Winter 2022 Part 3

 

 

   

 

 

Princess Diana (25 Years After Her Passing)

 

Princess Diana was a human being who was a prominent person of the 20th century. She has been respected by people the world over. Back then, many of us didn't know about the complex, multifaceted aspects of her longevity. In our time, we do understand much more of her mentality and diverse feelings about being involved with the Royal Family of the United Kingdom. It is not a secret to fathom that Princess Diana, at times, had a contentious relationship with the British Royals. Princess Diana was once married to Prince Charles of Wales, but she divorced him because of his adultery and feelings of emptiness in the relationship. She passed away on August 31, 1997, and I remember that day like yesterday. It was just before I was freshman at high school. Coverage of her passing didn't just last for days. It lasted for weeks and months. She lived a tumultuous childhood during the past to live an extraordinary adult life. Princess Diana loved her 2 children unconditionally, and she was a well-known philanthropist. From helping people with HIV/AIDS, helping to fight mines, and to standing up against poverty, she displayed a great deal of human compassion during the course of her life. From showing empathy to those with mental health issues to promoting a wide spectrum of fashion, Princess Diana was an international icon. It is right to evaluate her life and legacy as one of the most prominent people of our generation indeed. In other to get squared away, you have to look at her life chronologically. 

 

 

The Beginnings

 

Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, at Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk. That is in the UK. She was the fourth of five children of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp (1924–1992), and Frances Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (née Roche; 1936–2004).  The Spencer family had been closely allied with the British royal family for several generations; her grandmothers, Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer and Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, had served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth or the Queen Mother.  Her parents were hoping for a boy to carry on the family line, and no name was chosen for a week, until they settled on Diana Frances after her mother and after Lady Diana Spencer, a many-times-great-aunt who was also a prospective Princess of Wales. Within the family, she was also known informally as "Duch", a reference to her duchess-like attitude in childhood. By August 30, 1961, Diana was baptized at St. Mary Magdalene Church at Sandringham. Shew grew up with 3 siblings named Sarah, Jane, and Charles. Her infant brother named John died shortly a year before Diana was born. Diana had a relationship with her parents that was dysfunctional. Her parents divorced. She grew up in Park House on the Sandringham estate. The family leased the house from its owner, Queen Elizabeth II. They celebrated holidays at the neighboring Sandringham House. Diana played with the Queen's sons Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Diana was only 7 when her parents divorced. Her mother later married Peter Shand Kydd in 1969, and she lived with her mother in London during their parents' separation in 1967. Lord Althorp refused to let his daughter return to London with Lady Althorp. 

Shortly afterwards, Diana's father won custody of Diana with support from his former mother-in-law, Lady Fermoy. In 1976, Lord Althorp married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth. Diana's relationship with her stepmother was particularly bad. She resented Raine, whom she called a "bully." On one occasion, Diana "pushed her down the stairs." She later described her childhood as "very unhappy" and "very unstable, the whole thing." She became known as Lady Diana after her father later inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975, at which point her father moved the entire family from Park House to Althorp, the Spencer seat in Northamptonshire. At first, Diana was homeschooled under the supervision of her governess, Gerthrude Allen. Later, her formal education started at Silfield Private School in King's Lynn, Norfolk. She was moved to Riddlesworth Hall School or an all-girls boarding school near Theford, when she was 9. 

 

She joined her sisters at West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1973. She did not perform well academically, failing her O-levels twice. Her outstanding community spirit was recognized with an award from West Heath. She left West Heath when she was sixteen. Her brother Charles recalls her as being quite shy up until that time. She showed a talent for music as an accomplished pianist. She also excelled in swimming and diving. Also, she studied ballet and tap dance.

After attending Institut Alpin Videmanette (a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland) for one term, and leaving after the Easter term of 1978, Diana returned to London, where she shared her mother's flat with two school friends. In London, she took an advanced cooking course, but seldom cooked for her roommates. She took a series of low-paying jobs; she worked as a dance instructor for youth until a skiing accident caused her to miss three months of work. She then found employment as a playgroup pre-school assistant, did some cleaning work for her sister Sarah and several of her friends, and acted as a hostess at parties. She spent time working as a nanny for the Robertsons, an American family living in London, and worked as a nursery teacher's assistant at the Young England School in Pimlico. In July 1979, her mother bought her a flat at Coleherne Court in Earl's Court as an 18th birthday present. She lived there with three flatmates until February 25, 1981.

