Diana's death caused fallout between Charles and the Queen

Diana's death caused fallout between Charles and the Queen



The first call about the accident in Paris came through to Robin Janvrin, the Queen's deputy private secretary, at one o'clock in the morning.

It was from the British ambassador in Paris, who had only sketchy news. Princess Diana had been injured, but no one knew how badly. Janvrin immediately telephoned the Queen and Prince Charles, who were in Scotland, asleep at Balmoral castle.

Meanwhile, in London, the Prince's team were being woken and told the news — ironically, by the red-top tabloid press. Their information, which came directly from the emergency services, was more up to date than the ambassador's.

So Charles knew before the Queen did that Dodi Fayed — the Princess's latest boyfriend — was dead, though Diana was still, at that stage, alive.

Never was the relationship between the Prince and his mother thrown more starkly into relief than it was on that terrible night.

There they were, just feet away in their separate rooms, divided by paper-thin walls, but they didn't go to one another either for comfort or to discuss logistics.

The comforting was left to Camilla — 500 miles away at her home, Ray Mill, near Chippenham, Wiltshire — and other friends Charles called through what remained of the night.

And it was his staff who tried to work out how he could get to Paris as fast as possible to visit his ex-wife in hospital.

The most obvious answer was to use an aeroplane of the Queen's Flight, but that required Her Majesty's specific permission — and her deputy private secretary was doubtful it would be forthcoming. At 3.45am, the debate became academic. A call came through from the embassy in Paris to say the Princess was dead.



Camilla had at first thought that Diana's injuries amounted to little more than a broken arm — which is what Charles had been told.

So when he rang at 3.45am with the news that Diana had just died on the operating table, she was as shocked as he was — and terrified for him.

They spent a long time on the phone for what remained of the night. Charles knew immediately what the public reaction would be: they would blame him.

The world would go mad, he thought, and the monarchy could end up being destroyed.

He said as much to his deputy private secretary Mark Bolland. And Bolland knew — just as Camilla knew — that his fears were justified.

And the children . . . he was absolutely dreading the moment he had to tell them their mother had died. Should he wake them and tell them straight away, or let them sleep until the morning?

It was the Queen, in the end, who said they should be left to sleep.

The next day felt utterly surreal. Thousands of people came out to line the 14-mile route between RAF Northolt, where the plane landed with its sad cargo, and the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace, where Charles had insisted the Princess should be taken.  



The Prince, who had taken Diana's two sisters with him to Paris, then flew straight back to Scotland to be with his sons.

There followed the most extraordinary and dangerous week for the Royal Family, who remained in the Highlands while the rest of the country went crazy.

Their reasoning couldn't have been better — and, in the long run, I think, was right. They felt the two grief-stricken Princes, then just 15 and 12, were the priority, and they needed some time to adjust before being confronted with the public outpouring of emotion.

Meanwhile, the country bayed for their monarch to show her face in London and fly the Buckingham Palace Royal Standard at half-mast. There was a good reason, of course, why this hadn't happened: traditionally, it only ever flies when the monarch is in residence, and never at half-mast.

Yet the absence of the flag seemed symbolic of everything that was wrong with the monarchy — stiff, hidebound and out of touch — compared with everything that was so perfect about Diana, warm, compassionate and loving.



Meanwhile, from Balmoral there was no word, no tribute — just news that the boys had gone to church with the family on the morning their mother died.

Business as usual.

The family was not unaware of what was going on south of Aberdeen — plenty of people were telling them. But Charles knew better than to say anything.

The bulk of the blame, as he had anticipated, was directed at him. Not at Dodi, nor even at Dodi's father, Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, who had supplied the car and the driver who hurtled through Paris at dangerous speed, or the bodyguard, for failing to stop him.

No, for many people, the real villain was Charles. If he'd loved Diana as he should have done, if he had honoured his marriage vows and not committed adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles, then the Princess would never have been racing through the streets of Paris without proper police protection.