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INTRODUCTION TO THE 2017 EDITION

You may sometimes wonder why Princess Diana still casts such a long shadow over Britain’s thousand-year-old ruling dynasty. Like me, you may welcome it as a gentle reminder that her story remains relevant, an enduring example of the good things royalty can achieve, as well as a warning of the price it can exact. Or, like some others, you may feel her shadow upon you as an irritation, since it points to the inconvenient reality of Diana’s popular and it seems permanent place among the most admired names of recent history. A few in this second group would have us believe that Diana and her admirers are classic examples of the modern fashion for emotional incontinence – a betrayal of the traditional British stiff upper lip: that in reality she was flawed and frail, a symbol of weakness not strength, and so whoever replaces her in the national shop window must now be more deserving of our interest and approval.

Yet twenty years after her death, the memory of Princess Diana is still obviously alive and well. The world’s media are once again graced by her image and by tributes to how much she achieved in her tragically short life. The causes she championed – from mental health, old age and homelessness to AIDS, addiction and leprosy – are living tributes to her effectiveness as a globally admired force for good; and her greatest living legacies, her sons, are inviting us to remember her with gratitude and affection. In their words: ‘The time is right to remember her positive impact’, and their tributes to her – symbolized by the commissioning of a statue at Kensington Palace – strike a chord with ordinary people of all ages all over the world.

Like many she felt ill-prepared and untrained for the role in which she found herself. Alone in a tradition-bound environment in which her successes seemed to count for little and her errors for a lot, she believed she had been left to sink or swim. And but for her sons, her private life offered no consolation, with a husband who, it appeared to many observers, saw her as a rival to be feared rather than a companion to be cherished. Instead his energy, time and attention were devoted to the older, more experienced wife of a former courtier who, like many of their secretive social circle, seemed impervious to the vulnerable princess’s anguish.

No wonder Diana suffered from chronic self-doubt, poor self-image and a persistent eating disorder. Through her eyes, there was no comfort in the trappings and privileges of palace life, let alone the adoration of a world that praised her for virtues she never truly felt she possessed. She looked to her in-laws and the palace hierarchy for advice and support and too often found that goodwill on both sides couldn’t stop relations descending from misunderstanding to mistrust, and worse.

Of course, Diana was not perfect, and never claimed to be. As I had good reason to know, she could be a capricious employer who rightly expected a royal standard of perfection from her small and at times beleaguered support staff – just as she demanded it from herself. But though there were days when I wished I could have had a more conventional boss, I never doubted that she was well worth the toil, sweat and occasional tears. Her gutsy response to such a daunting array of misfortunes had won my lasting admiration, just as it earned her a deserved place in the hearts of millions around the world.

Finding herself in what amounted to a professional, personal and marital trap, she would have been forgiven for surrendering to despair. She could have looked into the future and seen herself as just a pitiable bystander, exiled to the shadows as her husband’s mistress claimed not just her place in his home and household but also eventually on the throne as joint head of state.

Instead, Diana discovered in herself reserves of strength and determination – at times even reckless defiance – to frustrate those who would have consigned her to the life of a royal cast-off. The hurt and indignation that might have destroyed her she chose to recycle as energy to power her life as a princess with a new purpose. As early as 1989, with her first solo overseas tour, when she went to New York and publicly identified herself with the plight of HIV-positive mothers and babies, she recognized that her predicament could be turned to good for outcasts everywhere – the lepers (real and metaphorical) who found in the glamorous figure from the fairy-tale world of palaces and gold coaches an unlikely but increasingly effective advocate.

I would sometimes ask her about her motives for diverting her brand of royalty into such unfamiliar and emotionally demanding new directions. ‘Don’t you see, Patrick,’ she would answer, ‘I can talk to them because I am one of them.’

And so she was: an outsider whom many insecure insiders wished they could control and, when they failed, wished they could airbrush out of the Windsor universe. Their chosen weapon was a vile diagnosis that she had a clinical personality disorder, a slur then systematically spread by royal spin doctors, and still whispered to this day by royal toadies. It would be hard to imagine a more cowardly attack on a woman who had already acknowledged her experience of conditions such as bulimia – an example of refreshingly sane self-knowledge now emulated by Prince Harry, to deserved universal applause.

Instead, they can reflect on the sight of her sons and daughter-in-law continuing her work of inclusion for those with minds in need of healing, or who for other reasons find themselves exiled from society. Perhaps now her detractors will recognize that the princess’s achievements deserve to be remembered happily and often; that they cast a welcome light on her children’s determination, like her, to find new ways to put their royal status to good use for good causes that might otherwise be overlooked.

Remembering Diana gladly is more than just legitimate and timely: it’s also required therapy for the future health of the monarchy, as the focus of national unity and symbol of the best British values. It’s not just about the need to learn from the past to avoid future mistakes, though that neglected skill should be second nature to royal advisers. It’s a principle even more fundamental to the long-term purpose and viability of the ancient royal experiment. It can be summed up in one word – a word traditionally synonymous with the British Crown, exemplified by Elizabeth II’s lifetime of service.

The word is decency.

Yet in some corners of the royal establishment, two decades of spin doctors and a naive fondness for the slippery arts of news management have put the word and the idea at risk. With his coronation plans already the subject of unfriendly speculation, especially on the divisive issue of Queen Camilla, Elizabeth’s successor faces an acceptability hurdle that some courtiers may be slow to recognize. A little perspective from recent history might guide them.

Diana alive was a decency test for the Windsors, which some of them failed; this book gives one close-up view of that failure, especially my part in it. But that failure need not lead to another: a Diana who lives on in the hearts of her admirers worldwide is a test tomorrow’s monarchy can yet pass. Success, as her sons have shown, only needs royal people to rediscover the authentic, uncontrived decency that hallmarked the monarchy’s finest hours in the twentieth century, and which is still its best hope for what may be even more testing times in the twenty-first and beyond.

Leaving aside such lofty thoughts, back in 1987 when this story starts there was no doubt in my mind that Charles and Diana were the best thing to happen to the monarchy in my lifetime. The perfect royal superstar double act. And so they were. Try to keep that image in mind as you read what follows, and draw your own conclusions about what might have been …

Patrick Jephson