AND ANOTHER THING
Stripping Diana of her title is mean and may prove to be foolish
PAUL JOHNSON
Friday 12 July 1996, when the formal announcement of the Prince of Wales's divorce was made, will rank as a day of ill omen when the history of the House of Windsor comes to be written. By an odd coincidence, I spent the day at Fort Belvedere, the castellated folly which was Edward VIII's favourite retreat and where, on 10 December 1936, another day of ill omen for the Windsors, he signed the Instrument of Abdication.
The fort is high up in Windsor Great Park. From the tower, built in the 1750s by Isaac Ware for 'Butcher' Cumberland, you can see seven counties. George IV got Wyatville to extend it and Gothicise it in the 1820s and Edward VIII put in bath- rooms — they are still there — and set his coat of arms in stained glass on the stair- case tower windows. After the Duke of Windsor went into his long exile the fort slumbered until 1980, when it was acquired by Galen Weston and his wife Hilary, whe took the opportunity to restore and beauti- fy it. She has recreated the garden and turned the fort into one of the most delectable houses in Europe: cosy, inti- mate, full of treasures and surprises and with spectacular views in all directions. It is never shown to the public, but on Friday she took Taki and me round it and the experience made us very thoughtful.
Edward had his bedroom on the ground floor. Outside it, a circular staircase took him up the tower to the floor above, where Wallis Simpson had her bedroom. Nearby is another, smaller bedroom, occupied by Wallis's 'Aunt Bessie', who served as chap- erone. All very snug, and it is not surprising that when, two days before the abdication, Stanley Baldwin arrived with a suitcase to make a last plea to the King to renounce the divorcee, the King was horrified. Wallis was far away in the South of France but Baldwin's suitcase meant he intended to stay the night and Edward would not have him desecrate Wallis's bedroom or, per- haps worse, Aunt Bessie's. So Edward flatly refused to put the old gentleman up and, immediately after dinner, he was hustled off into the foggy night. Two days later, when the time came to sign the Instrument, the fog had yielded to brilliant winter sun- light. The ceremony took place in the beau- tiful hexagonal drawing-room, with its domed roof, with Edward's three brothers standing in line watching him, together with three officials, as he scribbled his sig-
nature on seven copies of the fatal deed. The room, he wrote, 'was filled with a dig- nified, dull murmur'. Afterwards, the brothers appended their signatures as wit- nesses and the ex-King, as he now was, 'left the room and stepped outside, inhaling the fresh morning air'.
The air is indeed fresh at this delightful place, so near to London and yet so remote, sylvan, and with a genuine touch of Arcady. It is hard to associate it with dynas- tic tragedy and family bitterness. But so it was. After seeing the house, Taki and I walked briskly down the hill to the polo ground, where a team from Dell Park were challenging Belvedere. Prince Charles was playing for the home team at the precise moment when, state guest Nelson Mandela being safely out of British air-space, it was felt proper to make the royal divorce pro- ceedings public. No doubt the Prince thought the polo would take his mind off the business, but it had the opposite effect. I know little about the game but even I could see that he was playing it with aston- ishing concentration and energy, spurring his little pony to the most extraordinary efforts and whacking the ball with deadly fury. He scored several goals and an old polo hand said to me, 'I have never seen HRH play like this before. My word!'
The divorce is the most serious crisis the Windsor family has faced since the abdica- tion 60 years ago. In some ways it is worse, because the departure of Edward VIII proved providential for the monarchy. Edward was a vain, silly and selfish man who would have made a deplorable monarch. His brother, George VI, turned into an exemplary constitutional sovereign who trained his beloved daughter Elizabeth to follow faithfully in his footsteps. So we 'Someone's been not-tampering with the evidence.' had half a century of decorum until Eliza- beth's children began to tear the house down. The divorce will do the royal family incalculable harm, the full effects of which will only become apparent as the years go by. To make matters worse, the Queen, who is mean about such things, insisted on withdrawing from the discarded wife her title as HRH, and Prince Charles, selfish to the end, refused to put up a fight on behalf of the woman he once pledged himself to defend and protect 'till death us do part'. The insult is significant because it deprives Diana of full membership of the royal fami- ly and suggests the Queen does not believe in the family principle.
It is also impolitic. When George VI, a shrewder man than most people thought, had to settle the ex-King's future title and status, he insisted on giving him full hon- ours. As he pointed out to the Establish- ment, embodied in Sir Claud Schuster, sec- retary to the Lord Chancellor, the abdication made Edward a commoner. There was nothing in law to stop him stand- ing for Parliament, getting elected and making trouble. So he insisted on making him a duke. Of course, as an ordinary duke he could still make trouble in the Lords. So George VI insisted he be HRH, thus imprisoning him in the rule that royal dukes may not speak or vote in the Lords. All this is described in detail in a memoran- dum annexed to the private record George VI made of the abdication crisis and now in the Windsor Castle archives.
Once divorced and stripped of her offi- cial royal title, Diana becomes legally a commoner, with all the rights and privileges thereof. She would certainly be eligible in law to stand for Parliament. It is most improbable she would wish to do so but I would not rule it out. She is young, strong- minded, vigorous, ambitious, and she now has a huge grievance. There are a growing number of women in Britain today, with young children, who have been divorced against their will, as she has. I can see Diana becoming the focus of a great deal of feminine (not feminist) discontent. It is not inconceivable she could get involved in public life. So the Queen would be prudent to have second thoughts and give Diana back her HRH. In any case, Prince William is certain to redress the injury done to his adored mother the second he becomes king. And that may be sooner than anyone expects.
Previous page
