterling silver framed pictures-the Queen, the Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, King Juan Carlos, Mountbatten, Wills and Harry, the royal horse, the royal dogs. But not one picture of the royal wife. Although Diana was the most photographed woman in the world, her picture was nowhere to be found in her husband's study."

The royal watchers on the tabloids noticed the strain between the Prince and Princess and reported that the couple had spent thirty-seven consecutive nights in Britain without once sharing the same bedroom. They noted that Charles returned early and alone from family vacations and that even when he and Diana were going to the same place, they arrived separately. She attended fashion shows and rock concerts with other people in London while he worked alone in his gardens at Highgrove, 113 miles west of the city. When he went fishing by himself at Balmoral, she remained at Kensington Palace with their children.

A Norwegian manufacturer capitalized on the discord and made the Prince and Princess of Wales role models for people too busy to cook. Billboards in Oslo featured the mournful faces of Charles and Diana looking at single-serving cans of pasta and beef stew marked Middag for en- Middag for en- Dinner for one. Yet Britain's establishment press did not take the rift rumors seriously. They dismissed the tabloid stories as "downmarket t.i.ttle-tattle" and called on establishment figures like Harold Brooks-Baker of Dinner for one. Yet Britain's establishment press did not take the rift rumors seriously. They dismissed the tabloid stories as "downmarket t.i.ttle-tattle" and called on establishment figures like Harold Brooks-Baker of Debrett's Peerage Debrett's Peerage to dispel the rumors. to dispel the rumors.

The reverent monarchist complied eagerly. "Outrageous, simply outrageous," said Brooks-Baker. "These rumors of marital discord tarnish the royal family's image and diminish the monarchy. They must stop. There will never be a separation between the Prince and Princess of Wales, and there certainly will never be a divorce."

His denial did not dent the tabloids' credibility among royal servants. "Too much of the information was accurate and true," said one of Princess Margaret's butlers with dismay. "We knew that it had to be coming from someone on the inside. One of us. The royal family knew it, too. But there's nothing they can do about servants who sell their stories, unless, of course, they catch them outright. Then we can be fired, fined, even imprisoned.

"The only people who knew that the Prince and Princess of Wales were no longer sharing the same bed were their personal maids. You don't think Her Majesty knew that. Or even wanted to know it. Princess Margaret used to say that she had to read the papers simply to find out what was happening in her own family. The floor-shaking fights between them [Charles and Diana] were known to their staffs, and the word traveled fast through the royal houses."

The butler offered an explanation for the disparity between the upmarket press, which proclaimed the marriage as solid, and the tabloids, which depicted the marriage as shaky. He said a footman at Highgrove had seen the Princess throw a teapot at the Prince and rush from the room in tears. Hours later the royal couple had composed themselves and appeared together in public at a benefit. Their smiling photographs in the Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph made the teapot story in the made the teapot story in the Mirror Mirror look fabricated. "Actually, both stories were accurate," said the butler, "but the tabs ran the juicier bits." look fabricated. "Actually, both stories were accurate," said the butler, "but the tabs ran the juicier bits."

Diana resented the press speculation about her marriage but did not know what to do. "Just because I go out without my husband," she protested, "doesn't mean my marriage is on the rocks." She had taken on more public engagements-299 in 1985, 70 percent more than her 177 in 1984-and more than half of those in Britain were without her husband. Heartened by her increasing commitment to performing royal duties, Prince Philip told her to ignore the rumors, and she tried.

"When we first got married," she said, "we were everybody's idea of the world's most perfect couple. Now they say we are leading separate lives. The next thing is I'll start reading that I've got a black Catholic lover."

The unrelenting pressure of having to appear in public and be gracious to a press corps that acted like a firing squad wore her down. During a visit to a children's nursery school, she was asked by the supervisor whether she wanted to accommodate the photographers clamoring outside.

"I don't see why I should do anything for them," she replied. "They never do anything for me."

The next day the Sun Sun fired back with an editorial: "Princess Diana asks: 'What have the newspapers ever done for me?' The fired back with an editorial: "Princess Diana asks: 'What have the newspapers ever done for me?' The Sun Sun can answer Her Loveliness in one word-everything! The newspapers have made her one of the most famous women in the world. They have given her an aura of glamour and romance. Without them, the entire Windsor family would soon become as dull as the rulers of Denmark and Sweden." can answer Her Loveliness in one word-everything! The newspapers have made her one of the most famous women in the world. They have given her an aura of glamour and romance. Without them, the entire Windsor family would soon become as dull as the rulers of Denmark and Sweden."

