Written Out of History: As our Poll Reveals a Majority Still Don't Want Queen Camilla, a Historian Says There's Been a Cynical Establishment Conspiracy - Led by the Royals
- Mail ComRes poll shows 55 per cent do not want Camilla to become Queen
- Prince Charles and Camilla's marriage was deeply controversial at the time. Camilla was booed
- Lots of people still have reservations - and not all of them are Diana fans
- 'She has a face that cracked 1,000 mirrors’.
- 55 per cent of those polled believe Diana would have made a better Queen
Daily Mail UK, 12 April 2015
This week ushered in the low-key tenth anniversary of the Prince of Wales’s second marriage to his divorced mistress Camilla Parker Bowles (above)
This week ushered in the low-key tenth anniversary of the Prince of Wales’s second marriage to his divorced mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, who elected to call herself Duchess of Cornwall rather than Princess of Wales, the title held by Charles’s hugely popular and late lamented first wife, Diana.
The heir to the throne’s second union, eight years after Diana’s death at the age of 36 in a car accident in Paris, proved deeply controversial at the time.
On the day of the ceremony, feelings were running high, and Camilla had the misfortune to become the first royal bride to be booed in the streets since Henry VIII elevated his mistress, Anne Boleyn, to the Queen Consort’s throne in 1533.
Women especially remembered Diana’s caustic comment in her fateful BBC TV Panorama interview in 1995 —
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‘Well there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded’ — and found it impossible to forgive Charles’s mistress for the damage they judged her to have caused.
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Antipathy to Camilla was still in evidence two years later when Clarence House, in one of the most preposterous misjudgments of Charles’s advisers, announced that Camilla was to attend the memorial service to Diana, held at the Guards Chapel in London on the tenth anniversary of her death.
Outraged public objections instantly erupted to the effect that her presence would be grossly inappropriate. Camilla was forced into a humiliating public climb-down and issued a statement reversing her decision to attend.
We are now eight years further on, and time, and increasing public apathy, has inevitably blunted some of the more extreme emotions that existed in the wake of Diana’s untimely death.
Commentators have suggested that Camilla has now ‘won over’ a sceptical and hostile nation, and there is no doubt that many more of the public have come round to the idea of her as a future Queen than the meagre seven per cent who were prepared to entertain the notion a decade ago.
Yet, if people have gradually grown accustomed to the presence of Camilla in public life, and even to her strange taste for monumental millinery, there are still countless numbers who have reservations — and not all of them are necessarily Diana diehards.
The heir to the throne’s second union proved deeply controversial at the time. On the day of their wedding ceremony, feelings were running high and Camilla was booed in the streets
Camilla and Charles are pictured with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at The Queens Banquet for the Commonwealths Heads of Government in Uganda in 2007
Some of the online comments following newspaper articles this week on the 10th anniversary of her marriage to Charles were extraordinarily vitriolic.
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‘I can’t stand the sight of her,’ fumed one reader, while another lambasted her as ‘the face that cracked 1,000 mirrors’.
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A third refused to countenance the idea of Queen Camilla: ‘Queen Elizabeth is still very much alive, very active, and for everyone’s sake long may she live.’
Today’s ComRes poll for the Mail shows more than half of us — 55 per cent — are still opposed to Camilla becoming Queen, with just 32 per cent accepting that she should have the title, and the rest undecided.
Interestingly, 55 per cent of those polled believe Diana would have made a better Queen, and only 16 per cent opted for Camilla.
These intriguing figures reveal not only that a deeply felt antipathy towards Charles’s second wife still exists, but they also highlight the lasting appeal to the public — if not the Establishment — of Diana.
Of course, all fame is ephemeral and fades with time, and 18 years after her tragic demise in that Paris underpass, the once-global legend of Diana, Princess of Wales has inevitably diminished.
Women especially remembered Diana’s caustic comment in her fateful BBC TV Panorama interview in 1995 — ‘Well there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded’ — and found it impossible to forgive Charles’s mistress for the damage they judged her to have caused
When she was present on this Earth, whether as Queen-to-be and the world’s most beautiful fashion icon, or as an isolated and embattled ex-wife creating havoc for the Royal Family by some spectacular errors of judgment, Diana was an enduring and irresistible source of fascination to millions everywhere.