 

Marriage with Prince Charles

 

Diana met Charles, Prince of Wales (or the Queen's eldest son and heir apparent), when she was 16 years old on November 1977. He was then 29 and dating her older sister, Sarah. Charles and Diana were guests at a country weekend during the summer of 1980 when she watched him play polo. Then, he took a serious interest in seeing her as a potential bride. Prince Charles had a reputation as a playboy. The relationship progressed when he invited her abroad the royal yacht Britannia for a sailing weekend to Cowes. This was followed by an invitation to Blamoral Castle (the royal family's Scottish residence) to meet his family one weekend in November 1980. She was well received by the Queen, the Queen Mother, and the Duke of Edinburgh. Charles later courted Diana in London. Charles proposed on February 6, 1981, at Windsor Castle, and Diana accepted. Yet, their engagement was kept secret for two and a half weeks. The engagement was official on February 24, 1981. Diana selected her own engagement ring. After that time, she left her occupation as a nursery teacher's assistant and lived for a short time at Clarence House or the home of the Queen Mother. She then lived at Buckingham Palace until the wedding. According to biographer Ingrid Seward, her life was incredibly lonely. Diana was the first Englishwoman to marry the first in line to the throne since Anne Hyde married the future James II over 300 years earlier, and she was also the first royal bride to have a paying job before her engagement. She made her first public appearance with Prince Charles in a charity ball in March 1981 at Goldsmiths' Hall, where she met Grace, Princess of Monaco. Diana married Charles when she was 20 years old. The wedding took place on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul's Cathedral. It had more seating than Westminster Abbey, a church used for royal nuptials. It was a wedding like a fairytale watched by 750 million on global television. 600,000 people were in the streets to see the couple en route to the ceremony. 

 

At the altar, Diana inadvertently reversed the order of his first two names, saying "Philip Charles" Arthur George instead. She did not say she would "obey" him; that traditional vow was left out at the couple's request, which caused some comment at the time. Diana wore a dress valued at £9,000 (equivalent to £34,750 in 2019) with a 25-foot (7.62-metre) train. After she was the Princess of Wales, Diana was the third highest woman in the British order of precedence (after the Queen and the Queen Mother). She was the 5th or 6th in the order of precedence of her other realms, following the Queen, the relevant viceroy, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen Mother, and the Prince of Wales. Within a few years of the wedding, the Queen extended Diana visible tokens of membership in the royal family; she lent her the Queen Mary's Lover's Knot Tiara and granted her the badge of the Royal Family Order of Elizabeth II.

 

Freedom and Socio-Political Causes

 

After the marriage among Prince Charles and Princess Diana, they had 2 children. Prince William was born on June 21, 1982, and their 2nd son was Harry, born on September 15, 1984. She admitted that she suffered postpartum depression. Diana wanted her children to have a normal childhood. So, she selected their schools, clothing, and planned their outings. She organized her public duties around their timetables. Later, the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana broke down by the late 1980's. People already knew that Charles had an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, and Diana later had an affair with Major James Hewitt. Hewitt was the family's former riding instructor. The reporters in the press reported on the cracks in the marriage. In 1989, Diana was at a birthday party for Camilla's sister, Annabel Elliot, when she confronted Camilla about her and Charles's extramarital affair. These affairs were later exposed in May 1992 with the publication of Andrew Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story. The book, which also revealed Diana's allegedly suicidal unhappiness, caused a media storm. In 1991, James Colthurst had conducted secret interviews with Diana in which she had talked about her marital issues and difficulties. These recordings were later used as a source for Morton's book. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh hosted a meeting between Charles and Diana to cause a reconciliation. It failed. Prince Philip wrote a letter desiring to show his disappointment with Diana and Charles having extramarital affairs. During 1992 and 1993, leaked tapes of telephone conversations reflected negatively on both Charles and Diana. Tape recordings of Diana and James Gilbey were made public in August 1992, and transcripts were published the same month. The article, "Squidgygate", was followed in November 1992 by the leaked "Camillagate" tapes, intimate exchanges between Charles and Camilla, published in the tabloids. In December 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the couple's "amicable separation" to the House of Commons.