The burden of maintaining a sunny public image sapped the Princess's strength. "I got no help from anyone carrying this load," she complained to her lady-in-waiting. Like Diana's husband, the Palace expected her to do her duties without comment: show up and shut up. But Diana needed rea.s.surance. Without Barry Mannakee beside her, she had no one to buoy her, to provide advice and offer affection. Her husband had come to regard her as a whiner. "Oh, G.o.d, what is it now," he'd say when she approached him. She felt increasingly isolated within the royal family and uneasy about confiding in her sisters, especially Jane, who was married to Robert Fellowes, the Queen's a.s.sistant private secretary.

Diana was also wary of Sarah Ferguson, who, she said, acted too eager to please Charles. Diana didn't want to disappoint her friends by admitting her fairy-tale marriage was a sham, so she said nothing. When her former roommate, Carolyn Pride Bartholomew, noticed her startling weight loss, Diana finally admitted her eating disorder and said she was throwing up four to five times a day because she was so unhappy. The Princess said her Prince was no longer charming.

When Mrs. Bartholomew was badgered by reporters in Australia about the state of the Waleses' marriage, she declined to comment. Pressed about the royal couple's separate quarters and separate vacations, she said nothing. One reporter pointed out the twelve-year age difference and suggested the twenty-six-year-old Princess was bored by her thirty-nine-year-old husband.

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Bartholomew.

"Well, what do they possibly have in common?"

"Well... uhmmm... uhmmm... they... uhmmm... have their children."

Diana was at her most vulnerable in 1986 when she met Captain James Hewitt at a c.o.c.ktail party. She had been lonely, neglected, and despondent. The twenty-seven-year-old bachelor knew how to flirt with a princess without overstepping the line. He was introduced as a skilled horseman with the Life Guards' Household Division. Diana told him that she had been afraid of horses since falling off her pony as a child. She said her fear of riding was a disappointment to her husband and his equestrian family, and she wanted to do something about it. The handsome cavalry officer smiled and offered to help her. Two days later she phoned him for riding lessons.

After graduating from Millfield, a private academy, James Hewitt received his military training at Sandhurst, joined the Life Guards, and made the army his life. He considered himself honored to be among the sovereign's elite personal guard. Out of uniform, the officer dressed like a gentleman in double-breasted blazers, Gucci loafers, and gold cuff links. He wore silk cravats, played polo, and cultivated good manners. And he listened to the wartime recordings of Winston Churchill to improve his enunciation. With wavy russet hair, full lips, and sleepy blue eyes, he was beguiling to women. "All I know," he said, "is horses and s.e.x." Years later he boasted that he had shared both with the Princess of Wales.

Their love affair started in the stables of Knightsbridge barracks. For the first two months Diana arrived every week for her riding lesson, accompanied by her detective and her lady-in-waiting. Soon the lady-in-waiting was left waiting. And the detective remained discreetly in the barracks while the Princess and her riding instructor rode alone on the trails, laughing and talking. "Their horses," recalled the groom Malcolm Leete, "were hardly ever ridden." The groom later sold his recollections to a newspaper.

In James Hewitt, Diana had found a man her own age who thoroughly relished women and treated them with the same respect he accorded high-strung horses. He calmed and comforted them.

The Princess of Wales crossed cla.s.s lines to find Hewitt, the son of a marine captain and a dentist's daughter. Diana described Hewitt to a friend as "my soul" and said that despite their backgrounds, they were very much alike. Both were graceful athletes, who reveled in their bodies and were extraordinarily vain about their appearance. They loved to dress up and spent hours getting ready to appear in public. Both were seducers who knew how to exploit their charms.

On a deeper level they bonded through the trauma of their parents' divorces. Diana said she was determined that her children would not suffer the same kind of childhood she had. Yet despite her best efforts, she was subjecting them to the same violent quarrels and tearful recriminations she had seen between her parents. Hewitt had avoided making those mistakes by not getting married. As the only son, he was spoiled by his mother and indulged by his two sisters, with whom he remained close.

