Chapter Fifteen ‘A Very British Girl, Who Transcended Nationality’ #3
The musical highpoint was a bravura performance by the New Zealand soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, who was dressed as splendidly as a love bird in a turquoise pillbox hat, ruffled collar, and pink and yellow dress.
Her voice powered through the cathedral for several minutes during the signing of the register, as she sang Handel’s aria ‘Let the Bright Seraphim’.
My clearest memory from the spoken service is of Diana getting the prince’s four given names – Charles Philip Arthur George – in a bit of a muddle during the vows.
She said ‘Philip Charles Arthur George’ by mistake.
This showed understandable nerves from a twenty-year-old bride, at the centre of the spectacular, especially given that he had quite so many names for her to juggle with.
Typical Duch! I thought, enjoying how her authentic human touch had claimed a place in such a grand and formal occasion.
There was another moment of general delight after Diana said, ‘I do.’ The eruption of cheers from the crowds outside St Paul’s was so loud that it punched through the cathedral’s walls. Such was the people’s acclaim for the bride.
Historians noted that the last time a Prince of Wales had got married was 118 years earlier,[*] and that Diana was only the ninth woman to hold the title given to the heir to the throne’s wife since the English stole the title from the Welsh in the fourteenth century.
She was also to be the first English woman to marry an heir to the throne since 1660.
But something else was going on that day, outside the historical, and the driver for that was Diana herself.
The TV audience for the Royal Wedding was 750 million people, in seventy-four countries.
Less than four per cent of that figure was comprised of the huge British viewership.
In the past forty-five years I have heard from many, many North Americans, in particular, who got up very early on that summer morning to witness the wedding from the other side of the Atlantic, many taking part in breakfast parties with family and friends. This was remarkable.
As the New York Times noted on the morning of the ceremony: ‘The wedding has…drawn the attention of millions of people in other countries who have never visited Britain and for whom the royal family is only a dim symbol of glamour.’ In a few hours, Diana began injecting that missing glamour into the British Royal Family and became a global celebrity – supposedly a fairytale princess – when she would later say she remembered 29 July 1981 as the saddest day of her life.
After the service I went to Buckingham Palace, mingling for a very long time, sipping lemon refresher – a sugary alcohol-free pick-me-up favoured by the royals – as various formal photographs were taken in a nearby room by Lord Lichfield, the Queen’s coiffed cousin.
My elder sisters and I joined the largest of the groups, with seemingly dozens of people in it. Lichfield bellowed instructions good-naturedly at us all, then blew a football referee’s whistle to ensure every eye was on him, and his lens, at the critical moment.
There was another picture, among many Lichfield took that early afternoon, which was of the Royal Family, the bridesmaids and pages, and my family.
The twenty-six of us were arranged in front of the Throne.
I can only assume that Lord Lichfield’s team were unaware, when planning their shot, that I was 6 foot 3⒈／⒉ inches, so I stand nearly a head above everyone else in that image, at top right, unbalancing the entire composition.
There were around a hundred of us at the wedding breakfast. Diana sat at a round table in the centre of the dining room, placing me beside her at her right hand.
She had a terrible headache – she said it was because of the exhaustion of such a uniquely demanding day, and because the Spencer tiara had proved weightier than she had anticipated.
However, I now know it was mainly because she was overcome by worry and sadness.
She hardly touched her food, dishes that showed off the skills and versatility of Buckingham Palace’s kitchens.
A rich first course of brill with lobster sauce was followed by ‘Chicken Princess of Wales’, created with the bride’s heritage in mind.
The chicken breast was stuffed with lamb, the latter a nod to our medieval Spencer ancestors, who had made the family’s fortune sheep-farming in the Middle Ages.
We finished with one of Diana’s favourites, the simple English summer staple of strawberries and cream.
While not eating much, we chatted busily, if quietly. I look back at how young we both were at this crucial moment in Diana’s life – she had turned twenty just four weeks earlier, while I was seventeen.
I had no idea how different things were about to be for Diana, now she had been taken by the Royal Family. But she already had an inkling.
Skip Notes
* The future Edward VII – Queen Victoria’s heir (and the man who built Park House) – married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863.