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Then, with shocking suddenness, she was gone, and the fall-out from her passing was seismic, plunging the British monarchy into the greatest crisis it had faced since the abdication of Edward VIII.
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For a time, the Diana legend mushroomed through the extraordinary worldwide reaction to her death, to her funeral, and to years of conspiracy theories about the cause of the crash that killed her, and whether it was really an accident or murder. The Diana Princess Of Wales Memorial Fund, which opened after her death with money that poured in from all over the world, raised an astonishing £138 million, all of it used to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged people in the UK and in other countries.
But after years of disastrous mismanagement by Establishment worthies, the Fund closed down as an operational entity at the end of 2012 and, the following March, Diana’s two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, took over its legal ownership.
One of Diana’s friends and a former trustee of the Fund, Vivienne Parry, said:
‘The view from politicians, the Royal Family and the Spencers was that the quicker Diana was forgotten, the better.’
The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in London’s Hyde Park, opened by the Queen in July, 2004, quickly deteriorated into a bedraggled and unsightly mess.
In the vivid description of the Mail’s Amanda Platell, it ‘looks like an industrial storm drain’. She recounted how a group of young Japanese tourists stopped her in Hyde Park to ask where the memorial to Diana was located, and were astonished to be told that they had just passed it without recognising it.
They appeared ‘shocked at the lack of respect’, she recalled, ‘and that our “famous Princess” should be honoured in such a way. Or rather, dishonoured’.
The few surviving memorials to Diana are now in a bad state of repair.
The Flame Of Liberty at the Pont de L’Alma in Paris, commemorating the scene of the accident in which she died, is now covered in scratches and the wall behind it is frequently daubed with graffiti.
Even her grave, on a tiny wooded island in the Oval Lake at Althorp, the Northamptonshire ancestral home of her Spencer family, was described by a recent visitor as looking ‘tatty’, with its memorial covered in moss, and the water surrounding it full of algae.
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Yet, if people have gradually grown accustomed to the presence of Camilla in public life, and even to her strange taste for monumental millinery, there are still countless numbers who have reservations
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For a long time, the best-known memorial to Diana was the hideously tasteless display erected inside the London store Harrods by Mohamed Al Fayed in 1998, consisting of photographs of Diana with his son Dodi (who also died in the Paris crash) behind a pyramid-shaped structure that held a wine glass smudged with Diana’s lipstick from their last dinner together at the Ritz in Paris, as well as an engagement ring alleged to have been bought by Dodi on the day before they died.
A second memorial erected in Harrods by Al Fayed in 2005, entitled Innocent Victims, showed Diana and Dodi dancing together beneath the wings of an albatross. Both memorials remain in place despite rumours that the new Qatari owners of Harrods would remove them.
Evidence of the lack of respect for Diana’s brief life came in 2013 with the catastrophic failure of the movie, Diana, in which actress Naomi Watts played the Princess in a screenplay that focused on Diana’s affair with the handsome Pakistani heart surgeon, Hasnat Khan.
The film, dismissed as ‘car crash cinema’ by one critic, and by another as like ‘a two-hour Spitting Image sketch scripted by Jeffrey Archer’, bombed in the U.S., taking the derisory sum of £40,000 from initial screenings in 38 American cinemas. America’s long love affair with Diana appeared to be over.
And so the People’s Princess, in Tony Blair’s memorable description, became the forgotten Princess.
It seems that she has been deliberately written out of the script.
As the
PR agent Mark Borkowski observed, the Royal Firm has sidelined Diana as part of a slick rebranding exercise.
‘The emphasis is on the young Royals,’ he said. ‘Diana has been quietly airbrushed out.’
Some of the online comments following newspaper articles this week on the 10th anniversary of her marriage to Charles were extraordinarily vitriolic. Above, she is pictured in Adelaide in 2012
The Firm wants us to remember not Diana, but other Royals. A £2 million, 9ft 6in statue of the Queen Mother — the personal inspiration of Prince Charles — now dominates the Mall.
