Prince Andrew Quotes

You sure you don't need your Prince Charming to come and save you?" The knot in my stomach evaporated. My Prince Charming huh. "Sure, do you have one handy?

You sure you don't need your Prince Charming to come and save you? Sure, do you have one handy? Oh, I think I could scrounge one up somewhere. As often as I have to rescue you.

Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets

Unlike your half-blood prince, this is a classic.” “Half-Blood Prince is a great book.” “Of course it is. What could be better than stories of clueless teenagers sent off to… Bale, what is that?” “What, this?” Lamar’s voice took on a sharp edge. “Is that a wand?” “It’s a stick.” “Are you pointing a wand at me?” “Who, me?” “Bale, if any Latin comes out of your mouth, it better be a litany of the saints, because I will end you.

What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew- "not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!...

How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best described as strength of will.

If those with the light never walk the narrow path, how will the lost find their way

Kevin was raised at Evermore, surrounded by the best and practically born with a racquet in his hand, whereas Andrew learned Exy while he was locked up in juvie. Neil had a page-long article about it in his notebook. It was crassly titled "The Prince and the Pauper", and its focus was on how doomed their friendship was.

In the old stories, despite the impossibility of the incidents, the interest is always real and human.  The princes and princesses fall in love and marry--nothing could be more human than that.  Their lives and loves are crossed by human sorrows...The hero and heroine are persecuted or separated by cruel stepmothers or enchanters; they have wanderings and sorrows to suffer; they have adventures to achieve and difficulties to overcome; they must display courage, loyalty and address, courtesy, gentleness and gratitude.  Thus they are living in a real human world, though it wears a mythical face, though there are giants and lions in the way.  The old fairy tales which a silly sort of people disparage as too wicked and ferocious for the nursery, are really 'full of matter,' and unobtrusively teach the true lessons of our wayfaring in a world of perplexities and obstructions.

The Prince of the Air may rule the world, but last I checked the Great Magician still owns the place.

Faith had given up on the whole one-day-my-prince-will-come romantic bullshit

Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as lovers of music do when they hear a false note.

They love Lecter even better than Prince Andrew.

Watch out for the press going in and coming out. Not the real press, the supermarket press. They love Lecter even better than Prince Andrew.

Oh, a tour would be fun,” said the Water Princess, her voice dripping with sarcasm, as she held up the hand that was still stuck to Andrew’s. “I’ll memorize the whole Kastle walking backwards.

Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French. Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkonski in Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.

Hey," Anaxantis protested. "Oh," he added, when the Muktar prince took his member in his mouth. "Oh... that's what you meant by servicing." He laughed softly. "Aw, aw, teeth, teeth, no teeth," he hissed suddenly. "Sowwy," Timishi, mumbled with his mouth full. "Towd you it wouldn't je jood.

Looking into Napoleon’s eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain.

True worship of God springs from our inability to answer two simple questions posed by a biblical understanding of the fear of the Lord: (1) O God, who is like you in power, righteousness, mighty deeds, and in pardoning sin (Ps. 71:18-19; Mic. 7:18-20)? and (2) what are woman and man that God should look down from heaven and care for them and lift them up to sit with princes (Ps. 8:4; 113:5-8)?

In the Land under the Hill, in the Time Before … Once upon a time, there was a beautiful lady of the Seelie Court who lost her heart to the son of an angel. Once upon a time, there were two boys come to the land of Faerie, brothers noble and bold. One brother caught a glimpse of the fair lady and, thunderstruck by her beauty, pledged himself to her. Pledged himself to stay. This was the boy Andrew. His brother, the boy Arthur, would not leave his side. And so the boys stayed beneath the hill, and Andrew loved the lady, and Arthur despised her. And so the lady kept her boy close to her side, kept this beautiful creature who swore his fealty to her, and when her sister lay claim to the other, the lady let him be taken away, for he was nothing. She gave Andrew a silver chain to wear around his neck, a token of her love, and she taught him the ways of the Fair Folk. She danced with him in revels beneath starry skies. She fed him moonshine and showed him how to give way to the wild. Some nights they heard Arthur’s screams, and she told him it was an animal in pain, and pain was in an animal’s nature. She did not lie, for she could not lie. Humans are animals. Pain is their nature. For seven years they lived in joy. She owned his heart, and he hers, and somewhere, beyond, Arthur screamed and screamed. Andrew didn’t know; the lady didn’t care; and so they were happy. Until the day one brother discovered the truth of the other. The lady thought her lover would go mad with the grief of it and the guilt. And so, because she loved the boy, she wove him a story of deceitful truths, the story he would want to believe. That he had been ensorcelled to love her; that he had never betrayed his brother; that he was only a slave; that these seven years of love had been a lie. The lady set the useless brother free and allowed him to believe he had freed himself. The lady subjected herself to the useless brother’s attack and allowed him to believe he had killed her. The lady let her lover renounce her and run away. And the lady beheld the secret fruits of their union and kissed them and tried to love them. But they were only a piece of her boy. She wanted all of him or none of him. As she had given him his story, she gave him his children. She had nothing left to live for, then, and so lived no longer. This is the story she left behind, the story her lover will never know; this is the story her daughter will never know. This is how a faerie loves: with her whole body and soul. This is how a faerie loves: with destruction. I love you, she told him, night after night, for seven years. Faeries cannot lie, and he knew that. I love you, he told her, night after night, for seven years. Humans can lie, and so she let him believe he lied to her, and she let his brother and his children believe it, and she died hoping they would believe it forever. This is how a faerie loves: with a gift.

Damn you, Anaxantis. You and your brother were supposed to sit on your princely asses, organize the occasional banquet, use your high sounding titles to ravish the local girls, or boys, or sheep, whatever takes your fancy for all I care, and leave serious matters to your elders.

He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony

many of the assaults allegedly took place include Ehud Barak, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Alan Dershowitz, a close friend of Epstein who also served as his attorney. Dershowitz was accused in 2015 of raping a teenage girl procured by Epstein in the 1990s, and in 2019 he was sued by a victim who claimed he aided in

Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have played at war—that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's

My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more that way, for your nose casts such a shadow that I really cannot see what I have on my plate

As a reviewer once told me, the story of Alexander’s tomb without a body is like Hamlet without the Prince…. The rest is silence.

Learning to read – really read, that is, to spend hours alone lost in a book – requires example and solitude, and is best picked up in childhood.

If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars," he said. "And that would be splendid," said Pierre. Prince Andrew smiled ironically. "Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about… " "Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre. "What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going… " He paused. "I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!

The quest of the handsome prince was complete. He had found his fair maiden and the world had its fairytale. In her ivory tower, Cinderella was unhappy, locked away from her friends, her family and the outside world.

Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood, suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him . Looking into Napoleon’s eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain.

I like it.” My voice was low, soft, meant for the prince alone. “Like what?” “Your feral kingdom.” The same heat from the coach flashed in his eyes, and instead of fearing it now, I thought I might want it to swallow me whole.

How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran,” thought Prince Andrew—“ not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God! . . .

They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?” exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. “Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn’t do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it’s not for long!

On the eve of the wedding, which Diana spent at Clarence House, her mood was much improved when Charles sent her a signet ring engraved with the Prince of Wales feathers and an affectionate card which said: “I’m so proud of you and when you come up I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ‘em in the eye and knock ‘em dead.

When Lee arrived to pick me up, I introduced Diana simply as Diana Spencer. They exchanged a few brief words while I kissed Patrick good-bye, and off we went. As we struggled through the southbound traffic in Lewes, Lee and I had a conversation about Diana that seems both remarkable and humorous in retrospect. I started out by saying, “Lee, you’ll never believe who my nanny is.” Then I told him about Diana’s title and background and how amazed and grateful I was that she was looking after Patrick so sweetly and carefully. Lee and I agreed that she was awfully pretty and down to earth. I mentioned that she did not appear to have a steady boyfriend, and perhaps Lee might want to give her a call. Lee had a very respectable background—a good public school, university, solid career prospects, and a father who’d retired from the foreign service. Lee chuckled at my naiveté and explained that in England the social gulf between the daughter of an earl and a commoner was so great that he would never presume to ask Diana out. He reiterated that her social position and lineage were as exalted as they could possibly be. “In fact,” he added, “with her background, she’d be a suitable match for Prince Andrew.” Direct as usual, I replied, “Forget about Prince Andrew. If her background’s as impeccable as you say, she ought to be a match for Prince Charles. She’d be perfect as the next queen of England!” Then touching on a critical qualification for any future queen, I added, “And I’d bet my life on her virtue.

During the first weekend Prince Charles showed Diana around Highgrove, the 353-acre Gloucestershire home he had bought in July--the same month he had started to woo her. As he took her on a guided tour of the eight-bedroomed mansion, the Prince asked her to organize the interior decoration. He liked her taste while she felt that it was a “most improper” suggestion as they were not even engaged.

No, friend,” said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew , a familiar voice, “what I say is that if it were possible to know what is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That’s so, friend.” Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: “Afraid or not, you can’t escape it anyhow.”“All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people,” said a third manly voice interrupting them both. “Of course you artillery men are very wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and snacks.” And the owner of the manly voice , evidently an infantry officer, laughed. “Yes, one is afraid,” continued the first speaker, he of the familiar voice. “One is afraid of the unknown, that’s what it is. Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky . . . we know there is no sky but only an atmosphere.

Amid the wreckage of their relationship there are still friends who feel that the rage and jealousy Diana feels towards her husband is reflection of her innermost desire to win him back. Those observers are in a minority. Most are deeply pessimistic about the future. Oonagh Toffolo notes: “I had great hopes until a year ago, now I have no hope at all. It would need a miracle. It is a great pity that these two people with so much to give to the world can’t give it together.” A similar conclusion has been reached by a friend, who has discussed Diana’s troubles with her at length. She says: “If he had done the work in the early days and forgotten about Camilla, they would have so much more going for them. However they have now reached a point of no return.” The words “there is no hope” are often repeated when friends talk about the Wales’s life together. As one of her closest friends says: “She has conquered all the challenges presented to her within the profession and got her public life down to a fine art. But the central issue is that she is not fulfilled as a woman because she doesn’t have a relationship with her husband.” The continual conflict and suspicion in their private life inevitably colours their public work. Nominally the Prince and Princess are a partnership, in reality they act independently, rather like the managing directors of rival companies. As one former member of the Wales’s Household said: “You very quickly learn to choose whose side you are on--his or hers. There is no middle course. There is a magic line that courtiers can cross once or twice. Cross it too often and you are out. That is not a basis for a stable career.

As a Free Trader, he was convinced by Mayo’s detailed arguments, supported by a large quantity of evidence, that far from Britain being an economic drain on India, trade had been mutually beneficial.117 The fact that almost all the richest people in India were Indian merchants or princes, not Britons, struck him as further evidence that the British were not the exploitative colonialists of other European empires in Asia and Africa.

I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U.S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted—and relished. I was very proud of my ship. On leave

Diana took some small satisfaction when a Sunday newspaper accurately detailed Camilla’s comings and goings, even reporting on the unmarked Ford estate car the Prince uses to drive the twelve miles to Middlewich House. This was further authenticated by a former policeman at Highgrove, Andrew Jacques, who sold his story to a national newspaper. “Mrs Parker-Bowles certainly figures larger in the Prince’s life at Highgrove than Princess Di,” he claimed, a view endorsed by many of Diana’s friends.

When Camilla and her husband joined Prince Charles on a holiday in Turkey shortly before his polo accident, she didn’t complain just as she bore, through gritted teeth, Camilla’s regular invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham. When Charles flew to Italy last year on a sketching holiday, Diana’s friends noted that Camilla was staying at another villa a short drive away. On her return Mrs Parker-Bowles made it quite clear that any suggestion of impropriety was absurd. Her protestations of innocence brought a tight smile from the Princess. That changed to scarcely controlled anger during their summer holiday on board a Greek tycoon’s yacht. She quietly simmered as she heard her husband holding forth to dinner-party guests about the virtues of mistresses. Her mood was scarcely helped when, later that evening, she heard him chatting on the telephone to Camilla. They meet socially on occasion but, there is no love lost between these two women locked into an eternal triangle of rivalry. Diana calls her rival “the rotweiller” while Camilla refers to the Princess as that “ridiculous creature”. At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other. Diana has developed a technique in public of locating Camilla as quickly as possible and then, depending on her mood, she watches Charles when he looks in her direction or simply evades her gaze. “It is a morbid game,” says a friend. Days before the Salisbury Cathedral spire appeal concert Diana knew that Camilla was going. She vented her frustration in conversations with friends so that on the day of the event the Princess was able to watch the eye contact between her husband and Camilla with quiet amusement. Last December all those years of pent-up emotion came flooding out at a memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who tragically died of cancer. As Diana left the service, held at St James’s Palace, she was photographed in tears. She was weeping in sorrow but also in anger. Diana was upset that Camilla Parker Bowles who had only known the Romseys for a short time was also present at such an intimate family service. It was a point she made vigorously to her husband as they travelled back to Kensington Palace in their chauffeur-driven limousine. When they arrived at Kensington Palace the Princess felt so distressed that she ignored the staff Christmas party, which was then in full swing, and went to her sitting-room to recover her composure. Diplomatically, Peter Westmacott, the Wales’s deputy private secretary, sent her avuncular detective Ken Wharfe to help calm her.

