Prince William by Penny Junor

Charles sank into ever deeper depression, mystified by Diana’s mood swings and his inability to make her happy, she embarked on a series of love affairs which were each as unfulfilling as the last. Charles, meanwhile, started seeing those friends that he had ostracised at Diana’s insistence. Now back in the fold, they were deeply concerned about how their friend had changed in the intervening years, and feared he might be close to thoughts of self-destruction. He had said nothing about the difficulties of his relationship and had been loyal to Diana to the nth degree, but they guessed that if anyone could help restore his spirits it would be Camilla, whose own marriage was less than fun, and Patty Palmer-Tomkinson put them in touch. Charles and Camilla had not seen each other to speak to since his engagement, except once, on the occasion when he gave her the famous bracelet, and theonly telephone call was with the news that Diana was pregnant.
    At first they wrote each other long letters, then there were phone calls and after several months they met at the house of their mutual friend; and eventually the relationship became physical. Camilla became his lifeline; she made his spirits soar, although it was a long climb back from the abyss. She was a sympathetic ear, someone who understood and cared about him – and crucially believed in him – and the only person to whom he felt he could speak openly and honestly without for a second doubting she would keep his trust. Yet there was a lightness in the friendship too, and an easiness; she was on the same wavelength, she had the same sense of humour, loved the same things and shared the same interests. Her marriage to Andrew was a sham; although she was deeply fond of him, and remains so, he had been unfaithful to her for years.
    Whatever Diana might have imagined, and whatever she accused her husband of when she spoke to Andrew Morton, Charles did not commit adultery, as he said to Jonathan Dimbleby, ‘until his marriage had broken down irretrievably’, and he did not sleep with Camilla on the night before his wedding, as Diana claimed he did. He may have weaknesses in his character, but Charles has never been dishonourable. If anything he has been too honest for his own good, unable to tell the white lie that would have harmed no one and prevented the emotional tsunami. He was racked with guilt about Camilla, little knowing about Diana’s own infidelities, which had begun years earlier.
    Once Diana realised that Camilla was back in the picture, she went into meltdown, and any pretence of proper married life became impossible. They could barely tolerate being in the same room as each other, let alone under the same roof, as everyone who worked for them was painfully aware. The curse of royalty is that there is no privacy and no clear distinction between work and play, public and private. There were blistering rows, tears and hysterics, rage and fury, all heard to some degree by everyone who was hapless enough to be in the house. Kensington Palace wassmall and badly soundproofed but not even the Cotswold stone walls at Highgrove were enough to keep the poison from pervading the house – and as time passed it was increasingly out in the open.
    Greeting one of his staff in full uniform one morning before setting off on a formal engagement, the Prince said, ‘You only have one medal. We’ll have to do something about that.’ Whereupon the Princess, following Charles down the stairs, said, ‘Yes, but at least he earned his.’
    Such moments were uncomfortable for everyone, but the sarcastic remarks weren’t reserved for the Prince. Members of the Household often found themselves in the firing line too. As one of them said, ‘I would have given up all the flowers, all the niceness if only we could have avoided the sheer bloody-minded sarcasm, the silences, and sending to Coventry that went with it.’
    It was a lottery what