But Diana — the Queen who never was, except, as she once observed, ‘in people’s hearts’ — has no statue, no plaque and no dignified memorial to mark her ground-breaking achievement in transforming the face of the British monarchy by modernising and humanising the House of Windsor through her work with Aids sufferers, with the homeless, the vulnerable and with the victims of landmines.
If she had been alive today, Diana would have been characteristically involved in countless good causes. She would have been immensely proud of the inspirational work of her younger son, Prince Harry, in spearheading the hugely successful Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style event for injured and disabled ex-service personnel.
This showed the often much-criticised ‘playboy prince’ as a man with vision, compassion, flair and drive, every inch his mother’s son.
The one aspect of Diana’s life that has never been derided is her warmth and care as a mother.
Today’s ComRes poll for the Mail shows more than half of us — 55 per cent — are still opposed to Camilla becoming Queen. Above, Camilla is pictured in a pub in 2014
In an address he wrote himself for her memorial service on the tenth anniversary of her death, Harry called her ‘the best mother in the world... When she was alive we completely took for granted her unrivalled love of life, laughter, fun and folly.
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‘She was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love for us to go unspoken or undemonstrated.’
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Shortly before that service, on what would have been their mother’s 46th birthday, Harry and William organised and hosted the Concert For Diana at Wembley Stadium, with many of the world’s most famous entertainers performing, including Elton John, Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, Will Young, Donny Osmond and Jason Donovan. All proceeds went to charity.
When Harry came to set up his Aids charity for sick and vulnerable children in Lesotho, he called it Sentebale — meaning ‘forget me not’ — in memory of his mother.
Time has a curious way of correcting historical injustice. Diana, robbed of her rightful recognition by a vengeful Establishment, has the most secure of memorials in the hearts of her two loving sons
And William, at the time of his engagement to Catherine Middleton, referred significantly to ‘the mistakes of the past’ from which it was necessary to ‘learn lessons’.
Then he proceeded to touch the hearts of watching millions around the world by explaining that his decision to give Kate his late mother’s sapphire and diamond engagement ring was ‘my way of making sure that my mother didn’t miss out on today and the excitement and the fact that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together’.
As the Queen turns 89 on April 21, and in September will break Victoria’s record as the longest-reigning British sovereign, the potential reign of the future Charles III becomes ever briefer.
When, at last, he does succeed to his mother’s throne, there is little doubt that his second wife will become Queen, and not Princess Consort, the sop originally fed to a gullible public by Charles’s advisers as a means of countering opposition to the marriage.
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Consequently, a future Archbishop of Canterbury will have to walk the ecclesiastical tightrope of crowning and anointing a Queen Consort who broke her own marriage vows and helped her present husband to break his.
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If the Primate adheres to tradition, and utters the words used for the coronation of the Queen Mother, he will be obliged to say ‘that by the powerful and mild influence of her piety and virtue, she may adorn the high dignity which she hath obtained’.
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Time has a curious way of correcting historical injustice. Diana, robbed of her rightful recognition by a vengeful Establishment, has the most secure of memorials in the hearts of her two loving sons.
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And when her eldest comes to the throne as King William V, I have no doubt that his mother’s legacy will at last be restored, and her true contribution to the British monarchy properly honoured.
RELATED:
Prince Charles' School hit by Claims of Child Sex Abuse Including Allegation a 12-year-old Girl was Raped by Teacher on Camping Trip
- Former pupils of Gordonstoun school, where Prince Charles was once a pupil, have claimed they were victims of historic sexual abuse in the 1980s
- A woman claims she was raped at the age of 12 while on a camping trip
- Man alleges he was sexually abused as a boy after being given painkillers
- Historic claims of sexual abuse are difficult to prosecute in Scotland because of the corroboration principle, requiring two forms of evidence
Daily Mail UK, 12 April 2015
It was described by the heir to the throne as 'Colditz in kilts', and has become as well known for its famous alumni as its notoriously strict regime.
Now Gordonstoun, the £32,00-a-year Scottish public school where the Queen's sons and children of Sean Connery and David Bowie were educated, has become embroiled in allegations of historical sex abuse.
