A Decade...

I was sitting here thinking of what to write---I had the Marie Antoinette things laid out, and then I grabbed a book about ladies in waiting---but then remembered, its been a decade. And since its been ten years since her death, I'd be a terrible Writer of Queens if I didn't remember this beautiful woman, the woman we remember as Queen of our Hearts--Diana.

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We now know that when this picture was taken, at Highgrove--the family's country home--that Diana was simply miserable. There were many times she cried in the loo, or a locked room---and little William would pass her tissues under the door. Diana has said for all intents and purposes the marriage was over after the birth of Harry, yet---they still posed for pictures, still tried to be the happy family---at least to the world.

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It was at about this time that Diana began spending long, long stretches of time in their home in London, at Kensington Palace. Charles preferred Highgrove. Diana's sanctuary was her bedroom and sitting area, filled with her many stuffed animals...even a large hippo, which was placed by the fireplace. She and the kids loved to kick back, sit on the couch and watch movies, and eat on tray tables...they just had lots of fun. Those kids were everything to her and those children helped keep her sane. She had so many pressures that we cannot even imagine. Everyone was picking at her, everyone wanted a piece and she never knew who she could trust.

Her rooms were filled with all her favorite pictures of family---her sitting room had long, flowing chintzy drapes at the windows. There was a desk in there and couches...she loved it in there. That's where she entertained her children and friends---and even received her designers and secretary to discuss the days events--or look over clothing selections. The Diana in the above picture was just beginning to evolve into the Princess we knew in the 1990's.

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There is a new book out, which most of you probably have heard of by now--The Diana Chronicles. I have not read it myself, but will of course. But there are many, many others and I have read them all, even the very first one put out by Prince Charles's valet, back in the 1980's. Since then there's been so many tell alls---and they all paint a slightly different portrait. Andrew Morton's book has to been given serious credence, I think, because Diana herself was so involved in them. However, we are reading in there what Diana wanted us to know and not necessarily the whole unvarnished truth.

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One of the best books I've read, and it was very long and detailed, was the book written by Sally Bedell Smith. Diana's blue blood went back approximately 500 years---and being from a noble family, she knew her worth. There are the royals and the nobles. Diana was from a noble family. Some nobility have as much royal blood in them as the royals do. Smith went into that aspect of Diana's family history as well, and you come away with a better idea of what it felt like to be a Spencer. Being a Spencer was almost like being a---well, a Devonshire! The castles that the royals inhabit--Sandringham and Balmoral--- are much smaller and considered mere cottages as compared to Althorp House, the seat of the Spencers. And in the nobility circles---many of the royals now---well, let's just say they are considered "new" by noble standards...only being in the family 50 years or so. But of course, I say that with the deepest respect for the Crown. I'm just passing on what I've read. And Sally's book chronicles the marriage, and the behind the scenes machinations of both Diana's camp and Charles's, all the while letting you know what the average reader like us was hearing at the time...but what might have been really happening and why. And yes, this is the book where Sally says that Diana had a personality disorder. Oh, who will ever know, and do we even care at this point? Still, the book is packed with the most fascinating information and so, if you haven't studied her at all and are interested, I'd say try her book, "Diana". (I'll let you know about Royal Chronicles after I've read it.)

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I'd like to think that if she had lived---and oh, don't we wish she had!!---that she would've really come around and been comfortable in her own skin and a bit proud of her accomplishments. Her face would be lined a little more, but her smile still radiant. Her hair might have been a little shorter and looser---or maybe a little spikier in places and colored with light golden blond streaks, her make-up delicious, her skin still radiant, her gems brilliant. She'd be giving everyone a run for their money, and she would have been involved in so many charities and issues---she'd be jet setting all over the world on these missions. And I'm not saying she was a jet setter. But she would have been busy with important humanitarian issues--perhaps in a way that Angelina Jolie has sought to do. I think she would have spent much time abroad---in America, for one, because she was SO accepted in America. But enough of that. It appears her son's are doing much of this in their own quiet way.

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Did you know that Diana loved to clean and tidy? She was very good at it, too. She liked order. Before she married Prince Charles, her flat was immaculate. In later years she hated being alone--eating alone--sleeping alone. And she was alone a lot. She had her favorite close friends whom she'd phone and talk for hours and at the end of her life she even ventured into the kitchen to make a few dishes and she was quite proud of that. She was very good about writing thank-you's and she did them the minute she returned home from an event. She thanked everyone for what they did, no matter how small. She really was a lady in that way...and this was something instilled in her by her father..."Diana, have you finished your thank you's?" he'd

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It's been said that she was estranged from her mother at the time she died. I know that she adored her brother, but was hurt by him before she died---she had asked him for something---for a room or an area alone at Althorp--and he had declined saying that if she were to come, there would be her security to deal with and the press and he had turned her down, at least temporarily. Maybe he would have changed his mind and they would have worked that one out, but she died before they could. And there was some tension at times between she and a sister---her sister was married to one of the Queen's secretary's and so that sister probably heard things about Diana from a different vantage point and so it was hard for Diana to relax and be herself around that sister. But all in all, she loved her family. But--she was hurt. She felt she had no one to turn to--no one--that there was no where in the world she could go to get away and be by herself and be protected--no one to lean on. That's all she ever wanted...to be protected, and to have someone safe to lean on. She felt abandoned.

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And she may have been...abandoned...in a sense. You would never think of someone as beautiful as Diana as being alone. Lonely. Who could she trust? Who was really there for her?

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If she only knew how loved she really was....

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Hopefully, looking down now,(if she can) she is fully aware of the love there is for her, and she does not feel abandoned any longer.