Part 16 (1/2)
”Your reaction to her having a son?”
She shrugged. ”I didn't know she had one.”
”This morning.”
”Oh, good,” she said sarcastically. ”Isn't that nice?”
”How are you enjoying your visit to New Mexico?”
”Keep your questions to yourself.”
”Ma'am, how does it feel to be an aunt?”
”That's my business, thank you.”
The sourpuss Princess skidded to the bottom of the royal popularity polls. ”Naff off, Anne,” screamed the Daily Mail, Daily Mail, which claimed she was envious of the fuss over Diana. Other newspapers dismissed the Queen's daughter as rude, surly, and miserable. Within ten years the pundits would change their minds. After her charity work for Save the Children, Anne would emerge as one of the most respected women in Great Britain. Some polls would show that the public thought her more worthy than Charles to ascend to the throne. But in 1982, she was one of the most reviled people in the United Kingdom. which claimed she was envious of the fuss over Diana. Other newspapers dismissed the Queen's daughter as rude, surly, and miserable. Within ten years the pundits would change their minds. After her charity work for Save the Children, Anne would emerge as one of the most respected women in Great Britain. Some polls would show that the public thought her more worthy than Charles to ascend to the throne. But in 1982, she was one of the most reviled people in the United Kingdom.
Within the royal family the relations.h.i.+p between the Princess Anne and the Princess of Wales was visceral: they loathed each other. Anne thought Diana was vain, dim-witted, and neurotic. ”Too gooey about children,” she said.
Diana dismissed her sister-in-law as a male impersonator. ”I think she shaves.”
”You forget,” said a friend. ”Anne was the only female compet.i.tor at Montreal Olympics [1976] not to be given a s.e.x test.”
”Results would've been too embarra.s.sing,” joked Diana. ”She's Philip-in drag.”
The Princess of Wales did not understand a woman like Anne, who appeared to be so determinedly unfeminine. She refused to wear makeup, pulled back her hair in a bun, and wore clothes that looked like thrift shop rejects. Diana had heard about Anne's adultery with a Palace guard but did not understand his s.e.xual attraction. ”What do men see in her?” she asked.
Blunt as a bullet, Anne did nothing to ingratiate herself with others, especially the press, which she detested. ”You are a pest by the very nature of that camera in your hand,” she snapped at a photographer who was trying to take her picture.
Charles agreed that Anne could be difficult but said she was his only sister and had honored him by making him G.o.dfather to her firstborn son. So he suggested that he and Diana return the honor by making Anne one of Prince William's G.o.dmothers. Diana refused.
”Darling, please,” Charles said plaintively. ”Please.”
Diana was unmovable, and Charles, after a halfhearted struggle to change her mind, gave up. Days later they announced their choice of G.o.dparents: Princess Alexandra; the d.u.c.h.ess of Westminster; Lady Susan Hussey; King Constantine II of the h.e.l.lenes; Lord Romsey; Sir Laurens Van der Post.
At the christening, the Archbishop of Canterbury poured water over the baby's head and handed a lighted candle to his father to signify the young Prince's admission into the church.
”The windows were open, the sun streaming in,” Sir Laurens told Horoscope Horoscope magazine. ”Then the sky went grey as a great storm gathered. Just as the Archbishop handed over the lighted candle, a violent gust of wind blew through the windows. The candle flickered, but did not go out.” magazine. ”Then the sky went grey as a great storm gathered. Just as the Archbishop handed over the lighted candle, a violent gust of wind blew through the windows. The candle flickered, but did not go out.”
The sage saw that as a portent for the Prince and Princess of Wales, who both believed in mysticism. Van der Post said it was a good sign and explained that the flickering candle represented a crisis in Prince William's future, but one that he would survive.
Two years later, after the birth of their second son, Charles again suggested choosing his sister as a G.o.dmother, but again Diana refused. Instead she chose Celia, Lady Vestey; Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, the daughter of Princess Margaret; and Carolyn Pride Bartholomew, her former roommate from Coleherne Court. As G.o.dfathers, Charles chose his brother, Andrew, the Duke of York; artist Bryan Organ, who painted flattering royal portraits; and Gerald Ward, a rich polo player.
The announcement of the baby's G.o.dparents sparked a furious row within the royal family. Prince Philip was so angry at Charles for bypa.s.sing Anne a second time that he didn't speak to him or visit his new grandson for six weeks. At the end of the year he fired off a memo, telling Charles he was not carrying his weight as heir apparent. Philip praised Anne, his favorite child, as the hardest-working member of the royal family. ”She's represented the Crown at 201 events whereas records indicate you made 93 appearances and your wife 51. Taken together, these figures [for 1984] don't add up to your sister's efforts.”
Three years later the Queen rewarded her daughter's dedicated service by naming her Princess Royal, the highest honor a sovereign can bestow on a female in the royal family.
But Anne was so humiliated at being pa.s.sed over again as G.o.dmother that she declined to attend the christening of Prince Henry Charles Albert David (”Harry” to his parents). She said the date conflicted with a shooting party that she and her husband had planned. The Queen and Prince Charles moved the christening from Buckingham Palace to St. George's Chapel at Windsor so it would be closer to Anne's estate, hoping then she might change her mind. She didn't. The Queen's press secretary telephoned and begged her to reschedule her shooting party, saying that her absence would be interpreted by the press as a slight to the Princess of Wales.