 

Princess Diana said that Charles made her feel inadequate in every way possible. Charles's aunt, Princess Margaret, burned "highly personal" letters that Diana had written to the Queen Mother in 1993. Biographer William Shawcross considered Margaret's action to be "understandable" as she was "protecting her mother and other members of the family", but "regrettable from a historical viewpoint." Diana blamed Camilla and Charles for the affair, but she believed that Charles had other affairs too. She accused Charles of having an affair with Tiggy Lee Bourke, or his personal assistant. 

The divorce among Princess Diana and Prince Charles existed in stages. By the famous December 20, 1995 interview with journalist Martin Bashir of BBC on the show Panorama, everything hit the fan. Princess Diana talked about her own affairs and Charles's affairs. She also expressed doubt about Charles' suitability for kindship. Authors Tina Brown, Sally Bedell Smith, and Sarah Bradford supported Diana's admission in the interview that she had suffered from depression, "rampant bulimia" and had engaged numerous times in the act of self-mutilation; the show's transcript records Diana confirming many of her mental health problems, including that she had "hurt [her] arms and legs." The combination of illnesses from which Diana herself said she suffered resulted in some of her biographers opining that she had borderline personality disorder. After Diana's interview, the marriage was practically over. By December 20, 1995, the Buckingham Palace said that the Queen sent letters to Charles and Diana to advise them to divorce. Princess Diana and Prince Charles negotiated for the divorce by 1996. The decree nisi was granted on July 15, 1996, and the divorce was finalized on August 28, 1996. Anthony Julius represented her in the case. She received a lump sum settlement of £17 million (equivalent to £32,623,216 in 2020) as well as £400,000 per year. The couple signed a confidentiality agreement that prohibited them from discussing the details of the divorce or of their married life. Princess Diana grew to be a very public person. Charles and Diana visited Wales in October 1981. She traveled the world by the early 1980's. The Princess made her inaugural overseas tour in September 1982, to attend the state funeral of Grace, Princess of Monaco. She visited Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1983. Princess Diana traveled into Rome, and she saw President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Regan in the White House in November 1985. Princess Diana toured Japan, Spain, and Indonesia. 

 

In 1988, Charles and Diana visited Thailand and toured Australia for the bicentenary celebrations. In February 1989, she spent a few days in New York as a solo visit, mainly to promote the works of the Welsh National Opera, of which she was a patron. During a tour of Harlem Hospital Center, she made a profound impact on the public by spontaneously hugging a seven-year-old child with AIDS. Back in the day, many people had misconceptions and bigoted attitudes about people with AIDS. Princess Diana made physical contact with AIDS patients. Diana noted: "HIV does not make people dangerous to know. You can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it. What's more, you can share their homes, their workplaces, and their playgrounds and toys."  To Diana's disappointment, the Queen did not support this type of charity work, suggesting she get involved in "something more pleasant." The Queen was wrong in that thinking. In 1989, she opened Landmark Aids Centre in South London. In October 1990, Diana opened Grandma's House, a home for young AIDS patients in Washington, D.C. She was also a patron of the National AIDS Trust. In 1991, she hugged one patient during a visit to the AIDS ward of the Middlesex Hospital, which she had opened in 1987 as the first hospital unit dedicated to this cause in the UK. As the patron of Turning Point, a health and social care organization, Diana visited its project in London for people with HIV/AIDS in 1992. She later established and led fundraising campaigns for AIDS research. In March 1997, Diana visited South Africa, where she met with President Nelson Mandela. On November 2, 2002, Mandela announced that the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund would be teaming up with the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund to help people with AIDS. They had planned the combination of the two charities a few months before her death. Mandela later praised Diana for her efforts surrounding the issue of HIV/AIDS: "When she stroked the limbs of someone with leprosy or sat on the bed of a man with HIV/AIDS and held his hand, she transformed public attitudes and improved the life chances of such people." Diana had used her celebrity status to "fight stigma attached to people living with HIV/AIDS", Mandela said.  In October 2017, the Attitude magazine honored Diana with its Legacy Award for her HIV/AIDS work. Prince Harry accepted the award on behalf of his mother. 