Unlike Charles, Hewitt lapped up Diana's conversations. He listened attentively to her discuss her charity work and how much she enjoyed her royal duties when "they" (the Palace courtiers) left her alone. She felt as if she had a divine ability to minister to the sick and dying; she said this healing touch came from "spirits" that guided her. This enabled her to go beyond the ceremonial role of a royal princess visiting hospitals. She saw herself as Mother Teresa in a crown. She said she identified with victims and felt their pain. Although Hewitt did not understand her mysticism, he listened raptly and did not question her judgment-unlike the Bishop of Norwich, who was startled by Diana's claims. When she told the cleric that she was a reincarnated spirit who had lived before, he looked puzzled. When she said she was protected by a spirit world of people she had known who had died, she said the Bishop looked horrified. But Hewitt was a simple man with no orthodox religion, and his silence encouraged her to keep talking.

She told him about her children, whom she called "my little knights in shining armor," saying they were the most important people in her life. Over several weeks she guided Hewitt through the swamp of her marriage, and as she revealed the dismal secrets-the bulimia, the suicide attempts, the separate bedrooms, and the mistress-he saw a woman reeling with rejection. Like most men who met Diana, he felt protective.

Wisely, he let her make the first move, which she did by inviting him to dinner at Kensington Palace when Charles was at Highgrove. She dismissed most of her staff that evening and greeted Hewitt excitedly at the front door. She led him to her private sitting room and handed him a magnum of Champagne. She said she rarely drank, but this was a special occasion. He popped the cork and filled the flutes as she sat on the apricot-and-white-striped sofa. Looking around the room, he chuckled when he saw the embroidered maxim on one of her scattered pillows: If You Think Money Can't Buy Love If You Think Money Can't Buy LoveYou Don't Know Where to Shop.

He appreciated her shopping expertise at London's finest stores because he'd been the lucky beneficiary of several extravagant sprees. He told her that members of his regiment had been impressed by the presents that had been arriving at his barracks. She lowered her eyes and giggled.

"Whether it's friends, lovers, or relatives, Diana is very generous," said interior designer Nicholas Haslam. "She's incapable of not not giving presents. She always arrives at my flat with some kind of lovely gift-a tie, a plant, a book. Unlike the rest of the royals, she knows how to spend money on other people." giving presents. She always arrives at my flat with some kind of lovely gift-a tie, a plant, a book. Unlike the rest of the royals, she knows how to spend money on other people."

Among the presents Hewitt received from the Princess were a rust cashmere sweater from Harrods, four silk Hermes ties, and a pair of $1,500 hand-tooled leather riding boots from Lobb's, London's finest shoemaker. He also received a tweed hacking jacket with suede patches and leather b.u.t.tons, three custom-made suits, ten Turnbull & a.s.ser shirts with matching ties, two blazers, one dozen pairs of cashmere socks, two dozen silk boxer shorts, gold cuff links, a diamond-studded tie pin, and an eighteen-carat gold clock from Asprey, the royal jeweler.

Limited by his $50,000-a-year salary, the cavalry officer could not afford to reciprocate in the same grandiose style. "Instead I gave her the clothes off my back," he said lightly. She asked him for his T-shirt to wear to bed and his cricket sweater to wear under her ski parka. She also asked for one of his down-filled jackets, which she wore frequently on walks. His most luxurious gift was a pair of diamond-and-emerald earrings, which he sent her as a reward for not biting her fingernails.

Following their first dinner at Kensington Palace, Diana served him coffee on the sitting room couch. She turned off the lamp on the side table and then slipped into his lap, putting her arms around his neck. Moments later, he told his biographer, she stood up and, without saying a word, led him into her bedroom.

For the next eighteen months their affair was vigorous and pa.s.sionate and not conducted with utmost discretion. They visited Althorp, and according to Hewitt, they made love in the poolhouse. They stayed with Hewitt's mother in Devon and made love in her garden. They spent nights together at Kensington Palace with Diana's children and weekends at Highgrove when Charles was traveling. The young Princes became so accustomed to Hewitt's presence that they called him "Uncle James." He spent hours teaching them how to ride. He took them to his army barracks, where they were enthralled by the men in uniform. He taught the little boys how to march, salute, and hold a gun.

