Diana documentary - do you want Charles and Camilla as king and queen?

[seekingwisdom4me]

I have always been a monarchist :) but the behaviour of Charles and Camilla towards Diana was a disgrace and I really think if he gets the top job, he will make Camilla a Queen. Now there are reports of the Queen retiring and William and Harry's staff being fired so Charles can spin/take over. Do they never learn? Charles will make a lot of people become republicans, skip him and the monarchy is safe.
What do you think?

[LadyCassandra]

The Queen won't retire. She's in it for life.
Charles won't give up the throne, he's been waiting his whole life.
They all made a huge mistake arranging the marriage of Charles and Diana. Charles was awful and Diana was badly treated but she spent the last 10 years of her life trying to destroy him and would probably have succeeded had she lived.
Personally I think Camille looks like she'd be a barrel of laughs, she'll be the King's wife so may as well be Queen (consort) and all this will die down again in 6 months time when the 20 year anniversary is over.

[LadyCassandra]

Oh, and I don't think for a second Diana never intended those tapes to go public. She is positively gleeful, knowing full well they'd be released someday.

[sofato5miles]

It was a very sad state of affairs (pun intended). They shouldn't have been married but they were. People can be awful when they are unhappy but that doesn't preclude them from their professional jobs. I, for one, am happy that we have a royal couple who are obviously in Love, and always have been.

If they had been commoners they would have been married from the start.

[specialsubject]

The queen made a vow to stay in the job for life. She still has that 1950s mindset. Let's face it, she hasn't given up at 91 so will go on until she drops.

Assuming Charles doesn't drop first, he's waited a long time so may as well hang on for the crown. Camilla is his wife, that makes her queen. First wife was divorced and is now dead. The position was vacated.

I agree that diana at a childish 19 was groomed and set up, but both families bear the blame.

[wobblywonderwoman]

Camilla won't be queen though. Prince Philip is still 'Prince' or have I got that wrong?

[RolfNotRudolf]

The whole point of a monarchist state is that monarchs are appointed by accident of birth - it's nothing to do with merit or fitness for role. So if you support the monarchy you have to accept that basic premise. Or be a republican and recognise that leaders should be there through merit, not biological connection.

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

Now there are reports of the Queen retiring

It will never ever happen. The Queen has made that very clear.

[InvisableLobstee]

I'd rather they stuck to tradition by simply keeping the Queen and then moving onto Charles as King, but continue letting younger Royals have a more active role. The older Royals can do the boring State stuff and unveil plaques and younger ones go to concerts and on long haul trips.

[Groovee]

@wobblywonderwoman Prince Philip is a prince consort is he not. Queen Victoria's husband was Prince Albert. I don't think they can be kings.

[annandale]

What Rolf said. This is monarchy - any old bod who turns up first out of the right orifice. In Britain we've tended to do selective monarchy, ie if they are shit enough we have traditionally found ways to choose someone less awful. So I guess if the world's oldest apprentice turns out to have been so screwed up by his beloved parents that he is a threat to normal life, he will be persuaded to off himself to internal exile. I think we are stuck with him though as I don't think these days you can forget about people so easily - the Windsors being shoved off to the poor bloody Bahamas would hardly work now. At least we haven't got Queen Diana who let's face it was a series of international incidents waiting to happen.

[juneau]

The Queen won't retire, but I do think she'll start to pass more duties on to Charles as she's now over 90 and must need to slow down a bit. I can't imagine how she copes with all the duties she has to perform at an age when most people are already dead!

As for Charles and Camilla - I actually feel for them both. They should've been allowed to marry. The problem wasn't so much them as the pressure put on Charles to marry a) a virgin and b) a woman he barely knew. He and Diana both suffered horribly with the situation they found themselves in i.e. married to someone they had nothing in common with and with hardly any support or sympathy from those around them. Neither of them behaved well, both cheated and Diana, for all her doe-eyed sympathy-seeking was manipulative and vengeful. I cannot see what C4 airing that nonsense last night achieved, aside from yet more discord. Diana has been dead for 20 years and Charles and Camilla have demonstrated to the world since then how incredibly well suited they are for one another. I say let the past be the past and let's move on. Camilla has done nothing wrong IMO - she has behaved with discretion at all all times and she deserves to be queen.

[exhaustedtwinmummy]

Well said Juneau!!

[ImperialBlether]

Juneau, Charles could have married Camilla. He was seeing her. However she wasn't a virgin - and it was well known she wasn't as she'd been open about affairs - and then Camilla's father and Parker Bowles' brother put an engagement announcement in the Times without asking her. Charles saw that and it was all off.

