This week we will be discussion Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words by Andrew Morton, Chapter 5-8.
Trigger Warning!!! This book contains disordered eating, spousal abuse, emotional abuse, divorce, attempted suicide, death, and self harm.
Discussion:
Michaela: Hello friends and welcome to our third discussion of Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words. This week we will be covering chapters 5 through 8.
While this is technically only 4 chapters of the book it spans over an incredible amount of life events from 1985-1991. Since this book originally came out in 1991 the author, Andrew Morton, has actually updated the book to include references to events that have happened since the original publication which I really appreciate.
We start this section of the book in 1985 when someone new is now joining the Royal Family, Sarah Ferguson, also known as Fergie. She is Diana’s cousin and, at this point, meeting Prince Andrew who will later become her husband and then her ex-husband. It’s a very interesting kind of flip of the coin to what Diana experienced when she joined the family. Fergie seems to have been welcomed in with open arms and everyone loved her, whereas Diana was met with almost nothing.
Jacilyn: The comparisons between Diana and Fergie’s experiences with the Royal family are rather confusing to me. Fergie, according to Morton, enters the scene as a sort of wild child, all jokes and fun, but she notably does incredibly well at Balmoral, becoming accustomed to the various traditions and etiquette quickly. It seems like the family is quite fond of her, at least at the beginning. Then the press sours towards Fergie, and she becomes increasingly disillusioned with her marriage and position. Diana, on the other hand, enters the scene very demure and eager, but doesn’t adjust to the traditions, etiquette, and expectations as naturally as Fergie did. Diana seemed to show her fun side around Fergie and tried to emulate her in an attempt to rekindle a relationship with her husband, only to be told she was behaving in an unseemly manner. It just goes to show that there’s no one way to gain the admiration of the Royal family.
I have to say, I was a bit wary of the way that Morton described Fergie later on in this section, in regards to her interest in New Age ideas and mysticism. I’m sure there’s some truth to his descriptions, but we also know that Morton tends to paint Diana in a positive light, even when commenting on any flaws. I don’t have anything to back this suspicion up, but as I was reading I couldn’t help but feel like Morton was writing about Fergie in a way that creates a direct comparison between the two, to Diana’s benefit. We read about some really charming moments between the two women (like using an umbrella to poke butts) and although their relationship fluctuated over the years, I imagine much of that was caused by the institution and less the women themselves.
Michaela: I found it interesting and uncalled for how negative Morton was about Fergie using New Age practices while admiring Diana for the same thing. It’s just another example how this book is incredibly biased towards Diana, which to be fair does make sense since she was directly involved. The farther we get in the book the more annoyed I am at Morton’s writing. He holds Diana on this gold pedestal and skips over a lot of her flaws that we know she actually did talk about because it's in the transcript excerpts at the beginning of the book. He also holds her to that pedestal except apparently with her bulimia, that he feels it's totally fine to dig at her weight earlier in the book. His writing biases are just very confusing to me.
Charles asking Diana “why can’t you be more like Fergie?” is just so toxic and emotionally abusive, honestly. How horrible that must have been to basically be told ‘hey why don’t you act like this person who is very similar to how you used to be before my family and I traumatized you and minimized your personality’. Like what even is happening here? However, I am glad that Diana and Fergie had a friendly relationship together for a while and got to have some fun. I would assume that their relationship between the two women became strained because of the comments from the royal family but also Fergie probably also went into her own depressive state like Diana did, and isolated herself to deal with this family.
Jacilyn: Charles did a similar thing as Morton - he praised qualities he saw in Fergie, and belittled Diana for those same qualities. I thought the context Morton gave in chapter 8 regarding members of the Royal family marrying “commoners” was really helpful in understanding what happened with Diana and Fergie, and it all fits in to Diana’s opinions on the institution being outdated as well. Marriage to people outside of royal blood was relatively new when Diana and Charles got married, and the monarchy had certainly not yet evolved to a point where assimilation was easily attainable. In spite of Morton’s suggestion that Queen Elizabeth spending time with Kate Middleton is evidence of a significant shift in the Royal ethos, it is painfully clear with the retirement of Harry and Meghan that the expectations and culture of the family is much the same as it once was. I haven’t yet watched the entire interview with Harry and Meghan, but the snippets I’ve heard have mirrored many of Diana’s struggles. I did enjoy that eventually, the Queen and Diana would discuss Charles and attempt to prevent him from making a fool out of himself. Even at the end of her time as Princess of Wales, Diana didn’t want to disappoint her.
