Chapter Ten ‘The Very Essence of Compassion, of Duty…’
Chapter Ten
‘The very essence of compassion, of duty…’
I was chosen – I cannot recall why or how – to be the point of contact for my family when it came to Diana’s funeral arrangements.
Once it was correctly decided, after my family appreciated the public need for it, that Diana’s service should be a full-blown national ceremony, Buckingham Palace and Prince Charles’s offices felt entitled to take the lead.
At an initial meeting of leading courtiers and politicians, Lord Airlie, the Lord Chamberlain, stated that all details must be put to the Queen and her heir before being agreed. ‘And to [Diana’s] family,’ my brother-in-law Robert Fellowes added.
The Lord Chamberlain coughed, then said: ‘Yes – but in that order.’ Diana remained theirs, in Buckingham Palace’s eyes, even in death.
Her family, despite her divorce, were simply expected to fall into line with any royal decisions.
It is at moments like this that even the most ardent monarchist finds that questions about arrogance and entitlement arise.
Meanwhile, there were very serious tensions between the two principal royal teams: the Queen’s, in Buckingham Palace, and Prince Charles’s, in St James’s Palace.
These were caused, as was exposed in the British media in the aftermath of the funeral, by the heir to the throne’s growing frustrations at being a middle-aged man still waiting to reign.
Some who knew him well claimed that Prince Charles, by this stage, wanted his mother to abdicate in his favour. Others felt he just wanted to have more official responsibilities, while remaining respectful of his mother’s right to see out her reign as she wished.
Whatever the truth, members of the two royal households found it hard to work together, and trust broke down between them.
There is a discreet line in the later obituary of a senior courtier loyal to the Queen, remembering (with typically English understatement) that he had had to contend with ‘a lot going on behind the scenes’ in the immediate aftermath of Diana’s death.
This was the energetic scuffle between the Queen and Prince Charles’s offices that formed a backdrop to the funeral.
When told about this manoeuvring behind the scenes, I was unsurprised, having known for more than five years about Prince Charles’s frustrations.
On the day of my father’s funeral, in April 1992, my sisters chose to go to his cremation.
I told them I would not be joining them, having spent an hour with his body after his death.
I said my goodbyes at his hospital bedside.
That had been such a moving and meaningful time that I knew it could never be replicated.
Diana told me that her husband would like to go back to Althorp after my father’s funeral, rather than attend the cremation. She asked me to keep him company till she returned.
I was happy to do this and decided that the two of us should be in a room that had a view of the front courtyard, so we could see my sisters as soon as they arrived back from the crematorium.
We found ourselves standing rather awkwardly in Althorp’s oak-panelled Tapestry Sitting Room talking about the service.
I shared that I had found it so moving to see my father’s coffin being borne into the church by his six longest-serving male members of staff that I had caught my breath and started to cry.
My sister Sarah, seeing the state I was in, touched me gently on the shoulder, in a silent gesture of support and understanding.
Then, as we stood opposite one another, Prince Charles suddenly said: ‘You’re so lucky!’
I was unsure if I had heard him right. ‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘You’re just so lucky – you know, inheriting when you’re so young!’
I really had no idea what to say. I was thinking so many things: that I was devastated at my father’s loss, which had been so sudden and unexpected.
That I would swap all my inheritance for a few more years of his presence in my life.
That seeing the death of a loved one as lucky was perverse and heartless.
I found I could not formulate any of this into a suitable sentence, so I just stood there in a baffled but uncomfortable silence, looking forlornly at the floor, hoping the conversation could quickly take another turn, or that Diana and the others would suddenly come home, and rescue me from this most bizarre of conversations.
But the prince was warming to his theme.
‘You’re inheriting this place in your twenties.
And, I mean, I’m forty-three,’ he said, ‘and I employ fifty people’ – he was flushed in the face now – ‘but my parents insist on treating me like – like a child!’ At this he stamped his foot in emphasis, I have to say, very much like a child; and a petulant one, at that.
It reminded me of a tale a senior courtier once told me. The dynamics within the Royal Family were such that the Queen would sometimes deliver reprimands to her family through her right-hand men rather than in person.
Once, when one of her senior courtiers returned to her desk from such an audience with Prince Charles, the Queen looked up and asked, ‘And how did it go?’
‘Well – not very well, m’am, I’m afraid. His Royal Highness seemed rather to resent what I had to say.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that’, the Queen said, dismissively. ‘He always resents things.’
‘Thank you, m’am.’
‘I mean’, the Queen continued, ‘He even resented it when I taught him the alphabet.’
Against this backdrop, there was no thought of anyone in the Royal Family talking to me directly about the funeral arrangements. As was usual, such a delicate and personal interaction was farmed out to a courtier.
I had not met or spoken to the Buckingham Palace man who was charged with calling me with updates and queries.
Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm Ross proved to be a classic, clipped voiced, Old Etonian Guards officer.
He had served in his elite regiment for more than twenty years, and had the polite yet capable air of a fairly senior soldier used to getting things done on time and on his own (or his superiors’) terms.
