Diana and Charles Questions

[AdoraLovesCake]

So this is not a AIBU but it's an ATBU for are THEY being unreasonable.

I have seen a lot of you tube shorts marking the 25 year death of Lady Diana Spencer/the princess. They say she was a devoted mum and participated in the boys' school events, gave them macdonald's ect. Was a lovely, normal mum. I don't dispute that. Even though she died just before I was born so i hardly know anything about her, i think she is amazing and did not deserve to die. That brings me on to how some people said she wrote in her diary that she thought Charles was planning to kill her (staging an accident) so he could marry Camilla and that she knew something was wrong with the brakes in her car. For any of you who don't know, she died in a car accident in Paris on August 31rd 1997.

She was the people's princess and adored by all, she was one of us as her children went to public schools, she dressed casual. ect.

I also have some questions:

• Where was Diana buried, I know she had a state funeral thing?
• Did Diana see her kids much after the divorce?
• If Diana was alive now, what would her position be?
• Charles did not mention Diana in his becoming king speech - he could have said 'And the boys' mother who taught them so much' or something - do you think he should have?

YABU: They are being unreasonable and Charles did not order Diana's murder
YANBU: They are not being unreasonable and Charles did order Diana's murder

I was lucky enough to see Diana close to twice, and to meet her to talk to one of those times.
She had astonishing charisma, she absolutely radiated it.
Beautiful blue eyes that looked at one as if one was the only person in the room.

She dismissed her security dude and spoke to us alone.

I was phenomenally impressed with Diana, as was everyone else who met her that day.

Hardened cynics were ''Wowed''.

I have seen pop and rock stars, and actresses { Birth Family live in wealthy part of London} and have never seen anyone with the same 'Charisma' as Princess Diana.

You know when you look at 'normal' people, working class (or even middle class) but ' normal ' people living normal lives and something horrendous happens to them?
Victoria Climbie
Gemma Hayter
Martha Mills.. are the only ones I can think of right now but I am sure others will come up with more examples, and those are a decent 'cross section' of circumstances. .Of when a usually-functioning system doesn't work.

People are let down by the 'system'.

Diana is just an example of how a usually functionalist society isn't always such, it can't possibly be. She was the product of a comedy of errors.

This.

Diana was a neurotic mess, who courted the press when it suited her and told more than a few promises in her time.

I also hate that she told Martin Bashir “there were 3 of us in this marriage”…yeah, and the rest Di! She had affairs with at least 4 men, some of whom were married, some of which lasted years.

I also don’t think she was an excellent mother. Her boys would have been about 11 and 13 when she went on national TBF and aired her dirty laundry about their father to the world. She would go months without seeing them, and when she died she hadn’t seen them for a month. I don’t think that makes her an ‘excellent mum’ - imagine those poor boys having to go to school the day after that interview knowing all their school mates probably watched it. Imagine knowing your parents were shagging about like rabbits with other people. She was not a good mum just because she was posh and took them to McDonald’s

*few porkies. not promises

In relation to ‘if she lived now where would she be’. I honestly think, as awful as it sounds, her death saved her reputation. Because she has been martyrised. Whereas if she’d lived I think she would have become by now a Fergie/Samantha Markle hybrid - desperately selling stories about family members and generally making a tit of herself.

I also feel quite embarrassed for people who think she was murdered. She got into a car knowing the driver was drunk and didn’t put her seatbelt on.

I’m very much old enough to remember those times and the tide was 100% turning against her from the press. Who did a quick U-Turn and martyrised her the moment she died.

I believe Princess Margaret actually expressed joy

@BonjourBonheur I know what you mean there. I just think the young HM The Queen was far more beautiful-and Princess Margaret was a stunner! Times aside. Diana was tall and slim of course but she didn't seem very well put together to me, perhaps to someone like me (who studies people for a living) It's noticeable as it is to many of us that she just wasn't very comfortable in her own skin? I've never seen her in the flesh of course but I have been taken aback by photos of a young (ish) Princess Royal, Princess Margaret-Diana? Meh.

@x2boys Yes that's true. But I still think the Princess Royal had much more natural beauty than Diana? Maybe It's the joy, Diana's unhappiness perpetuating?
I don't think she dressed terribly well either. 'That' black dress for example did not flatter her. And I am from the 80s. Some women were pretty timelessly, I agree, I don't think Diana was some great beauty. I can't get my head around how and why so many people supposedly thought she were.

Well said! It’s a wonder poor William is as grounded as he is considering she used the poor boy as her crutch

Idk if if go as far as atrocious mother. Definitely very flawed and she made some shocking judgments. The issue being she didn’t have good role models and a stable home life herself. After her mother left home when Diana was still very young, someone mentioned age 8. She apparently sat on the doorstep for days waiting for her to return and no one explained to Diana what was going on.

I can imagine this led to serious abandonment issues and all this left her rather ill-equipped to be the mother of a future king. She also made many serious errors of judgment, including not allowing herself to be adequately protected, which ultimately led to her death. She was around a decade older than me. Now that I am a mother and a good few years older than she was at her death, I do feel very sorry for the way her life turned out.

