Chapter Twenty-Four ‘A Girl Given the Name of the Ancient Goddess of Hunting Was, in the End, the Most Hunted Person of
Chapter Twenty-four
‘A girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age’
If the ‘brother’s letter’ episode was exhausting and annoying for me, it was incalculably worse for Diana.
She was, at that same time, dealing with the treachery of ex-boyfriend James Hewitt, who had recently sold his story about their relationship.
She also had the dawning realization that her wish to live normally was never going to be allowed.
The media – greedy and insatiable – were being secretly spurred on by Diana’s bitter enemies in the royal set-up.
They all had her in their crosshairs, and they felt sure that they could continue taking shots at her till she was either reduced for ever in the public’s estimation, or chose to slink off, licking her wounds, to become a person of no consequence or interest.
Petty palace folk reckoned Diana would be forgotten, soon enough, if they took her down. But the public did not want her gone from their lives.
*
A day or two before the funeral I was driven by a friend from Althorp to the Chapel Royal, a small, historic place of worship that stands across the road from St James’s Palace in London.
This was where Diana’s coffin was placed in the days between its arrival from Paris and the night before her final service.
I had come to sit with Diana, alone. It was an opportunity during this tumultuous week to reflect on her loss, and also to pay my respects to her in person.
I had done similar with my father, after his death, and knew that such a time of togetherness and connection would help in coming to terms with the singular devastation of the loss of close family.
The capital’s streets were eerily quiet as I drove through them – as if the effort of so much public grief had sucked the energy out of them.
My car stopped some twenty paces from the Chapel Royal’s entrance. Waiting police officers spotted me and came forward to clear a way through the tight knot of bystanders.
I heard someone say: ‘That’s her brother!’ – words I had heard hundreds of times before, but now I registered them for the first time as the survivor of the duo who had grown up together at Park House, all those years before.
Left alone in the chapel, I was struck by its exquisite beauty.
Dappled sunlight from the high stained-glass windows played across the coffin that both formed the focus of the room and presented me with the stark evidence of Diana’s death.
I sat down lightly beside it and began to talk to my sister for some time, expressing love and grief, and making promises on her behalf.
After a short while, I remembered that I had my eulogy in my pocket, and it occurred to me that I should read it to her there, away from the crowds that would throng her funeral.
‘I stand before you today…’ I started, while in fact remaining seated beside Diana’s body, and carried through to the end, when I proclaimed my deep pride at being her brother.
The chapel’s stillness seemed to lift at that point and, though this was early September, with the tail-end of summer still in the air, I sensed that I heard a loud swirling, like a brisk autumn wind lifting and twisting dry fallen leaves.
In that moment, when fantasy surely took hold of my overloaded senses, I felt that Diana was applauding my words, with soft insistence.
This imagining gave me hope that I was indeed going to say what she wanted me to say when the time came.
As I left the Chapel Royal, I stopped worrying about the content of my eulogy, and realized my task was to focus on delivering it properly, without capitulating to the tears that I now brushed away.
*
At six o’clock on the evening before the funeral, those of us staying the night at my sister Jane’s house watched the Queen give a live tribute on TV to Diana from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
The Queen looked smart and composed in a black dress, a large diamond brooch sparkling high up on her left shoulder, while three strands of plump pearls draped her neck.
Behind her, as she prepared to speak, you could see some of the multitude drawn to this royal part of London for the next day’s funeral milling around in the distance.
By this stage those waiting to write in condolence books for Diana in St James’s Palace were enduring a twelve-hour wait in line.
The forty-three such tomes that had been opened in Kensington Palace were now declared closed to the public till after the funeral.
To many, the monarch’s first public comments on Diana’s death were long overdue.
There had been a feeling, fostered by the tabloids – eager to divert eyes from their umbilical cord to the paparazzi – that the Queen had got it very wrong indeed, staying at Balmoral for several days after the accident in Paris.