The colonel also possessed the fine polish of a courtier; his role at Buckingham Palace, then, was Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. This placed him in charge of ceremonial and official events that the Queen was to attend.
While the colonel must have had many more important tasks to worry about at that time, I was on his to-do list and he always treated me with extreme courtesy.
When, during our first conversation, he passed me his condolences on Diana’s loss, he clearly meant it.
There were others in the Palace, I already knew, who were relieved – indeed, pleased – that she had gone.
I had two phone lines in my office at Althorp, one of which I never used. I plugged a receiver into this, and gave its number to Ross, inviting him to call me on it whenever he needed to, as it was always going to be free.
Colonel Ross and I spoke early on about the venue for the service. St Paul’s Cathedral was rejected, because it was where Diana had been married, and Westminster Abbey was chosen, as the other great London place of worship.
We also looked at the composition of the funeral. I knew little about church music, except for the dirge-like hymns and psalms I had been forced to take part in at school, and asked my sisters what they thought Diana might have hoped for at her funeral.
They knew that she had always wanted Mozart’s Requiem to be played for her, after her death.
But when I passed this on, it was rejected as a possibility: ‘No part of a requiem can be played at a Church of England funeral,’ I was told.
I later found out that was not the case, the first of several untruths that the authorities would push my way at that time.
*
During one of our phone calls, Colonel Ross seemed about to ring off when he added: ‘Oh! Another thing. It’s been decided that the two young princes will walk behind the princess’s coffin.’
‘Well, that’s not going to happen,’ I said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
It was a suggestion that struck me as utterly barbaric, and quite out of the question.
By this stage I had learnt that Diana had left me as her sons’ guardian.
This was a role without legal function while the other parent lived, but it made me feel empowered to speak on Diana’s behalf with William and Harry in mind.
I knew that she would never have wanted her boys to have to undertake such a public ordeal, and I knew that she had left me as guardian in the expectation that I would not shirk my responsibilities when they arose.
‘Well, the Prince of Wales says it is,’ Ross repeated, assuming that would end the matter.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid it’s not happening. Diana would never have wanted to put them through anything so ghastly.’
Ross, clearly perplexed now, politely and speedily said his goodbyes.
A few minutes later, my direct line rang again. It was Prince Charles, sounding markedly less upbeat than when we had last spoken, on the morning of Diana’s death.
‘I gather you’ve got a problem with the funeral arrangements,’ he said testily.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said, my mind on the structure of the service as it was coming together.
‘But I gather you’ve said you don’t want William and Harry to walk behind Diana’s coffin.’
‘Well, of course not, sir. Diana would never have wanted that.’
‘But I did it at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral!’
‘But you were thirty, sir, and he wasn’t your mother.’
He went nuts.
‘That’s the problem with your family. They’ve got no bloody sense of duty!’ he started, before descending into a general rage.
As he ranted, I thought of my family and its long history of duty.
Of my father, a soldier and a courtier. Of my two grandmothers – stalwart servants and companions to this bellowing buffoon’s grandmother.
Also of all the generations of Spencers in their gilded frames at Althorp, who had served King, Queen, and Country, dutifully, as ambassadors, admirals, courtiers, politicians and viceroys.
Above all, I thought of Diana, who had been the epitome of duty during her time as princess.
However complicated the course of her public life, she had always tried to put her duty to the Queen first.
Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped.
I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death: ‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough!’
I was so stunned that it took me a few seconds to reply. ‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ I said flatly, before hanging up.
*
I later found out, from a friend in Downing Street, that there had been a lot of discussion about who should walk behind the coffin, among the senior figures in the Queen’s and Prince Charles’s households.
Prince Charles was insisting that he wanted to do so.
It is hard to see why, given his feelings for Diana.
Also, an ex is never expected to act as chief mourner at their former spouse’s funeral. But he was adamant.
Sir Robin Janvrin, the Queen’s Deputy Private Secretary, told the committee of courtiers planning the funeral that if Prince Charles went ahead, then I must be persuaded to walk with him.
This was out of fear that, if Prince Charles walked alone, members of the public might shout abuse at him.
The committee realized that if they could persuade William and Harry to be there too, that would surely guarantee against insults flying.
The courtiers also thought that, if the walk behind the coffin did not go ahead, because William and Harry refused to take part, then the next best thing would be for Prince Charles and me to go to the funeral together, in the same car.
I was never approached about this plan, which was shelved because there was considerable doubt in the Palace that I would agree to it.
In fact, I would have gone along with it, if only to spare my nephews the horror of the walk.
How to deal with Prince Charles’s odd wish to walk behind Diana’s coffin exercised many minds for some time.
Colonel Ross got back in touch with me, the day before the funeral.
‘Good news! Princes William and Harry have decided that they want to walk behind their mother’s coffin,’ he reported, with cheery relief in his voice, ‘provided their grandfather Prince Philip walks beside them.’ I replied that I was fine with this, while making a handwritten note of my proviso: ‘as long as they are not being dragooned’ into doing so.
I was assured by Colonel Ross that this was not the case.