I don’t think she was as ‘good’ as you want to believe her to be @AdoraLovesCake. However, I don’t think she should just be judged harshly on the many things she got wrong. She lived a full and often not well-balanced life. To me, she is really a tragic figure and someone, who could have been written about by the literary greats of the past. I think Voltaire would have had a lot to say about her.

Maybe
Juuuuuuust maybe
Falling in love with someone is not about their looks...

the prince, future, now King of england, was not punching above his weight - how on earth do you come up with that?

Perhaps by not believing royalty and titles make someone better than someone else? The punching comment was about looks, personality, charisma – Charlie boy doesn’t get bestowed those at the same time as his fake medals and crown.

Presumably that’s not how Diana saw it though- there’s nothing to suggest that she wasn’t interested in titles and royalty, quite the reverse.

Also pmsl at getting cross at the suggestion that royalty makes you better than other people when really it should be their deep personal qualities like “looks” 😂

They basically had an arranged marriage. They are reported to have met 6 or 7 times before the wedding.

He needed a virgin bride with no love history for his Queen. She being the daughter of an aristocrat wanted to marry someone else with money.

Maybe she was nieve thinking love would grow. But they barely knew one another. Nobody would encourage a teen to marry a 30 something after a few dates.

I don't think love entered the equation.

Haha, fair! I didn’t actually mean “looks make someone superior”. Just that it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest “a prince, now the king” can punch above his weight. Because royalty is nonsense – whether or not Diana (not the brightest bulb) believed it or not.

I find this thread very sad. I don't know where this most recent wave of hate about Diana is coming from but I heard Gyles Brandreth the other day on the radio calling her "an hysteric" and I believe he is a chum and supporter of Prince Charles.

I don't think that it's recent, or that it's hate. People are simply pointing out that, before her death, she wasn't the people's princess and the universally adored living saint that has been depicted in some circles since her death.

OP what are you trying to get from this thread? You asked questions but have not then joined in the conversation except simple comments that do not further the conversation on

I really don’t believe that someone who says they have watched you tube clips didn’t know she had a brother. Who do you think it was talking at her funeral

As others have said your questioning style is strange but to not then be gracious enough to re-enter the conversation when people have taken the time to respond os just rude

I don't think anyone would deny that she adored her children and tried her best to give them a vaguely normal childhood.

Not sure about that. Is it normal to have your mother locking herself away in the next room audibly crying so that you feel impelled to push notes under the door? I don't minimise her MH difficulties, but she managed to hold it together when in public, and she was in public a lot of the time to the extent that she used to ensure the paparazzi knew where she was going to be. I think most parents would do their best not to involve their children,

I do think she tried her best for the boys but she really struggled and was often misguided.

When you look back on things she did like taking the boys to a theme park and telling the press they'd be there. Was that about being the 'fun' mum or trying to build public support?
Meanwhile Charles felt he needed to show off chill out time with him, showing off him and boys at Balmoral messing around by the river.

I can totally see why William felt the press had too much access to his childhood and has reigned that back in for his own kids.

That’s lovely to hear Oakleaffy.

Before she died people loved to hear news about her, it's true. But the more juicy and vilifying the better. That doesn't mean they loved her.

I think that led into people feeling guilty about the fact that the press was trying to get the juicy gossip led ultimately to her car accident. I think if she'd died over a period of time from an illness then it would have been a small item in the 9 o'clock news and no one really thinking too much about it.

The other reason was Tony Blair, with an eye to his own popularity, decided to whip up a frenzy so he could be "The People's Princess' champion".

I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of Diana being “hounded” to her death. I don’t think she was, any more than she was “murdered”.

I like this classy reply to my slightly arsey post 😁

I think even the story she told about sitting on the doorstep waiting for her mother to return has been proved as one of her lies. She wasn't at home when her mother left . She was in London.
She should be left in peace. Her sons don't need this all digging up.
I get the irony of me contributing to the thread though!

You say that she died before you were born and then go on to write a load stuff that makes it clear that you actually know very little about her.

Does anyone actually deserve to die? Very few people, I imagine.

All that 'people's princess' rubbish was just PR. And no she wasn't 'adored' by all, what nonsense.

She did seem like a devoted mother and clearly loved her children, so do most mothers; that doesn't make her special and I don't see that giving her children 'MacDonald's is something that equates with being a devoted mother, but each to their own.

And no, her children didn't go to 'public' schools as you seem to understand the term, in Britain it mean a private, usually boarding, school. They went to extremely expensive fee paying schools. Of course the future king and his brother would not have been sent to a regular school. The idea is ridiculous.

She was charismatic that's true, but she was also manipulative and knew how to play the press for maximum coverage.

She was no more saintly than any one else. And all the hoo-haa when she died made Britain look as if it was populated by crazy people.

And no, Charles didn't 'order her murder'. He's not the bloody mafia.