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

Juneau, Charles could have married Camilla. He was seeing her.

Not as if the Royal Family didn't approve. It's not like they don't have form for it.

I'm sure Margarets life would have been very different if she had had free choice.

[annandale]

Margaret could have married her true love but she wanted to be a Princess more. She's hardly a tragic heroine except by proving how ruinous flattery and unearned riches are.

[annandale]

The template for Royal marriage was the Mountbattens, ie a closeted gay man and a woman who took the only route to sexual freedom available to her. Fine, in the days when the papers didn't require you to be visibly plausible partners and nobody printed sexual gossip.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

Its not as if it really affects any of us. And lets be honest here Diana isn't exactly wither than white.

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

Margaret could have married her true love but she wanted to be a Princess more. She's hardly a tragic heroine except by proving how ruinous flattery and unearned riches are.

Same could be said for anything.

Diana could have walked away earlier. Could have said no in the first place etc etc

Margaret was very aware of what walking away would do to her family. The debacle of her uncle and what it did to her father was very much in her memory.

And lets be honest here Diana isn't exactly wither than white.

It is this which people chose to forget. The idolising of her in some quarters is ridiculous.

[eddiemairswife]

Edward the Seventh was a very popular king in spite of having numerous mistresses, the main one being Alice Keppel (Camilla's great-grandmother).

[prh47bridge]

Camilla won't be queen though. Prince Philip is still 'Prince' or have I got that wrong?

The husband of a reigning Queen is normally given the title of Prince (as was the case with Philip who is a Prince of the UK as well as being prince consort). He can also be given the title Prince Consort (which was Prince Albert's title) or some other title, or not have a royal title at all.

The wife of a reigning King is queen consort and is usually given the title Queen but without any of the monarch's powers. Normally we would expect Camilla to become Queen Camilla when Charles becomes king. However, it was announced some time ago that she intends to adopt the title Princess Consort instead.

[helpme85]

I do think Diana was vulnerable and they really messed her up. But I do think she then spent the latter years of her life trying to get her own back on Charles & Camilla and became increasingly bitter. I don't blame her but I think the 'woe is me' and innocence she regularly displayed just wasn't for real.

As time went on she wasn't that naive teenager she became a grown woman and she knew exactly what she was doing. I do think she was manipulative. I don't blame her but she wasn't an entirely innocent party towards the end. I do feel very sorry for her because marrying into the Royal
Family did kill her

[QuiQuaiQuod]

Diana, for all her doe-eyed sympathy-seeking was manipulative and vengeful.

soooooooooooo glad others here see 'the emporors new clothes'.

shes portrayed as a saint byt the media.

Id have had more admiration for her if she didnt have her own affairs while married.

and yy Charles should have been allowed to wed Camilla in the 1st place.

same with the princes idolising her. i know shes their mother, but she allegedly threw herself down stairs to terminate one of the boys inside her. I wonder if they know that. not that they should be told, if they dont know, it would upset them .

i hated her pity party sad eyed bambi look, it was false and manipulative.

she did a lot for charities and aids support etc, thats a good thing of course, but im fed up with the whole saint Diana thing.

[QueenofallIsee]

i think that 'King' is still a higher title than 'Queen' hence why the male partners of hereditary Queens are always Princes. Camilla would be Queen in the usual manner of things.

Prince Charles will be the last British monarch who was subject to essentially an arranged marriage - Diana was pre selected for him by the Queen Mother. It was not his exclusive fault the marriage ended and I don't think he should be villified for his 'treatment' of his first wife - she behaved appallingly in the end.

[BubblesBuddy]

Diana was far too Young and flattered to be chosen by the Queen Mother and her friend to marry Charles. She came from a dysfunctional family and thought she was loved by Charles but he didn't know what love was. Charles didn't stand up for what he really wanted because he's an utter wimp. Even Camilla has to go back to her own house to get away from him. I think he will change the monarchy and find it very difficult to butt out on topics he cares about because he is used to expecting to influence at high levels to get his own way. I think there are huge concerns about how he will behave as King. Camilla will support him but he won't be liked unless he changes. Who can possibly like a man who doesn't put his own toothpaste on his toothbrush in the morning? Utterly entitled and nothing in common with anyone much.

[2rebecca]

Yes, but it's a monarchy, we don't have an election. We have had a lot of dodgy monarchs in the past. Charles will not be one of them.