Charles Spencer's book Diana Swan Song etc etc . Thread the second.

[BasiliskStare]

There has been interest from some who engaged with the topic , so I'm starting a new thread as we are on page 10 . I honestly didn't think it would engender so much interest.

Let me be absolutely clear here. Threads meander , and sometimes go off topic and sometimes amusingly and interestingly so. My intention with this thread is to discuss the book , related matters eg contemporaneous accounts, reviews , interviews etc I'm also , frankly, interested to see how Piers Morgan's reaction to it goes.

As has been so often said anyone is allowed to post whatever they like on a public forum. I'm just explaining why I have started this thread. I have no intention of policing it .

Let's see how it goes 😎

@BasiliskStare I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying this thread and the interesting discourse about the issues raised in the book without all the usual details and distractions. I do enjoy the other threads but it is a pleasant change to be on one that has stuck to the brief 😆

As I understand it, there's a standard list. When William got married, the Lord Chamberlain provided the list of guests, but William was unhappy, and asked the late Queen for permission to ignore it. She told him to invite who he wanted.

Diana was undereducated and actually wasn't even working at posh jobs. She cleaned and worked at a nursery after her mother bought her a flat. There was only really one thing for to do.

I completely agree that Diana’s jobs were just to fill the time until she found a husband, but they were definitely “posh jobs”. She worked at a private kindergarten that acts as a feeder into top London primary schools, and then as a “mother’s help” for a wealthy American family, plus helping out her circle of friends with dinner parties and cleanings from time to time. They were all very “suitable” pastimes for an aristocratic young woman fresh out of finishing school, and highlighting that she’d make a good housewife and mother…

She did low level work because she was virtually unqualified in anything. Another reason why thinker Charles should have been very wary. They just were not alike.

It’s interesting that it was the Spencers and the Queen Mother who were allegedly keen on the match with Charles. Maybe they were behaving more like aristocratic families and looking for a “good” marriage for Charles and Diana rather than looking further forwards to whether she would make a good Queen or not. A bit short sighted maybe 🤷‍♀️

auto carrot added apostrophe. Grrr

It seems that the Spencers, QEQM and the royal family were firmly in 'aristocratic gel's future is to make a good marriage' - and what was a better marriage than one to a future king? Diana didn't need an education, her future was either an aristocratic marriage or if she married Charles, to be a smiling supportive adjunct to his work (as the QM had been to George VI and Prince Philip was to HM) and a bearer of heirs. They all seem to have based their ideas about marriage on what happened to aristocratic girls in the Edwardian era - QEQM especially, but then, she WAS an Edwardian.

To do the RF justice, they do appear to have learned from that with subsequent royal marriages. (apart from checking for temperament with Sarah Ferguson, but then she started well).

So a form of prostitution? Made sense when women were literally chattels legally. But for it to still be happening in Britain within my lifetime is awful.

Marriage has been a form of prostitution (or economic exploitation) in most societies for most of history, and still is in many places. The notable developments in women’s rights and changing expectations of marriage have been a notable development in western societies in the past 100 years or so.

@Serenster I know prostitution has been an element of marriage in many poor countries and historically.
But I am older and British. No one I knew married as a form of prostitution. We either made our own money or were given family money. I got married at 25 as was common then. My mother would have been horrified if my marriage had been a form of prostitution. Her marriage was not either.

The aristocracy seem incredibly behind the times with rampant misogyny.

They certainly are.

Marriage remains a legal contract, regardless of the changes in societal expectations.

An alternative viewpoint is that marriage provided protection for women and children in many societies throughout history.

Yes of course marriage is a legal contract. I am as I said married, and not stupid.

It means inheritance is easier process when one of us dies, it gives us certain protections in dealing with authority if one of us is seriously ill. And if you have children it means you automatically both have legal responsibility for your child. It also means if you split assets are often fifty/fifty split.

It does not mean that I have to marry so I have money to live my life. That is a form of prostitution. And both ,myself and my mother had higher expectations than that.

Of course they were looking for a 'good' marriage. And at that point in time , there was no reason that she she shouldn't have made a 'good' queen. But whether they got on, and sustain a happy enough partnership, that was overlooked. And since she had to be publicly seen to be a virgin, be a protestant, and a nob, she was perfect..