 

In March 1989, she had her second trip to the Arab Gulf States, in which she visited Kuwait and the UAE. Prince Charles and Diana visited Nigeria and Cameroon in March 1990. Princess Diana was political desiring women's development, foreign aid, and an end to land mines. Princess Diana visited Germany in December 1990 to meet with the families of soldiers during the Gulf War. She subsequently travelled to Germany in January 1991 to visit RAF Bruggen, and later wrote an encouraging letter which was published in Soldier, Navy News and RAF News. She was friends with Mother Teresa after they met in Kolkata, India in 1992. She visited the Taj Mahal. Princess Diana visited the National Children's Hospital in Tokyo in 1995. Princess Diana has a long charity of being involved in charity. She made tons of appearances to hospitals, schools, and other locations. She made 191 official engagements in 1988 and 397 in 1991. The Princess Diana developed an intense interest in serious illnesses and health-related matters outside the purview of traditional royal involvement, including AIDS and leprosy. In recognition of her effect as a philanthropist, Stephen Lee, director of the UK Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers, said "Her overall effect on charity is probably more significant than any other person's in the 20th century."

 

 

Her Family

 

She visited the homeless, the youth, drug addicted people, and the elderly.  From 1984 to 1996, she was president of Barnardo's, a charity founded by Dr. Thomas John Barnardo in 1866 to care for vulnerable children and young people. In 1988, she became patron of the British Red Cross and supported its organizations in other countries such as Australia and Canada. She made several lengthy visits each week to Royal Brompton Hospital, where she worked to comfort seriously ill or dying patients. From 1991 to 1996, she was a patron of Headway, a brain injury association. In 1992, she became the first patron of Chester Childbirth Appeal, a charity she had supported since 1984. The charity, which is named after one of Diana's royal titles, could raise over £1 million with her help. In 1994, she helped her friend Julia Samuel launch the charity Child Bereavement UK which supports children "of military families, those of suicide victims, [and] terminally-ill parents", and became its patron. Prince William later replaced his mother as the charity's royal patron. Princess Diana invested her resources to help the cancer victims, people who are blind, people who are deaf, and a wide spectrum of charities. Princess Diana was one of the greatest philanthropists of the 20th century. In December 1995, Diana received the United Cerebral Palsy Humanitarian of the Year Award in New York City for her philanthropic efforts. In October 1996, for her works on the elderly, she was awarded a gold medal at a health care conference organized by the Pio Manzù Centre in Rimini, Italy. In May 1997, Diana opened the Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts in Leicester, after being asked by her friend Richard Attenborough. In June 1997, some of her dresses and suits were sold at Christie's auction houses in London and New York, and the proceeds that were earned from these events were donated to charities. Her final official engagement was a visit to Northwick Park Hospital, London, on July 21, 1997. She was scheduled to attend a fundraiser at the Osteopathic Centre for Children on September 4, 1997, upon her return from Paris. She fought to have mines gone in Angola by January 1997. She visited First Lady Hillary Clinton by June 1997 to promote a fundraiser to get rid of landmines. By August 7 to 10, 1997, Princess Diana visited Bosnia and Herzegovina with Jerry White and Ken Rutherford of the Landmine Survivors Network. Princess Diana invested her time to fight breast cancer, leprosy, and other illnesses. She visited hospitals in India, Nepal, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. 

 

 

 

It is no question that some in the media harassed and stalked Princess Diana constantly and in inappropriate ways constantly. Some of them showed a pregnant Diana in a bikini. The Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) published photographs of Diana taken by gym owner Bryce Taylor. They showed personal images of her. Diana sued, and MGN gave her an apology. After the divorce, Princess Diana lived in Kensington Palace. For a time, she dated the British Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, who she called the "love of her life." Their relationship ended, because Khan was private and couldn't handle the press's scrutiny. Their relationship ended during the summer of 1997. Later, Princess Diana dated Dodi Fayed. Fayed was the son of her summer host Mohamed Al-Fayed. Diana considered taking her sons on a holiday to the Hamptons on Long Island, New York, but security officials had prevented it. After deciding against a trip to Thailand, she accepted Fayed's invitation to join his family in the south of France, where his compound and large security detail would not cause concern to the Royal Protection squad. Mohamed Al-Fayed bought the Jonikal, a 60-metre multimillion-pound yacht on which to entertain Diana and her sons. 

 

 

The Tragic End

  

The end of Princess Diana was hugely tragic. By August 31, 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed left a hotel in Paris. The car that both human beings were in crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris. The car was trying to flee the paparazzi. Henri Paul was also killed in the crash. He was the acting security manager of the Hotel Ritz, Paris. Diana's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived the crash. Princess Diana lost a lot of blood. The sudden death of Princess Diana was shocking. It happened when I was about to be a freshman at high school. I remember the time like yesterday. The televised funeral took place on September 6, 1997, and it was watched by 32.10 million British TV audience. It was one of the United Kingdom's highest viewing figures ever, and millions more people watched the funeral worldwide. At Kensington palace, people left flowers, candles, cards, and personal messages. There were mourning, sadness, anger, and just a sense of remembrance of Princess Diana's contributions to the world. The coffin was taken to a private mortuary and placed in the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace. People put pressure on the British Royals to give a response about the passing of Princess Diana. By September 6, 1997, Queen Elizabeth paid tribute to her in a live television broadcast. 