Former pupils have spoken of a number of incidents at Aberlour House, the preparatory school that was part of Gordonstoun in Moray in Scotland. These included the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl and a boy who was molested by his teacher.
Former pupils of Gordonstoun in Scotland have claimed they were raped and abused by teachers there
But the perpetrators appear to have so far gone unpunished because of Scotland's 'corroboration principle' which means allegations have to be verified by two separate forms of evidence - making prosecutions for sexual assault and domestic abuse notoriously difficult.
Prince Charles reportedly hated his time at Gordonstoun, frequently being bullied because he was heir to the throne.
He was apparently put in a basket and left naked under a cold shower as part of an initiation ceremony at the age of just 13, and often wrote home to explain how he hardly got any sleep because he was often hit in the night.
Writer and novelist William Boyd, who was a pupil at the school at the same time as Prince Charles in the 1960s, likened it to 'penal servitude.'
Pupils at Gordonstoun School do physical training on an obstacle course
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SCOTLAND'S UNIQUE LEGAL PRINCIPLE OF CORROBORATION
The principle of corroboration is a cornerstone of Scottish law, and requires two independent sources for every piece of evidence.
This can be from two witnesses or be supported by forensic or historic evidence.
For rape cases this means that there would need to be two forms of evidence to prove penetration had taken place, there was no consent, and the perpetrator understood there was no intent. This makes historical allegations particularly difficult to prosecute.
It is believed to discourage victims of sexual and domestic assault from coming forward because of the difficulty in proving crimes.
Scotland has one of the lowers rape conviction rates in Europe.
Figures released by the Crown Office of Scotland revealed around 60 per cent of domestic abuse complaints go no further.
Scotland also does not allow pre-recorded evidence to be taken, a measure which can encourage victims to come forward.
If the offences had taken place in England, not only would only one witness be needed but victims would also be able to sue for compensation in the civil courts.
In 2010 Lord Calloway was appointed to do a review of Scots Law and he suggested the principle of corroboration should be abolished. This has been supported by campaigners for victims of domestic violence and rape.
However abolishing the principle has been opposed by the legal establishment over fears it could make investigations less rigorous
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An investigation has uncovered claims of sexual abuse including the rape of a 12-year-old at the school, renowned for its strict discipline.
The woman, known by the name 'Kate', had gone to the school on a scholarship and claims she was attacked by the male teacher during a camping trip.
The woman said the incident took place in 1990 when the teacher in charge of the trip to the Scottish Highlands said they were one tent short and she would have to share with him.
She then found herself being touched then raped by the teacher.
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'I didn't know what to do,' she said. 'I didn't do anything. I was terrified. I don't remember much but the pain, on my cervix...He wore a condom.
'What kind of man takes a packet of condoms on a school camping trip?'
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After the incident Kate contemplated suicide as she struggled to tell anyone what had happened to her.
What followed was years of abuse by her peers only for 'Kate' to discover another pupil had also been abused by the teacher and, she believes, had been in a relationship with him.
In 2013 Kate attempted to bring him to justice by making a formal complaint to police, who investigated and arrested the teacher.
Police Scotland uncovered a number of witnesses - including the other girl who was regularly abused by the teacher.
However the case was dropped when it became clear this girl could not give evidence and Jane's case fell foul of the principle of corroboration.
She was bitterly disappointed and now in her 40s, and with her own children, she is still dealing with the rape.
Another former pupil at Aberlour claimed he was assaulted by Derek Jones, a teacher in charge of English and the school photography club.
The man claimed that in 1990, then in his final year at Aberlour before he was due to go to Gordonstoun, he was talking to Jones about a rugby injury. After Jones offered to give him some 'secret' but extra strong painkillers, the man claims the teacher fondled and then took naked photos of him.
He remembered trying to struggle against the teacher, while under the effect of the painkillers.
John, then 12, tried to confront Jones with a friend but the teacher refused to give up his camera film. When he told his parents they went to Gordonstoun officials, who investigated the incident and referred it to Police Scotland.
Jones was sacked and John's parents were encouraged not to prosecute the teacher and received a promise from Gordonstoun that he would never teach anywhere again.