There may be many reasons why marriages are made for money as pp said. It’s a bit sneery and dismissive of other women and their experiences to class it as a form of prostitution. There must be many examples of women who have made advantageous marriages who have happy and fulfilled lives, just as there are many who have not. Just because it isn’t for you (or me for that matter) doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work

I loved that memoir. It paints such a picture of the princesses' lives and how she longed to be part of them. Poor lonely girl.

That's a very important point!

It does not mean that I have to marry so I have money to live my life. That is a form of prostitution. And both ,myself and my mother had higher expectations than that.

Now you have, yes: but for centuries the bargain was that in marriage, a man gave a woman social status, financial protection and a roof over her head and in return she slept with him, bore his children, ran his household and looked after him.

Society sustained this system by routinely downgrading female work, paying it less and thus making it very difficult for women to support themselves by their own efforts.

The nature of the contract and how it was fulfilled differed according to class and circumstances, but that was the basis on which marriage operated.

I think it's obvious that for 100s of years daughters of the aristocracy were hoped to / cajoled into / forced to make advantageous marriages. Even since Diana things have changed in the RF. I think KC ( PoW at the time) was under tremendous pressure to make a "suitable" marriage. & being a prince must add a bit of fairy dust to a chap and add to his attractiveness. Let's not forget Camilla chose APW initially , apparently he was very charismatic at the time. I suspect Grandma Fermoy was delighted at the match.

To go back to the book , I think CS does come over as snippy towards the RF - but as I referenced before - she put the Spencers on the global map. Had he been more reflective on his recollections of KC , and indeed the tabloids , it would have mede a better book. To me he comes across asv a bit score-settling. Now KC issued a statement about remembrances and grief - that's one thing - he won't get into disputing every detail. Piers Morgan on the other hand if he has his gander up and genuinely thinks right is on his side - different matter.

I've heard nothing about the PRH PM thing since the initial pulping request . Have I missed something or has it all gone quiet?

I don’t think you have missed anything. Presumably the legal cogs are turning slowly as always. If PM thinks he has a case, then I suppose he knows better than to keep shooting his mouth off in public

Yes, and another young woman bearing the knowledge that her sex was a disappointment to her parents. Had she been a boy, she would have been the Duke of Norfolk.

Her diaries do support the oft-stated notion that the late Queen was not seriously interested in any man other than Philip. I had never heard from any source other than CS that Johnny Spencer had a romantic connection to the late Queen. That does not mean that he didn't have ambitions in that direction, and some sources say that the late QM in particular wanted Elizabeth to marry a British aristocrat, so who knows for sure? It would have created some issues around the earldom, however, with the first born son of Elizabeth inheriting the crown and the earldom.

Interestingly, according to Lady Anne Glenconner's first memoir (another fascinating read), she and Johnnie Spencer had an "understanding" and were on the the verge of formal engagement, but his father objected (saying mental health issues ran in the Coke family or some such) and then Lady Fermoy managed to put Frances in his path.

The story about Johnnie Spencer’s father putting the brakes on his engagement to Anne adds another dimension to the story about him and the then Princess Elizabeth.

The distant cousins (that he used language about that would be deemed very offensive today!) he was objecting to in the Coke family were Nerissa ans Katherine Bowes-Lyons, who were first cousins of the then Princess Elizabeth.

I wonder if his objection would have remained if there was a chance of his son being consort to the next Queen… I think probably not.

Does anyone remember Lady Glenconner on the Graham Norton Show? She was wonderful.

I was at university in the 90s in the UK and there were plenty of young women mostly from very posh public schools who openly said they only came to university to find a husband.

I have read that it was based on the plans for QMs funeral. Editors of the major newspapers make sense.

Piers Morgan agrees with CS that he was invited, and CS phoned to tell him.not to come. CS writes that PM was bad tempered about it, PM said it was a civil conversation and when he heard the family didn't want him to come he agreed.

PM also said that in the year or so before Diana's death they had lunch fairly regularly, so.he saw her more than CS did...

What was with the fancy "Q" for Queen with the type? Eurgh.