In turn, Diana invited Hewitt's father and his two sisters to London for a private dinner. James had confided in them about his relationship with Diana. She also accompanied him to Devon and spent many days with his mother, who ran a riding school. "She would always help carry the things out after lunch," recalled Shirley Hewitt. "She would wash up the dishes and, on one occasion, helped clear out a cupboard. She said, 'What is all this? It's disgusting!' and cleared the whole lot out and gave the cupboard a good wash." On those trips Diana endeared herself to Mrs. Hewitt with her girlish questions about James's childhood. Together they teased him as they paged through the family sc.r.a.pbooks, looking at his baby pictures.

Hewitt said he had not intended to fall in love with the Princess, whom he described as emotionally vulnerable and distressed. "But," he admitted sheepishly, "it happened.... We spoke a great deal about what the future may hold for us both. I think it was perhaps fun to fantasize and to believe in a situation which quite clearly might not be possible... the dreams of being able to spend the rest of our lives together."

Joking nervously about the Treason Act of 1351, he wondered aloud if he could be sent to the Tower and beheaded for sleeping with Diana. The archaic law forbids adultery with the wife of the heir to the throne to ensure that all heirs are legitimate. When the Princess's affair with her riding instructor was disclosed by Hewitt and confirmed by Diana, some royal biographers noticed a startling resemblance between the copper-haired Hewitt and rusty-haired Prince Harry. But Hewitt denied he was the father and staunchly maintained he did not meet Diana until two years after the birth of her second son. "In fact," stated Private Eye, Private Eye, "Hewitt first met Diana five years earlier-at a polo match in 1981, before her marriage." "Hewitt first met Diana five years earlier-at a polo match in 1981, before her marriage."

The Princess did not exercise prudence in her relationship with the cavalry officer. Careful to disguise her voice when she called him on the pay phone at his barracks, she took few other precautions. In a sense, she felt immune from scandal because people were accustomed to seeing her at public events with escorts like Major David Waterhouse and the banker Philip Dunne. So the image of her in the presence of other men had already been established. She relied on the reservoir of goodwill she enjoyed as the Princess of Wales, knowing that most people would never suspect her of committing adultery, especially with the man in charge of the army's stables.

"It was simply too inconceivable," said one of her closest friends. "Even after she admitted on television that it was true-that she had been unfaithful with that cad, who cashed her in by writing a book-I still couldn't believe it."

Nor could her brother, Charles Spencer, who, despite contrary evidence, defended her against insinuations of promiscuity. "Hand to heart," he said, "my sister Diana has only slept with one man in her life and he is her husband."

Some of the men in Hewitt's regiment suspected the relationship from the beginning and nudged each other with burlesque winks about the Princess and her riding instructor, whom they had nicknamed the Red Setter. But none dared publicly to suggest anything improper. "Even when I saw them kissing and cuddling in the middle of the riding school, I was so shocked that I didn't tell anyone about it, not even my wife, for a year and a half, until after I left the army," said the former groom.

He described what he saw: "It was in the middle of November 1988 and Hewitt had been transferred to Combermere Barracks, not far from Windsor. I got the Princess's horse ready for her three-thirty P.M. P.M. lesson... and took it to the riding school because the weather outside was awful.... The two of them met inside, and I stood on a mounting block to watch them. I saw his hands going up the back of her blouse. Her blouse was outside her jodhpurs. She was all over him. He was all over her." lesson... and took it to the riding school because the weather outside was awful.... The two of them met inside, and I stood on a mounting block to watch them. I saw his hands going up the back of her blouse. Her blouse was outside her jodhpurs. She was all over him. He was all over her."

As the affair progressed, Diana drew her former roommate, Carolyn Bartholomew, into her confidence as well as her friend Mara Berni, who owned the San Lorenzo restaurant in Knightsbridge, where Diana and Hewitt sometimes lunched together. She also relied on her detective, Ken Wharfe, who accompanied her with Hewitt, making their trips look like casual excursions rather than romantic outings.

Diana included her lover on the Queen's invitation list for a formal white-tie ball in November 1988 to celebrate Prince Charles's fortieth birthday. She knew without looking at the list of five hundred guests that Charles would invite his mistress. So she added the name of her riding instructor next to her favorite dress designer, Bruce Oldfield. Everyone in the royal family attended the ball at Buckingham Palace, except Prince Andrew, who was aboard the HMS Edinburgh Edinburgh in Australian waters. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia flew in from Spain to join the king of Norway, the grand duke of Luxembourg, the prince of Liechtenstein and Sophia's brother, Constantine, the deposed king of Greece. The Dukes of Northumberland and Westminster danced and drank champagne until three in the morning with rock stars, disk jockeys, and industrialists. in Australian waters. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia flew in from Spain to join the king of Norway, the grand duke of Luxembourg, the prince of Liechtenstein and Sophia's brother, Constantine, the deposed king of Greece. The Dukes of Northumberland and Westminster danced and drank champagne until three in the morning with rock stars, disk jockeys, and industrialists.