When Diana returned to work on Monday, September 16, she came directly to my bedroom and announced, “Mrs. Robertson, I have something important to tell you.” I could see out of the corner of my eye that she had a slight, mischievous grin on her face. “Go right ahead,” I said as I continued to blow-dry my hair in front of the mirror above the dresser. “No, Mrs. Robertson, I’d like your full attention.” I switched off my hair dryer and faced her as she stood in the doorway. “When you leave for work this morning, you’ll notice a lot of reporters and photographers at the entrance to the mews.” I wondered aloud if the press were following either Lord Vestey, a notorious international financier, or John Browne, a bright young M.P. known as one of “Maggie’s boys,” both of whom lived on our small street. “No, actually, Mrs. Robertson, they’re waiting for me,” Diana said with a great deal of blushing, staring at the floor, and throat clearing. “Good heavens, Diana, why?” “Well . . . I spent last weekend at Balmoral.” “With Prince Andrew?” I asked, remembering my friend Lee’s comment on the way to Glyndebourne. “No, actually, I was there to see Prince Charles.” More blushes and throat clearing, quickly followed by her disclaimer, “But he didn’t invite me. His mother did.” Hearing Diana speak of Her Majesty the Queen as “his mother” certainly gave me a clear picture of the circles in which Diana moved. I gasped and asked, probably rather tactlessly, “Gosh, do you think there’s any chance of a romance developing?” “Not really,” she said with noticeable regret. “After all, he’s thirty-one and I’m only nineteen. He’d never look seriously at me.” So modest, so appealing. I couldn’t imagine him not learning to love her. We certainly had. “Well, Diana, I wouldn’t be so sure,” I replied, thinking of my prediction from July.

No, Tom’s life went along well enough, especially in summer. He only begged just enough to save himself, for the laws against mendicancy were stringent, and the penalties heavy; so he put in a good deal of his time listening to good Father Andrew’s charming old tales and legends about giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii, and enchanted castles, and gorgeous kings and princes. His head grew to be full of these wonderful things, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw, tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace. One desire came in time to haunt him day and night: it was to see a real prince, with his own eyes. He spoke of it once to some of his Offal Court comrades; but they jeered him and scoffed him so unmercifully that he was glad to keep his dream to himself after that.

Such is their mutual antipathy that friends have observed that Diana finds her husband’s very presence upsetting and disturbing. He in turn views his wife with indifference tinged with dislike. When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. “He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me.” She would, for example, never contemplate making any input into any of his special interests such as architecture, the environment or agriculture. Painful experience tells her that any suggestions would be treated with ill-disguised contempt. “He makes her feel intellectually insecure and inferior and constantly reinforces that message,” notes a close friend. When Charles took his wife to see A Woman of No Importance when he celebrated his 43rd birthday, the irony was not lost on her friends.

On November 27 Napoleon wrote to Leclerc about Pauline, who had bravely gone out on the expedition, saying he was ‘highly satisfied with the conduct of Paulette. She ought not to fear death, as she would die with glory in dying with the army and being useful to her husband. Everything passes rapidly on earth, with the exception of the mark we leave on history.’67 At the time he wrote, Leclerc himself was nearly four weeks dead from yellow fever. ‘Come back soon,’ Napoleon wrote to Pauline on learning of Leclerc’s death, ‘here you will find consolation for your misfortunes in the love of your family. I embrace you.’ Pauline – whom Laure d’Abrantès described as ‘a less-than-desolate widow’ – returned with the body on January 1, 1803, and by the end of August she was remarried, to the handsome and rich Don Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese, Prince of Sulmona and of Rossano, Duke and Prince of Guastalla, whom she privately thought ‘an imbecile’ and to whom she was soon wildly unfaithful.

When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch. After Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt this. Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact. Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before them. Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain. They spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very unimportant matters. Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before their eyes. Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything that might lead up to the subject—this halting on all sides at the boundary of what they might not mention—brought before their minds with still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.

The first signal of the change in her behavior was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s night club before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can. This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the girls, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photo-call. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as ninety assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: “Come on, come on!” Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: “I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no-one else will.” It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: “It was good fun within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.

The most poignant lesson, which proved to be the last, was held a few days before the wedding. Diana’s thoughts were on the profound changes ahead. Miss Snipp noted: “Lady Diana rather tired--too many late nights. I delivered silver salt-cellars--present from West Heath school--very beautiful and much admired. Lady Diana counting how many days of freedom are left to her. Rather sad. Masses of people outside of Palace. We hope to resume lessons in October. Lady Diana said: “In 12 days time I shall no longer be me.’” Even as she spoke those words Diana must have known that she had left behind her bachelor persona as soon as she had entered the Palace portals. In the weeks following the engagement she had grown in confidence and self-assurance, her sense of humour frequently bubbling to the surface. Lucinda Craig Harvey saw her former cleaning lady on several occasions during her engagement, once at the 30th birthday party of her brother-in-law, Neil McCorquodale. “She had a distance to her and everyone was in awe of her,” she recalls. It was a quality also noticed by James Gilbey. “She has always been seen as a typical Sloane Ranger. That’s not true. She was always removed, always had a determination about her and was very matter-of-fact, almost dogmatic. That quality has now developed into a tremendous presence.” While she was in awe of Prince Charles, deferring to his every decision, she didn’t appear to be overcome by her surroundings. Inwardly she may have been nervous, outwardly she appeared calm, relaxed and ready to have fun. At Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party which was held at Windsor Castle she was at her ease among friends. When her future brother-in-law asked where he could find the Duchess of Westminster, the wife of Britain’s richest aristocrat, she joked: “Oh Andrew, do stop name dropping.” Her ready repartee, cutting but not vicious, was reminiscent of her eldest sister Sarah when she was the queen bee of the Society circuit. “Don’t look so serious it’s not working,” joked Diana as she introduced Adam Russell to the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the royal family in the receiving line at the ball held at Buckingham Palace two days before her wedding. Once again she seemed good humoured and relaxed in her grand surroundings. There wasn’t the slightest sign that a few hours earlier she had collapsed in paroxysms of tears and seriously considered calling the whole thing off.