She had done this to help William and Harry process the initial shock of grief, with her, in private, but front pages demanded the Queen assume a figurehead role in the nation’s mourning.
The Palace was even berated for having no flag at half-mast above Buckingham Palace, after the death.
When courtiers explained that no flag ever flew there when the Queen was not in residence, this was interpreted as an insult to Diana, and as an absurd adherence to outdated tradition in the face of popular need.
With so much riding on this TV address, I wondered how the Queen would play it.
Her tone was serious and respectful. She acknowledged the ‘overwhelming expression of sadness at’ and ‘the extraordinary and moving reaction to’ Diana’s death. She also looked for common ground with her audience when saying: ‘I share in your commitment to cherish her memory.’
The monarch shrewdly framed what she had to say as coming from her ‘as a grandmother’ as well as a queen, then shared her personal appreciation of Diana: ‘She was an exceptional and gifted human being,’ the Queen remembered.
‘In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her – for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.’
The Queen’s conclusion included a galvanizing call to her people to join together the next day ‘in expressing our grief at Diana’s loss, and gratitude for her all-too-short life’, while showing ‘the whole world the British nation united in grief and respect’.
Her final words were especially gracious: ‘…May we, each and every one of us, thank God for someone who made many, many people happy.’
Thirty-six years earlier, the Queen had welcomed Diana’s birth with a warm personal telegram to our parents. Now, she marked Diana’s death with an affectionate salute shared with the nation, and the world.
It was a short and clever speech that I was sure would satisfy the majority. The Queen had listened to the national mood, and she had been appreciative of Diana, while validating her place in many people’s hearts.
I knew that Diana would have been proud to be praised by the Queen so generously. She had always looked up to her former mother-in-law.
When the Queen was also seen in the streets outside the royal palaces, thanking people for their kind condolences, the worst of a significant crisis for the Crown was over.
After the Queen’s speech I had a call from Althorp’s estate manager, confirming that the Spencer family crypt would be sealed up that evening, in good time for Brington church to be used by the congregation as normal that Sunday.
The manager added: ‘I also want you to know that every single member of Althorp’s staff is back on duty, ready to do anything that is required to assist the princess in her final journey home. ’
*
We had a relaxed supper at Jane’s house. We were all still in shock, but we found comfort in pitching into one of those family reunions that occur when a much-loved member of the clan is removed from the world. Knowing, gentle humour found a welcome place alongside the deep, raw sorrow.
Two days earlier my mother had made her way south from her Scottish home, where she lived alone, after divorce from Peter – they had, to their many friends’ regret, grown apart over some time – and from where she devoted much time to the life and worship of her local Roman Catholic church.
She had arrived in London wearing black.
In response to the many messages of condolence she had received, my mother released a single short, handwritten public statement about Diana’s loss: ‘I pray for her and the two men who died with her and for their families. I am so proud of William and Harry, and Diana’s sisters, Sarah and Jane, and her brother, Charles.
I thank God for the gift of Diana and for all her loving and giving.
I give her back to Him, with my love, pride and admiration, to rest in peace. ’
My mother had been drawn and quiet, and I was very worried about how she was coping.
Six months earlier she had given an interview promoting a fundraising campaign for a Christian shrine on an island near the one she lived on.
During this she had said that it was ‘absolutely wonderful’ that Diana had lost her HRH title during her divorce.
My mother had meant this as a defiant statement against the Royal Family, but Diana had taken it as an appalling betrayal.
She had cut off contact with my mother, apart from the occasional spat on the phone.
I could not imagine the pain of estrangement from a child at the time of their death, when no hope remained of putting things right.
At one point during that evening at Jane’s my mother stood up, looked round and said, ‘I’m going potty.
’ I, relieved she was able to recognize that the emotional strain had made her ‘potty’ – a very English way of saying ‘eccentric’ or ‘irrational’ – said, ‘Yes. Good. Is there anything I can do to help?’