Charles had started his day by visiting the inner cities of Birmingham northwest of London, where the charity he founded in 1976, the Prince's Trust, employed disadvantaged young people. He arrived in the morning wearing a "Life Begins at 40" b.u.t.ton, a gift from his children, and was cheered by crowds, who burst into a chorus of "Happy Birthday."

"When will you be King?" shouted a mechanic.

"Dunno," said Charles. "I might fall under a bus before I get there."

The inner-city celebration did not impress the chairman of the Labor Party. "It's just a way in which the benevolent hierarchy operates," said Dennis Skinner. "They have to push a few crumbs off the table for the poor and underprivileged... to ease their conscience and create an image of benevolence."

That evening's Palace party aroused even further indignation. "They'll spend as much on this celebration as many poor families would be able to spend in a lifetime," said Skinner. "Those on Easy Street, including the royal family, should take great care not to treat poor people with contempt. This party is like kicking sand in the faces of those people at the bottom of the ladder."

Charles said he would not be deterred by criticism, especially from cranks. "Now that I'm forty," he said, "I feel much, much more determined about what I'm doing." He considered his work for the underprivileged of Britain worthy of royalty but said his wife's patronage of AIDS patients was "inappropriate" and that the press coverage she received by visiting them was at times "sentimental" and "exploitative." He said her trip to visit AIDS babies in New York City's Harlem Hospital a few months later was totally unnecessary. When he refused to accompany her to Harlem, the capital of black America, she went by herself. He then dismissed the newspaper photographs of her hugging a dying black AIDS baby as "predictable."

Diana responded with calculation. On the return flight to London, she talked to a Daily Mirror Daily Mirror photographer about her whirlwind tour, saying how tense she felt being whisked from one engagement to another. "I feel so sad when I think about how I held that little boy in my arms," she said. "It was so moving. Maybe it's because I'm a woman traveling alone. It never feels so bad when my husband is with me." photographer about her whirlwind tour, saying how tense she felt being whisked from one engagement to another. "I feel so sad when I think about how I held that little boy in my arms," she said. "It was so moving. Maybe it's because I'm a woman traveling alone. It never feels so bad when my husband is with me."

The Palace interpreted her comments as a veiled attack upon her husband and scrambled to issue a statement, which implied that she was overwrought: "Visiting Harlem Hospital was a very emotional experience for her. She has been working non-stop for two days and the full impact is only just catching up with her." That was the first shot fired in the media war between the wily courtiers and the willful Princess.

"Diana played the game of one-upmanship like a maestro," said London columnist Ross Benson. "When she and Charles visited a music college, he was prevailed upon to play a note or two on the cello. It was too good an opportunity for her to miss. While he was playing, she strode across the stage, sat down at the piano, lifted the lid, and struck up the opening theme of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Every camera swung around to follow her, leaving Charles beached and abandoned in his humiliation."

Diana had insisted on accompanying her husband, over his objection, to a birthday party for Annabel Elliot, the sister of Camilla Parker Bowles. The forty guests were part of what she dismissed as her husband's stuffy Highgrove set, so no one had expected her to attend. But she was determined to confront her husband's mistress.

"I remember meeting her at that party shortly after her Harlem hugging trip," recalled a London attorney, "and thinking she was either dumb or else jet-lagged because she couldn't carry on a conversation. She kept looking at Charles, who had left her and gone off in a corner all night with Camilla. I didn't get what was happening until later, when my wife explained it all."

Toward the end of the party, Diana approached Camilla and said she wanted a word with her in private. Diana waited until the last guests had left the room. Then, looking her rival in the eye, she spoke bluntly: "Why don't you leave my husband alone?" Taken aback, Camilla started to protest, but Diana cut her off, saying she knew all about their affair. She cited the telephone calls, the love letters, the foxhunts, the Sunday night visits. She said she knew that Camilla played hostess at Highgrove in her absence, and Diana resented Camilla's being in Diana's home. Diana blamed Camilla for turning Charles away from his children and ruining his marriage. That said, Diana walked out of the room and told Charles she wanted to go home.