Meeting the Prince of Wales I’ve known her [the Queen] since I was tiny so it was no big deal. No interest in Andrew and Edward--never thought about Andrew. I kept thinking, ‘Look at the life they have, how awful’ so I remember him coming to Althorp to stay, my husband, and the first impact was ‘God, what a sad man.’ He came with his Labrador. My sister was all over him like a bad rash and I thought, ‘God, he must really hate that.’ I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, unsmart lady but I made a lot of noise and he liked that and he came up to me after dinner and we had a big dance and he said: ‘Will you show me the gallery?’ and I was just about to show him the gallery and my sister Sarah comes up and tells me to push off and I said ‘At least, let me tell you where the switches are to the gallery because you won’t know where they are,’ and I disappeared. And he was charm himself and when I stood next to him the next day, a 16-year old, for someone like that to show you any attention--I was just so sort of amazed. ‘Why would anyone like him be interested in me?’ and it was interest. That was it for about two years. Saw him off and on with Sarah and Sarah got frightfully excited about the whole thing, then she saw something different happening which I hadn’t twigged on to, i.e. when he had his 30th birthday dance I was asked too. ‘Why is Diana coming as well?’ [my] sister asked. I said: ‘Well, I don’t know but I’d like to come.’ ‘Oh, all right then,’ that sort of thing. Had a very nice time at the dance--fascinating. I wasn’t at all intimidated by the surroundings [Buckingham Palace]. I thought, amazing place. Then I was asked to stay at the de Passes in July 1980 by Philip de Pass who is the son. ‘Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood, you might amuse him.’ So I said ‘OK.’ So I sat next to him and Charles came in. He was all over me again and it was very strange. I thought ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious, I thought this was very odd. The first night we sat down on a bale at the barbecue at this house and he’d just finished with Anna Wallace. I said: ‘You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.’ I said: ‘It was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched. I thought, “It’s wrong, you’re lonely--you should be with somebody to look after you.

The Prime Minister, who was in close contact with the Queen and Prince Charles, captured the feelings of loss and despair when he spoke to the nation earlier in the day from his Sedgefield constituency. Speaking without notes, his voice breaking with emotion, he described Diana as a ‘wonderful and warm human being.’ ‘She touched the lives of so many others in Britain and throughout the world with joy and with comfort. How difficult things were for her from time to time, I’m sure we can only guess at. But people everywhere, not just here in Britain, kept faith with Princess Diana. They liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was the People’s Princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in all our hearts and memories for ever.’ While his was the first of many tributes which poured in from world figures, it perfectly captured the mood of the nation in a historic week which saw the British people, with sober intensity and angry dignity, place on trial the ancient regime, notably an elitist, exploitative and male-dominated mass media and an unresponsive monarchy. For a week Britain succumbed to flower power, the scent and sight of millions of bouquets a mute and telling testimony to the love people felt towards a woman who was scorned by the Establishment during her lifetime. So it was entirely appropriate when Buckingham Palace announced that her funeral would be ‘a unique service for a unique person’. The posies, the poems, the candles and the cards that were placed at Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace and elsewhere spoke volumes about the mood of the nation and the state of modern Britain. ‘The royal family never respected you, but the people did,’ said one message, as thousands of people, most of whom had never met her, made their way in quiet homage to Kensington Palace to express their grief, their sorrow, their guilt and their regret. Total strangers hugged and comforted each other, others waited patiently to lay their tributes, some prayed silently. When darkness fell, the gardens were bathed in an ethereal glow from the thousands of candles, becoming a place of dignified pilgrimage that Chaucer would have recognized. All were welcome and all came, a rainbow of coalition of young and old of every colour and nationality, East Enders and West Enders, refugees, the disabled, the lonely, the curious, and inevitably, droves of tourists. She was the one person in the land who could connect with those Britons who had been pushed to the edges of society as well as with those who governed it.

Meeting the Prince of Wales Then I was asked to stay at the de Passes in July 1980 by Philip de Pass who is the son. ‘Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood, you might amuse him.’ So I said ‘OK.’ So I sat next to him and Charles came in. He was all over me again and it was very strange. I thought ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious, I thought this was very odd. The first night we sat down on a bale at the barbecue at this house and he’d just finished with Anna Wallace. I said: ‘You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.’ I said: ‘It was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched. I thought, “It’s wrong, you’re lonely--you should be with somebody to look after you.”’ The next minute he leapt on me practically and I thought this was very strange, too, and I wasn’t quite sure how to cope with all this. Anyway we talked about lots of things and anyway that was it. Frigid wasn’t the word. Big F when it comes to that. He said: ‘You must come to London with me tomorrow. I’ve got to work at Buckingham Palace, you must come to work with me.’ I thought this was too much. I said: ‘No, I can’t.’ I thought ‘How will I explain my presence at Buckingham Palace when I’m supposed to be staying with Philip?’ Then he asked me to Cowes on Britannia and he had lots of older friends there and I was fairly intimidated but they were all over me like a bad rash. I felt very strange about the whole thing, obviously somebody was talking. I came in and out, in and out, then I went to stay with my sister Jane at Balmoral where Robert [Fellowes, Jane’s husband] was assistant private secretary [to the Queen]. I was terrified--shitting bricks. I was frightened because I had never stayed at Balmoral and I wanted to get it right. The anticipation was worse than actually being there. I was all right once I got in through the front door. I had a normal single bed! I have always done my own packing and unpacking--I was always appalled that Prince Charles takes 22 pieces of hand luggage with him. That’s before the other stuff. I have four or five. I felt rather embarrassed. I stayed back at the castle because of the press interest. It was considered a good idea. Mr and Mrs Parker-Bowles were there at all my visits. I was the youngest there by a long way. Charles used to ring me up and say: ‘Would you like to come for a walk, come for a barbecue?’ so I said: ‘Yes, please.’ I thought this was all wonderful.

During a recent lunch with a close friend who is also the mother of two young children, Diana told of an incident which underlines not only the current state of her relationship with her husband but also the protective nature of her son William. She told her friend that the week that Buckingham Palace decided to announce the separation of the Duke and Duchess of York was understandably a trying time for her. She had lost an amicable companion and was acutely aware that the public spotlight would once again fall on her marriage. Yet her husband seemed unmoved by the furore surrounding the separation. He had spent a week touring various stately homes, gathering material for a book he is writing on gardening. When he returned to Kensington Palace he failed to see why his wife should feel strained and rather depressed. He airily dismissed the departure of the Duchess of York and launched, as usual, into a disapproving appraisal of Diana’s public works, especially her visit to see Mother Teresa in Rome. Even their staff, by now used to these altercations, were dismayed by this attitude and felt some sympathy when Diana told her husband that unless he changed his attitude towards her and the job she is doing she would have to reconsider her position. In tears, she went upstairs for a bath. While she was regaining her composure, Prince William pushed a handful of paper tissues underneath the bathroom door. “I hate to see you sad,” he said.