Diana's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on September 6, 1997. Her sons walked in the funeral procession behind her coffin, along with her ex-husband the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, Diana's brother Lord Spencer, and representatives of some of her charities. Lord Spencer said of his sister, "She proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic." Re-written in tribute to Diana, "Candle in the Wind 1997" was performed by Elton John at the funeral service (the only occasion the song has been performed live). Released as a single in 1997, the global proceeds from the song have gone to Diana's charities. The burial took place privately later the same day. Diana's former husband, sons, mother, siblings, a close friend, and a clergyman were present. Diana's body was clothed in a black long-sleeved dress designed by Catherine Walker, which she had chosen some weeks before. A set of rosary beads that she had received from Mother Teresa was placed in her hands. Diana's grave is on an island (52.283082°N 1.000278°W) within the grounds of Althorp Park, the Spencer family home for centuries. The burial party was provided by the 2nd Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, who carried Diana's coffin across to the island and laid her to rest. Diana was the Regiment's Colonel-in-Chief from 1992 to 1996. We know that Paul was intoxicated. The father of Dodi Fayed, Mohamed Al-Fayed, accused MI6 and the Duke of Edinburgh to have planned to kill Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. An investigation found that at the bare minimum negligent by Paul and the pursing paparazzi contributed to the crash. On April 7, 2008, the jury returned a verdict of "unlawful killing". On the day after the final verdict of the inquest, Al-Fayed announced that he would end his 10-year campaign to establish that the tragedy was murder; he said he did so for the sake of Diana's children. Now, we know that the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) surveilled Princess Diana until her death. Her NSA file wasn't revealed because of "national security concerns." Prince Harry and William, to this day, mourn her passing as she was their mother. 

The images above show actress Kristen Stewart in her movie role of Spencer portraying Princess Diana. 

Actresses who have portrayed Diana include Serena Scott Thomas (in Diana: Her True Story, 1993), Julie Cox (in Princess in Love, 1996), Amy Seccombe (in Diana: A Tribute to the People's Princess, 1998), Michelle Duncan (in Whatever Love Means, 2005), Genevieve O'Reilly (in Diana: Last Days of a Princess, 2007), Nathalie Brocker (in The Murder of Princess Diana, 2007), Naomi Watts (in Diana, 2013), Jeanna de Waal (in Diana: The Musical, 2019 & 2021), Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki (in The Crown, 2020 & 2022), and Kristen Stewart (in Spencer, 2021). In 2021, Corrin won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of the younger Diana Spencer.

 

 

The Legacy of Princess Diana

One major part of Princess Diana's legacy is that she used the trauma of her past to motivate her to show compassion and humanity to the people of the world. She had a sincerity in her mindset, and she desired to be a different type of Royal human being. She wasn't stuck up or had an arrogant personality. Princess Diana had humor, humbleness, and a seriousness to confront injustices. That is why she is one of the most popular members of the royal family in history. The press monitored her constantly in photographs. Sometimes, some media crossed the line in monitoring and harassing her. Also, Princess Diana loved to show style, charisma, and charity work.  She also wore ensembles by fashion companies such as Versace, Armani, Chanel, Dior, Gucci and Clarks. She is easily one of the greatest philanthropists of the 20th century. In private and in public, Princess Diana stood up for herself. Paul Burrell said that Diana was a deep thinker who used "introspective analysis." She loved her 2 children unconditionally being active in their lives. Author Tina Brown said that Princess Diana can use a glance to charm people, and she had a power to make positive energy a reality. Princess Diana worked to show love and concern to the sick and dying patients, the poor, and the oppressed. She inspired the Royal family in general to have charity work as shown by both of her sons, Prince Charles, etc. Princess Diana was in discussion with Tony Blair to make a government platform for her campaigns and charities to make her capable of endorsing Britain's interests overseas. Now, we realize fully that Princess Diana made her incredible mark in history indeed. 

 

By Timothy