”So what?” said Anne, who sent her children in her place. ”Peter and Zara will be there, and that'll be quite enough.”
Michael Shea pleaded, but to no avail. As he predicted, the Murdoch press buried the Queen's daughter as petulant and vengeful. They canonized the Princess of Wales, and next to the Queen Mother, she was proclaimed the most beloved figure in the kingdom.
FOURTEEN.
I'm fed up to the teeth with your b.l.o.o.d.y security,” exploded the Duke of Edinburgh. ”Let's get going.”
”I'm sorry, sir,” said the U.S. Secret Service agent, ”but there's nothing I can do until the President's car moves.”
The Queen and the Duke, touring California as guests of the Reagans in 1983, sat in the back of their limousine, waiting for the motorcade to move through the rainy streets of San Francisco. Philip strained with impatience.
”I said to get this car moving,” he snapped.
”Sir, we're waiting for President Reagan's car.”
The Queen stared straight ahead. Seconds pa.s.sed. Bristling with anger, Philip grabbed a magazine from the seat pocket, rolled it up, and smacked the driver across the back of his head.
”Move this f.u.c.king car,” he screamed, ”and move it now!”
The Queen sat impa.s.sively and did not say a word as her husband whacked the agent like a horse. An hour later, after they had arrived at their hotel, she sent her emba.s.sy representative to the agent's room with an invitation to join the royal couple for a nightcap.
”No, thank you,” said the agent. He made no attempt to disguise his anger over the treatment he had received from the Queen's husband as she said nothing.
”Please, sir. You must accept Her Majesty's invitation.”
”I said, 'No, thank you.' I will not be in their company any more than I absolutely have to.”
The Queen's messenger appealed to the White House aide in the room. ”Please, sir, I'm begging you. I cannot go back to Her Majesty and say her invitation was refused. I would lose my position. My tour of duty is up in six months and I can't afford to retire without my pension. I acknowledge the Duke of Edinburgh was beastly-rude beyond redemption-but I'm asking you as a personal favor to please accept this invitation.”
The White House aide looked at the Secret Service agent, who stared at the anxious messenger-and reconsidered. ”I want to make it clear,” said the agent, ”that I'm doing this for you, not for them.”
The U.S. Secret Service had struggled throughout the visit to provide the highest standard of protection for the royal couple, but the Duke of Edinburgh balked at every security measure proposed. The night before, he had turned on the light inside his limousine.
”I'm sorry, sir,” said the agent. ”I must ask you to turn off that light. It makes you too easy a target.”
”I'm d.a.m.ned if I will,” snapped Philip. ”Why do you think these people are out here? They want to see me, and I want to wave to them.”
The U.S. Chief of Protocol, Selwa Roosevelt, interceded. ”Sir, these men are only doing their job,” she said. ”If anything happens to you, it would be due to their negligence. Please do not take it out on them. They have their orders.” As he got out of the car, Philip slammed the door in her face. Hours later, at a dinner, he apologized.
From San Diego to San Francisco to the Reagan ranch in Santa Barbara, the Duke fumed about the security. ”They're b.l.o.o.d.y baboons,” he groused to the Queen, who also chafed at extreme protection. Privately she agreed with her husband. Publicly she said nothing. She was on a goodwill trip-her fifth to the United States-and she was visiting at the express request of her government to solidify what the two countries now called their special relations.h.i.+p. The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, a political soulmate of Ronald Reagan, needed U.S. aid, so she fed the American appet.i.te for British royalty by sending the Queen on tour.
Reagan had backed Thatcher when British troops landed in the Falkland Islands in 1982 to reclaim them from Argentina. The cost: 237 British servicemen and $3.7 billion. Most people had a.s.sumed Britain was too poor and too pa.s.sive to mount such an attack, so the invasion boosted the country's prestige. Argentina's surrender in June 1982 allowed the forceful Prime Minister to emerge with a newfound respect as the Iron Lady. Prince Andrew, the Queen's favorite child, flew a navy helicopter in the war and returned home a hero.
The ”special relations.h.i.+p” between London and Was.h.i.+ngton became strained after the United States invaded Grenada, a former British colony in the Caribbean, which had remained part of the Commonwealth. As Queen of England, Elizabeth II was also Queen of Grenada and not receptive to invaders, especially allies. ”She is immensely displeased with President Reagan over this matter,” said a Labor Party spokesman. The Queen summoned Margaret Thatcher to the Palace to explain why Her Majesty had had to hear the news of the invasion from the BBC and not from the Prime Minister herself. Mrs. Thatcher said she hadn't known about it until she called the President minutes before. ”It's a benign invasion,” Reagan had told her, a.s.serting that one thousand Americans had to be evacuated from the island after a communist takeover. Mrs. Thatcher told the Queen that she, too, was upset, but Britain would not condemn the invasion. ”We stand by the United States and will continue to do so in the larger alliances,” said the Prime Minister. ”The United States is the final guarantor of freedom in Europe.”
The Queen showed her displeasure during that meeting by not offering the Prime Minister a seat. Afterward she reported Thatcher's reaction: ”Only two curtsies today.” The exaggerated deference of the Prime Minister, who referred to herself as ”we,” amused the royal family. Prince Philip dismissed her as ”the greengrocer's daughter” because she was born in a flat above her family's grocery in Grantham. The Queen, known for her wicked mimicry, relished telling Margaret Thatcher jokes. Her favorite was about the Prime Minister's visiting an old age home.