Dear John, I, Lara Jean, hereby make a solemn vow--nay, an unbreakable vow--to return my letter to you, intact and unchanged. Now give me my letter back! Also you’re such a liar. You know very well that plenty of girls liked you in middle school. At sleepovers, girls would be like, are you Team Peter of Team John? Don’t pretend like you didn’t know that, Johnny! And to answer your question--there were five letters. Five meaningful boys in my whole life history. Though, now that I’m writing it down, five sounds like a lot, considering the fact that I’m only sixteen. I wonder how many there’ll have been by the time I’m twenty! There’s this lady at the nursing home I volunteer at, and she’s had so many husbands and lived so many lives. I look at her and I think, she must not have even one regret, because she’s done and seen it all. Did I tell you my older sister Margot’s all the way in Scotland, at St. Andrews? It’s where Prince William and Kate Middleton met. Maybe she’ll meet a prince, too, haha! Where do you want to go to college? Do you know what you want to study? I think I want to stay in state. Virginia has great public schools and it’ll be much cheaper, but I guess the main reason is I’m very close to my family and I don’t want to be too-too far away. I used to think I might want to go to UVA and live at home, but now I’m thinking dorms are the way to go for a true college experience. Don’t forget to send back my letter, Lara Jean

The cultural code of the stiff upper lip is not for her boys. She is teaching them that it is not “sissy” to show their feelings to others. When she took Prince William to watch the German tennis star Steffi Graff win the women’s singles final at Wimbledon last year they left the royal box to go backstage and congratulate her on her victory. As Graff walked off court down the dimly lit corridor to the dressing room, royal mother and son thought Steffi looked so alone and vulnerable out of the spotlight. So first Diana, then William gave her a kiss and an affectionate hug. The way the Princess introduced her boys to her dying friend, Adrian Ward-Jackson, was a practical lesson in seeing the reality of life and death. When Diana told her eldest son that Adrian had died, his instinctive response revealed his maturity. “Now he’s out of pain at last and really happy.” At the same time the Princess is acutely aware of the added burdens of rearing two boys who are popularly known as “the heir and the spare.” Self-discipline is part of the training. Every night at six o’clock the boys sit down and write thank-you notes or letters to friends and family. It is a discipline which Diana’s father instilled in her, so much so that if she returns from a dinner party at midnight she will not sleep easily unless she has penned a letter of thanks. William and Harry, now ten and nearly eight respectively, are now aware of their destiny. On one occasion the boys were discussing their futures with Diana. “When I grow up I want to be a policeman and look after you mummy,” said William lovingly. Quick as a flash Harry replied, with a note of triumph in his voice, “Oh no you can’t, you’ve got to be king.

think at times our situation could be compared to that of Simba in The Lion King. Simba is turned around by a lion in his life—his uncle Scar. Though he was the prince, he ends up running away. He is supposed to fight his evil uncle Scar and take his rightful place as the king, but he backs off from the confrontation. It is not long before he forgets that he was ever a king, a prince or even a lion. His friends offer little help because they are not lions. His identity is lost. The one person who is able to help him is Rafiki. Rafiki’s message to Simba is simple. He explains that Simba does not know who he is anymore, but that his father is alive in him. At first Simba does not believe this is possible. Then his dad appears to him in a vision and tells Simba, “You are MY son, and the one true king.” What an affirmation. As a result, Simba knows what he must do. He knows he must go home and fight the giant before him. He was meant to be the king. Before this though, his father tells him something that has never left me. He tells Simba, “You are more than what you have become.” In the same way, we are more than what we have become. Many of God’s people have forgotten who they are. We have forgotten that we are children of the Living God, and sons and daughters of The King. We fail to see our inheritance, which was provided through the cross. We have settled for a life that was never meant for us. The lions, Goliaths, and foreign armies have been our stopping point. And the lies of the enemy have defined us. There is a greater measure of Christ to be attained as we awaken to the voice of the Father. It is only the voice of the Father that will restore our identity. It will not be found anywhere else. Even Jesus is affirmed by His Father at His baptism: “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Our identity, like Simba’s, must be found in the Father. We are indeed more than what we have become. As we learn from David’s life and the lives of others, let us submit ourselves to the Father. Let us allow Him to re-envision us, so that we hear who we really are. Let us allow God to bring us into a place of worship and trust. In submission to Him, let us become a stone in His hands—a priesthood equipped to do His Will and to establish His kingdom. There is victory in that place!

As the Princess performs the impossible balancing act which her life requires, she drifts inexorably into obsession, continually discussing her problems. Her friend Carolyn Bartholomew argues it is difficult not to be self-absorbed when the world watches everything she does. “How can you not be self-obsessed when half the world is watching everything you do; the high-pitched laugh when someone is talking to somebody famous must make you very very cynical.” She endlessly debates the problems she faces in dealing with her husband, the royal family, and their system. They remain tantalizingly unresolved, the gulf between thought and action achingly great. Whether she stays or goes, the example of the Duchess of York is a potent source of instability. James Gilbey sums up Diana’s dilemma: “She can never be happy unless she breaks away but she won’t break away unless Prince Charles does it. He won’t do it because of his mother so they are never going to be happy. They will continue under the farcical umbrella of the royal family yet they will both lead completely separate lives.” Her friend Carolyn Bartholomew, a sensible sounding-board throughout Diana’s adult life, sees how that fundamental issue has clouded her character. “She is kind, generous, sad and in some ways rather desperate. Yet she has maintained her self-deprecating sense of humour. A very shrewd but immensely sorrowful lady.” Her royal future is by no means well-defined. If she could write her own script the Princess would like to see her husband go off with his Highgrove friends and attempt to discover the happiness he has not found with her, leaving Diana free to groom Prince William for his eventual destiny as the Sovereign. It is an idle pipe-dream as impossible as Prince Charles’s wish to relinquish his regal position and run a farm in Italy. She has other more modest ambitions; to spend a weekend in Paris, take a course in psychology, learn the piano to concert grade and to start painting again. The current pace of her life makes even these hopes seem grandiose, never mind her oft-repeated vision of the future where she see herself one day settling abroad, probably in Italy or France. A more likely avenue is the unfolding vista of charity, community and social work which has given her a sense of self-worth and fulfillment. As her brother says: “She has got a strong character. She does know what she wants and I think that after ten years she has got to a plateau now which she will continue to occupy for many years.” As a child she sensed her special destiny, as an adult she has remained true to her instincts. Diana has continued to carry the burden of public expectations while enduring considerable personal problems. Her achievement has been to find her true self in the face of overwhelming odds. She will continue to tread a different path from her husband, the royal family and their system and yet still conform to their traditions. As she says: “When I go home and turn my light off at night, I know I did my best.

mention of the trip. Perhaps the loyal secretary, not for the first time, was covering up for his master’s indiscretion, out of regard for

As it was to the millions of strangers who soaked up every detail from Diana’s meringue-confection dress and its 25-ft. train, both wrinkled from the coach ride, to the couple’s slight stumbles during their vows. (Diana would pledge herself to “Philip Charles Arthur George,” transposing the first two names and prompting Prince Andrew to say with a laugh, “She’s married my father.”) The groom’s grandmum misted up during the ceremony; his mother beamed.

Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors.

I feel oddly like the prince from Cinderella, but instead of searching for the foot that fits the shoe, I’m looking for the dick that fits my pussy. There’s

very few parents, in any age, are able to feel relaxed about the upbringing of an eldest child.

Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied.

Looking into Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand.

An astounding amount of royal history happened during the writing of Endgame. The world was introduced to King Charles III and Queen Camilla; Prince Andrew was stripped of his titles. Prince Harry released an explosive memoir and a revealing Netflix series, and, of course, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away. All

I have an awful lot of dreams about things, if someone’s troubled. I knew Adrian wasn’t very well this weekend, and I couldn’t get through. But something told me something was wrong, and he had a very, very bad weekend. Instinct. I’ll walk into a room and straight into them. I recall sitting in a Land Rover with my policeman and watching [Prince Charles’s] horse [Alibar] coming along and rearing its head back. I said: ‘That horse is going to have a heart attack and die.’ And it did. It had a heart attack then and there.

You have to support your children in the bad as well as the good times.’ She was not alone in that conclusion. As Prince Charles wandered over the Yorkshire Dales on his green mission, a phalanx of psychologists, royal watchers and indignant mothers condemned the Prince for his behaviour. ‘What kind of dad are you?’ asked the headline in the Sun newspaper.

When the Prince was made aware of the public’s wrath, once again his reaction came as no surprise to his wife: he blamed her. Charles accused her of making an ‘awful nonsense’ about the severity of the injury and affected innocence about the possibility that the future heir to the throne could have suffered brain damage. The Queen, who had been briefed by Prince Charles, was surprised and rather shocked when Diana informed her that while her grandson was on the mend it had not been a cut and dried operation.

Several days after the accident, William was recovering sufficiently well to allow the Princess to fulfil a commitment to visit Marlow Community Hospital. As she was leaving, an old man in the crowd collapsed with an attack of angina. Diana rushed over to help rather than leaving it to others. When the Prince saw the media coverage of her sympathetic actions, he accused Diana of behaving like a martyr. His sour response typified the yawning gulf between them and gave substance to Diana’s observations on the media interest in their 10th wedding anniversary the following month. She asked in her matter-of-fact way: ‘What is there to celebrate?

When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. ‘He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me.

When he complained to her that her daughter had delivered a boy with red hair, Mrs Shand Kydd, a woman of fierce integrity, told him firmly that he should be thankful that his second son was born healthy. From that moment the Prince of Wales effectively excluded his mother-in-law from his life. The experience made her much more sympathetic to her daughter’s plight.

In tears, she went upstairs for a bath. While she was regaining her composure, Prince William pushed a handful of paper tissues underneath the bathroom door. ‘I hate to see you sad,’ he said.

friend who watched their relationship deteriorate points to Prince Charles’s disinterest and total lack of respect for her at a time when Diana badly needed help. ‘His indifference pushed her to the edge whereas he could have romanced her to the end of the world. They could have set the world alight. Through no fault of his own, because of his own ignorance, upbringing and lack of a whole relationship with anyone in his life, he instilled this hatred of herself.

Diana took some small satisfaction when a Sunday newspaper accurately detailed Camilla’s comings and goings, even reporting on the unmarked Ford estate car the Prince used to drive the 12 miles to Middlewick House. This was further authenticated by a former policeman at Highgrove, Andrew Jacques, who sold his story to a national newspaper. ‘Mrs Parker Bowles certainly figures larger in the Prince’s life at Highgrove than Princess Di,’ he claimed, a view endorsed by many of Diana’s friends.

Detective Chief Inspector Logan. Wow. In the flesh. I can’t believe it. Dr Maguire’s told me so much about you. I feel like I’m meeting royalty.” “Well, just as long as it’s no’ Prince Andrew,” Logan replied.

Ah, you want the tale of Anaxantis. I see. Of Anaxantis of the House of Tanahkos, Prince of Ximerion. You want wisdom and hot blood all in one. You like your tales strong and bitter. You want to hear about the downfall of a prince. You want to know how royal blood came to flow so low. I can tell you that tale, but not in one evening. And every evening you must pay my price anew. I know shorter tales.

They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added.

War and Peace has to be put in a group not with Madame Bovary, Vanity Fair, or The Mill on the Floss, but with the Iliad, in the sense that when the novel is finished nothing is finished—the stream of life flows on, and with the appearance of Prince Andrew’s son the novel ends on the beginning of a new life. All the time there are openings out of the story into the world beyond. This is a thing that had never been attempted by historical novelists before Tolstóy. As for the open form, it has often been attempted, but never so successfully. In a very different way the open form was achieved by James Joyce in Ulysses. As Tolstóy is compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, so critics say that Joyce’s novel is of a mythological nature. John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga and Arnold Bennett’s The Old Wives’ Tale may also claim to belong to the category of “open” novels. No novel has received more enthusiastic praise both in Russia and England than War and Peace. John Galsworthy spoke of it as “the greatest novel ever written,” and those fine critics Percy Lubbock and E. M. Forster have been no less emphatic. In The Craft of Fiction Lubbock says that War and Peace is: “a picture of life that has never been surpassed for its grandeur and its beauty. . . . The business of the novelist is to create life, and here is life created indeed! In the whole of fiction no scene is so continually washed by the common air, free to us all, as the scene of Tolstóy, the supreme genius among novelists. “Pierre and Andrew and Natásha and the rest of them are the children of yesterday and today and tomorrow; there is nothing in any of them that is not of all time. To an English reader of today it is curious—and more, it is strangely moving—to note how faithfully the creations of Tolstóy, the nineteenth-century Russian, copy the young people of the twentieth century and of England: it is all one, life in Moscow then, life in London now, provided only that it is young enough.” E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel says: “No English novelist is as great

But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to that he decided to go.

She did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply, merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as he reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman’s beauty and love. And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was particularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.

If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,” he said. “And that would be splendid,” said Pierre. Prince Andrew smiled ironically. “Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about. . . .” “Well, why are you going to the war?” asked Pierre. “What for? I don’t know. I must. Besides that I am going . . .” He paused. “I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!