The next morning she called Carolyn Bartholomew and told her what she had done. She also phoned James Hewitt and related every detail of the confrontation, relishing her bold performance. She said she finally felt free of Camilla's clutches. "Why, oh, why," she asked him, "didn't I say all of that to her sooner? What a difference it would have made."

Hewitt said she deserved a medal for bravery and inquired about Charles's reaction.

"Stone cold fury," Diana said proudly, "and 'how could I possibly.' "

Diana's father invited the royal couple to a sixtieth birthday party in honor of Diana's stepmother in May 1989. But Charles had planned a trip to Turkey and wouldn't cancel it. "I'll be traveling," he announced by memo, which was how he communicated with his wife to avoid bickering. He had quietly moved out of Kensington Palace and lived entirely at Highgrove, where his children visited him on weekends. He did not tell his wife that he would be going to Turkey with Camilla Parker Bowles and her husband, Andrew, but Diana found out.

When she told Hewitt about the trip, she said she no longer cared about Charles and Camilla and "Andrew Park-Your-b.a.l.l.s," the nickname she had picked up from Private Eye Private Eye* for Brigadier General Bowles. Hewitt suspected that she still cared very much and, despite her disavowals, wanted to revive her marriage. But he said nothing and jumped at the invitation to escort her to her father's ball. "With five hundred guests, we'll be safe," Diana a.s.sured him. for Brigadier General Bowles. Hewitt suspected that she still cared very much and, despite her disavowals, wanted to revive her marriage. But he said nothing and jumped at the invitation to escort her to her father's ball. "With five hundred guests, we'll be safe," Diana a.s.sured him.

Soon after, Hewitt received transfer orders to Germany to command a tank squadron. Excited by his promotion, he worried about telling Diana he would be gone from her life for two years. He later said she had berated him for leaving her and putting his career ahead of their relationship. For several months she did not take his calls, and he left for Germany without seeing her.

Within weeks Diana sought out the man she had been infatuated with when she was seventeen. This time James Gilbey was much more receptive. Over lunches and quiet dinners he listened worshipfully as she unfolded the saga of her miserable marriage. And he became her cushion. They had started seeing each other again after a private dinner party at the home of their friend David Frost, the television interviewer, and his wife, Carina. As Diana and Gilbey were leaving that evening, they were photographed in front of Frost's house, kissing good-bye. The kiss was so intense that the photographer decided to stake out Gilbey's apartment in London's Lennox Gardens, near Harrods department store. Days later the photographer was rewarded with a shot of the Princess leaving Gilbey's apartment at 1:15 A.M. A.M. Gilbey said they were playing bridge but added: "I suppose it wasn't that wise for Diana and I [sic] to meet in those circ.u.mstances." Gilbey said they were playing bridge but added: "I suppose it wasn't that wise for Diana and I [sic] to meet in those circ.u.mstances."

From then on, Diana acted with much more caution. Instead of visiting Gilbey's apartment, she arranged to meet him secretly at Mara Berni's home, around the corner from the San Lorenzo restaurant. She also bought a shredder for her office at Kensington Palace. She used post office boxes for personal correspondence and talked on the phone in code. She preferred mobile phones because she thought they were more secure. But when she found out they were less secure, she stopped using them. When using the phones in Kensington Palace, she often closed the doors of her suite and turned up the television so servants couldn't eavesdrop.

Despite her efforts to avoid detection, her telephone conversation with James Gilbey on December 31, 1989, was intercepted by a stranger's scanning device and tape-recorded. When the British tabloids published the transcript three years later, they withheld an explicit ten-minute segment in which the Princess and her lover discussed masturbation. They also talked about Diana's fear of getting pregnant. "Darling, that's not going to happen," Gilbey said rea.s.suringly. "You won't get pregnant." Diana said she was worried after watching a soap opera earlier in which one of the main characters had had a baby. "They thought it was by her husband," said the Princess. "It was by another man." She and Gilbey laughed.

"Squidgy [his nickname for Diana], kiss me.... Oh, G.o.d. It's so wonderful, isn't it, this sort of feeling? Don't you like it?"

Diana replied, "I love it, I love it."

By the time the tape-recorded conversation known as Squidgygate became public, the Princess's pedestal had toppled into the ditch, and she was struggling to keep her head above the muck.