In 2014 John, now 37, decided to go to the police about the assault only to find that Jones had been able to teach again in Essex and Kenya - despite assurances from Gordonstoun.
However he could not be brought to justice because he had died in a car crash in Kenya five years later.
Jones is one of a number of teachers involved in historic sexual abuse allegations at the school.
Gordonstoun was home to a number of royal pupils, including a young Prince Philip, pictured batting for the school in 1939 (top) and Prince Charles, who is seen returning to London from the summer term in 1963
Prince Edward (top) was head boy at Gordonstoun in 1982 while Prince Andrew was a pupil in 1978
In 2013 former pupils started a private Facebook group discussing things that happened at the school which are not publicised. Discussions included rapes of boys and girls and eventually attracted more than 100 pupils.
A Gordonstoun spokeswoman said the school was 'shocked' and 'saddened' when it first became aware of the allegations, initially finding out through Facebook. These were reported to police and the school is firmly committed to making sure children are happy, healthy and safe.
She said: 'Cases of historic abuse must be unimaginably distressing to the victims and their families and it is absolutely right that any allegation of abuse is thoroughly investigated. If any former student of either Gordonstoun or Aberlour House feels they were the victim of abuse we would be very concerned for them and would advise them to go to the police. We will continue to provide the police with our full support in any investigation.
We were extremely saddened to learn of the abuse allegedly suffered by the woman identified as “Kate”. We have given the investigating police full and unrestricted access to the limited archive records we hold for Aberlour House. We were surprised and disappointed that her case did not go to court and remain available to assist future investigations.'
In 1998 Kevin Lomas, a former teacher at Gordonstoun in the 1980s, was jailed for sexual offences against young girls at a tutoring school in Oxfordshire.
During his teaching years at Gordonstoun he had become known for his inappropriate behaviour.
The spokeswoman added that the school achieved a 'very good' rating for its child protection procedures at the latest inspection in January 2015.
Last year Gordonstoun maths teacher Samuel Henley admitted having child pornography on his computer. The 32-year-old was sacked from the school after images of naked boys as young as eight engaging in sexual acts were discovered on his computer.
One of the pictures was headlined 'sweet boys kissing' and included images of 10 to 12-year-old boys engaging in sexual activity. There were also videos on the computer of young teenage boys performing sex acts on one another.
None of the children involved are believed to have been students at the 600-pupil Scottish campus.
As well as Prince Charles, Gordonstoun boasts a number of famous alumni including Prince Phillip, Prince Andrew and Zara Phillips.
When Prince Charles was a pupil smoking was a caning offence, while drinking could result in expulsion.
Gordonstoun, pictured in 1962, was launched by Dr Kurt Hahn in 1934 and Aberloun was found in 1936
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THE SCHOOL WITH A HISTORY OF ROYAL ALUMNI AND STRICT RULES
Gordonstoun was founded in 1934 by Dr Kurt Hahn
Dr Hahn had fled Germany in 1933 and initially started a school with three pupils
The next year pupil numbers increased and he signed a lease with the Gordon-Cumming family for the Gordonstoun estate.
In 1936 Hahn founded Aberloun, the preparatory school for Gordonstoun to cater for children from the age of seven. The two sites merged in 2004.
In the 1970s children were subjected to freezing cold dormitories with no central heating and were often left shivering with windows left open.
Historically it was known for its cold showers and early morning runs, as well as punishments where pupils were forced to run around their houses. Challenging outdoor activities are still practised.
Today the school sits in 200 acres in Scotland and has primary and secondary facilities
It is one of the last remaining full boarding schools, and houses 600 male and female pupils
Prince Charles was a pupil at the school in the 1960s
Other royal alumni include Prince Edward, who was head boy in 1982, and Zara Phillips
Prince Andrew went to the school in the 1970s and became known for his hockey skills
Prince Philip also went to Gordonstoun in the 1930s.
Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter went to the school, along with the sons of Sean Connery and David Bowie.
Prince Andrew is pictured with the Queen and Prince Philip on his arrival at Gordonstoun School in Elgin
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