Prince Bandar has the ability to charm the powerful and his country’s money with which to buy friendship and influence. He is comfortable and inventive at circumventing laws and restrictions and has on occasions appeared to be loose with the truth. This made him the ideal person to negotiate the world’s ultimate arms deal.

Money is paid to them in Germany and the kick-back is transferred to the local military attaché and he transfers it to the princes.’ He concluded: ‘Not a piece of equipment would go from the US to Saudi without Bandar getting a commission.’13

Colonel Thomas Dooley, an executive of Sikorsky, the helicopter manufacturer, testified in a United States court that, while trying to sell Black Hawk helicopters to the Saudi regime, he experienced a ‘competition for bribes’. He explained that Prince Bandar told him explicitly ‘what bribes needed to be paid for the deal, through which middleman they must be routed and how he would distribute the money to other members of the royal family’.28

In the summer of 1979 another boyfriend, Adam Russell, completed his language degree at Oxford and decided to spend a year travelling. He left unspoken the fact that he hoped the friendship between himself and Diana could be renewed and developed upon his return. When he arrived home a year later it was too late. A friend told him: “You’ve only got one rival, the Prince of Wales.

While Amanda may be considered as the “official candidate” whose breeding and background made her eminently acceptable at Court, the Prince was also conducting a stormy relationship with Anna Wallace, the daughter of a Scottish landowner whom he had met while fox hunting in November 1979. She was the latest of a long line of girlfriends, drawn for the most part from the upper reaches of the aristocracy, who had appeared on his romantic horizon. However Anna, fiery, wilful and impulsive, was temperamentally unsuitable for the regulated routine of royalty. Not for nothing was she known as “Whiplash Wallace”. Prince Charles, a man who by his own admission fell in love easily, pressed his suit even though his advisors told him that she had other boy-friends. Their relationship became so serious that, according to at least one account, he asked her to marry him. She is said to have turned him down but that rebuff did little to dampen his ardour. In May they were discovered by journalists lying on a blanket by the river Dee on the Queen’s estate at Balmoral. The Prince was furious at this intrusion into his private life and authorized his friend, Lord Tryon, who was present at the picnic to shout a four letter word at the journalists concerned.

She had become reconciled to the idea of an eternal shadow; she discovered that, far from being a threat, her bodyguards were much wiser sounding boards than many of the gentleman courtiers who fluttered around her. Police officers like Sergeant Allan Peters and Inspector Graham Smith became avuncular father figures, defusing tricky situations and deflating overweening subjects alike with a joke or a crisp command. They also brought her mothering instincts to the fore. She remembered their birthdays, sent notes of apology to their wives when they had to accompany her on an overseas tours and ensured that they were “fed and watered” when she went out with them from Kensington Palace. When Graham Smith contracted cancer, she invited him and his wife on holiday to Necker in the Caribbean and also on a Mediterranean cruise on board the yacht owned by Greek tycoon, John Latsis. Such is her affection for this popular police officer that she arranged a dinner in his honour after he had recovered which was attended by her family. If she is dining with friends at San Lorenzo, her favourite restaurant, her current detective, Inspector Ken Wharfe will often join her table at the end of the meal and regale the assembled throng with his jokes. Perhaps she reserves her fondest memories for Sergeant Barry Mannakee who became her bodyguard at a time when she felt lost and alone in the royal world. He sensed her bewilderment and became a shoulder for her to lean on and sometimes to cry on during this painful period. The affectionate bond that built up between them did not go unnoticed either by Prince Charles nor Mannakee’s colleagues. Shortly before the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York in July 1986 he was transferred to other duties, much to Diana’s dismay. In the following spring he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident.

During the weekend she drove to nearby Cowdray Park to watch the Prince play polo for his team, Les Diables Bleus. At the end of the game the small house party trooped back to Petworth for a barbecue in the grounds of the de Pass’ country home. Diana was seated next to Charles on a bale of hay and, after the usual pleasantries, the conversation moved on to Earl Mountbatten’s death and his funeral in Westminster Abbey. In a conversation which she later recalled to friends Diana told him: “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.’” Her words touched a deep chord. Charles saw Diana with new eyes. Suddenly, as she later told her friends, she found herself overwhelmed by his enthusiastic attentions. Diana was flattered, flustered and bewildered by the passion she had aroused in a man twelve years her senior.

She went water skiing while Prince Charles went windsurfing. Stories that she lightheartedly tipped him off his surfboard do not ring true of Diana who was totally in awe of him. Indeed she felt “fairly intimidated” by the atmosphere on board the royal yacht. Not only were his friends so much older than herself, but they seemed aware of Prince Charles’s strategy towards her. She found them too friendly and too knowing. “They were all over me like a bad rash,” she told her friends. For a girl who likes to be in control it was profoundly disconcerting. There was little time to reflect on the implications as Prince Charles had already asked her to Balmoral for the weekend of the Braemar Games early in September. The Queen’s Highland castle retreat, set in 40,000 acres of heather and grouse moor, is effectively the Windsors’ family seat. Ever since Queen Victoria bought the estate in 1848 it has had a special place in the affections of the royal family. However the very quirks and obscure family traditions which have accrued over the years can intimidate newcomers. “Don’t sit there” they chorus at an unfortunate guest foolish enough to try and sit in a chair in the drawing-room which was last used by Queen Victoria. Those who successfully navigate this social minefield, popularly known as “the Balmoral test,” are accepted by the royal family. The ones who fail vanish from royal favour as quickly as the Highland mists come and go.

On one occasion she agreed to pose for photographs on the condition that she would then be left alone. Unfortunately during the photo session the light was behind her and made her cotton skirt seem see-through, revealing her legs to the world. “I knew your legs were good but I didn’t realize they were that spectacular,” Prince Charles is reported to have commented. “And did you really have to show them to everybody?

The quest of the handsome prince was complete. He had found his fair maiden and the world had its fairytale.

Berry and three other old Etonians, James Bolton, Alex Lyle and Christian De Lotbiniere, were the brains behind “Ski Bob” travel. This was a company, named after their Eton housemaster Bob Baird, which had been formed when they discovered that they were too young legally to book holidays themselves. So these young entrepreneurs started their own company and within the twenty-strong group, which mainly compromised old Etonians, the greatest accolade was to be called “Bob.” Diana was soon Bob, Bob, Bobbing along. “You’re skating on thin ice,” she yelled in her Miss Piggy voice as she skied dangerously close behind members of the group. She joined in the pillow fights, charades, and satirical singsongs. Diana was teased mercilessly about a framed photograph of Prince Charles, taken at his Investiture in 1969, which hung in her school dormitory. Not guilty, she said. It was a gift to the school. When she stayed in the Berry chalet she slept on the living-room sofa. Not that she got much sleep. Medical student, James Colthurst, liked to regale the slumbering throng with unwelcome early morning renditions of Martin Luther King’s famous “I had a dream” speech or his equally unamusing Mussolini impersonation.

The quest of the handsome prince was complete. He had found his fair maiden and the world had its fairytale. In her ivory tower, Cinderella was unhappy, locked away from her friends, her family and the outside world. As the public celebrated the Prince’s fortune, the shades of the prison-house closed inexorably around Diana. For all her aristocratic breeding, this innocent young kindergarten teacher felt totally at sea in the deferential hierarchy of Buckingham Palace. There were many tears in those three months and many more to come after that. Weight simply dropped off, her waist shrinking from 29 inches when the engagement was announced down to 23 inches on her wedding day. It was during this turbulent time that her bulimia nervosa, which would take nearly a decade to overcome, began. The note Diana left her friends at Coleherne Court saying: “For God’s sake ring me up--I’m going to need you.” It proved painfully accurate.

At 9.03 pm on June 21, 1982 Diana produced the son and heir which was cause for national rejoicing. When the Queen came to visit her grandchild the following day her comment was typical. As she looked at the tiny bundle she said drily: “Thank goodness he hasn’t got ears like his father.” The second in line to the throne was still known officially as “Baby Wales” and it took the couple several days of discussion before they arrived at a name. Prince Charles admitted as much: “We’ve thought of one or two. There’s a bit of an argument about it, but we’ll find one eventually.” Charles wanted to call his first son “Arthur” and his second “Albert”, after Queen Victoria’s consort. William and Harry were Diana’s choices while her husband’s preferences were taken into account in their children’s middle names.

Carolyn Bartholomew who visited her at Kensington Palace three days after William was born recalls: “She was thrilled with both herself and the baby. There was a contentment about her.” The mood was infectious. For a time Charles surprised his friends by his enthusiasm for the nursery routine. “I was hoping to do some digging,” he told Harold Haywood, secretary of the Prince’s Trust one Friday evening. “But the ground’s so hard that I can’t get the spade in. So I expect I’ll be nappy changing instead.” As William grew, stories filtered out about the Prince joining his son in the bath, of William flushing his shoes down the lavatory or of Charles cutting short engagements to be with his family.

While Diana looked to her husband for a lead and guidance, the way the press and public reacted to the royal couple merely served to drive a wedge between them. As in Wales, the crowds complained when Prince Charles went over to their side of the street during a walkabout. Press coverage focused on the Princess; Charles was confined to a walk-on role. It was the same later that year when they visited Canada for three weeks. As a former member of his Household explained: “He never expected this kind of reaction. After all, he was the Prince of Wales. When he got out of the car people would groan. It hurt his pride and inevitably he became jealous. In the end it was rather like working for two pop stars. It was all very sad and is one reason why now they do everything separately.” In public Charles accepted the revised status quo with good grace; in private he blamed Diana. Naturally she pointed out that she never sought this adulation, quite the opposite, and was frankly horrified by media attention. Indeed, for a woman suffering from an illness directly related to self-image, her smiling face on the front cover of every newspaper and magazine did little to help.

The mood in 1984 was not helped by the fact that she was pregnant with Prince Harry. Once again she suffered badly from morning-sickness although it wasn’t as bad as the first time. When she returned from a solo engagement in Norway, Diana was still in the early stages of pregnancy. She and the late Victor Chapman, the Queen’s former assistant press secretary, took turns to use the lavatory on the flight home. Characteristically he was suffering from a hangover, she from morning-sickness.

By the side of her bed there was a card, embossed with the Queen’s cypher, giving the times of meals and table placements as well as a note saying how the various guests would be conveyed to the racecourse, either in open carriages or black Daimler saloons. Even though her family had rubbed shoulders with the royal family for years, Sarah was understandably nervous. She arrived promptly in the Green Drawing Room for pre-lunch drinks and then found herself seated next to Prince Andrew, who was on leave from his Royal Navy flying duties. They discovered an instant rapport. He teased her by trying to feed her chocolate profiteroles. She refused, playfully punching his shoulder and claiming one of her interminable diets as an excuse. “There are always humble beginnings; it’s got to start somewhere”, said Andrew at their engagement interview eight months later. While Diana has been billed as the matchmaker in this royal romance, the truth is that she never noticed the romantic spark between her brother-in-law and one of her best friends.

At the same time High Society was still buzzing about her impromptu performance on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden with the ballet star Wayne Sleep. They had secretly choreographed a routine to Billy Joel’s song “Uptown Girl” using her drawing-room at Kensington Palace as their rehearsal studio. Prince Charles watched the Gala performance from the royal box oblivious to his wife’s plan. Two numbers before the end she left his side and changed into a silver silk dress before Wayne beckoned her on stage. The audience let out a collective gasp of astonishment as they went through their routine. They took eight curtain calls, Diana even dropping a curtsey to the royal box.

An incident which meant a great deal to Diana took place in that same hospital away from the cameras, smiling dignitaries and the watchful public. The drama began uneventfully three days earlier in a back yard in Balderton, a village near Newark when housewife Freda Hickling collapsed with a brain haemorrhage. When Diana first saw her behind the screens in the intensive care unit she was on a life-support system. Her husband Peter sat with his wife, holding her hand. Diana, who was visiting patients in the hospital, had been already been told by the consultant that there was little hope of recovery. She quietly asked Peter if she should join him. For the next two hours she sat holding the hands of Peter and Freda Hickling before the specialist informed Peter that his wife was dead. Diana then joined Peter, his stepson Neil and Neil’s girlfriend Sue in a private room. Sue, who was so shocked at seeing Freda Hickling on a life-support machine, did not recognize Diana at first, vaguely thinking she was someone from television. “Just call me Diana,” said the Princess. She chatted about everyday matters; the size of the hospital, Prince Charles’s arm and asked about Neil’s forestry business. Eventually Diana decided that Peter could do with a large gin and asked her detective to find one. When he failed to reappear, the Princess successfully found one herself. Peter, a 53-year-old former council worker, recalls: “She was trying to keep our spirits up. For somebody who didn’t know anything about us she was a real professional at handling people and making quick decisions about them. Diana did a great job to keep Neil calm. By the time we left he was chatting to Diana as though he had known her all his life and gave her a kiss on the cheek as we walked down the steps.” His sentiments are endorsed by his stepson, Neil. He says: “She was a very caring, understanding person, somebody you can rely on. She understood about death and grief.