Morton also paints Charles in an exceedingly bad light. He was clearly no saint, but I think it’s pretty common knowledge that Charles loved William and Harry fiercely. He was abusive towards Diana in many ways, and the way he was raised doesn’t excuse those actions, but it does help explain *some* of his behaviors, particularly in the way he interacts with his children. In comparison to the way the Queen raised Charles, he was a significantly better parent. This is another one of those areas where Morton skews things in a certain light, with the goal of making Diana seem the “good guy” in this situation. Frankly, I don’t think Charles needs Morton’s skewed recounting to be seen as the one to blame in the deterioration of their marriage. The way he treated Diana was abusive, and people could see how Diana would change when Charles was around after their effective separation began. She became more withdrawn and meek, less sure of her own intelligence and worth. Not to mention the fact that Charles came into the relationship madly in love with another woman. It was doomed from the beginning.
Michaela: There are some things that have changed in the institution that is the Royal family, many of which have only been after Diana’s death. But it's clearly not enough, resulting in Harry and Meghan’s departure, and also how parallel Diana and Meghan’s experiences seem to have been.
Another complaint about Morton I have, or at least something I found confusing, is that he states that every royal marriage between a royal and a “commoner” has ended in divorce besides the Queen, Queen Mother, and Prince William. However, the Queen’s husband, Prince Phillip was actually a prince before he married Queen Elizabeth, I believe he was born as 6th in line for the Greek throne. He later renounced his Greek royal title. His history is a little complicated and pretty sad but he definitely was not a “commoner” as Morton seems to imply, at least not in the same way as Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle were. I suppose this one thing is me being really knit-picky with Morton’s writing but it's just another thing on my list of reasons to take things in this book with a grain of salt.
Charles was definitely more involved as a parent than his own were which seems to have been a common thing between him and Diana. Neither of them wanted their children to have the same kind of childhood they had. However, Charles still suffers from not understanding how parenting works all the time because he still doesn’t like showing any like gushy fatherliness in public. And then the whole William head surgery situation where he just goes off to an opera when his son is having surgery. I don’t think it matters how minor the surgery may have been, I find it really concerning how detached he was from that whole thing. I think Morton skews the book so harshly against Charles because at the time this book comes out there isn’t a whole lot of realistic insight into the marriage between Charles and Diana. The general public would not have known most of what we learn in the book because the press at this time was scrutinizing every little thing Diana was doing, particularly claiming she was having affairs with any man she was friends with. So by skewing it so much it really throws everything around 180 degrees.
Which speaking of can we talk about how Charles and Camilla weren’t exactly being covert with their affair but literally every single thing Diana did was ‘she’s having an affair with this man’ then ‘wait no now it's this man’. I understand the public’s fascination with her as a Princess and as a person but what I don’t understand is why the press attacked her so much. Maybe it’s because she actually wasn’t the dramatic person they needed for headlines so they just made it all up. But then that is so screwed up and disgusting. It baffles me.
Jacilyn: I actually made a note as I was reading about how the press NEVER covers anything about Charles and Camilla when they really weren’t being all that careful. I think there are a lot of factors to this, one of which is the fact that Charles is, quite frankly, rather boring. He was just more of the same ol’ same ol’ in the eyes of the press, so I don’t think they really paid too much attention. Then, of course, there’s also the systemic misogyny of it all. The relationship Diana had with the press was so hot and cold, too. At times they loved her, at times they said horrible things, but I think what stayed the same over the years was that she appealed to the masses in a way that no other member of the Royal family did. She truly was the People’s Princess. I didn’t understand that title until I listened to You’re Wrong About, but I understand it even more so now that we’ve started this book. I honestly kind of feel bad that Diana wasn’t able to have a comfortable long-term affair with James Gilbey out of the spotlight like Charles was allowed to with Camilla.
I thought that Diana’s ascendance into herself was beautiful. Like most people, it wasn’t without struggle, but it seems like Diana was really just a genuine person and once she gained more confidence in herself and addressed Camilla directly, she held her own in spite of the barriers put in her way. I loved the section about Diana’s interaction with people in hospitals. The connections she made with people who were hurting probably meant more than she could even comprehend. The kind of empathy and comfort she showed people was incredible. I particularly loved reading about her friendship with Adrian and Angela. When it came to them, they were the priority, no matter what. The fact that she drove herself 600 miles through the night to be with Adrian as he passed, the way she took care of Angela while she grieved, and most of all, how Diana brought Harry and William to visit with him. When I read that William asked Diana “If Adrian starts to die when I’m at school will you tell me so I can be there?” I started blubbering with tears. I think it was wonderful that she never sheltered the boys from these things. I imagine that being raised in this way would help foster a lot of empathy. Of particular note is the fact that Adrian was dying of AIDS, in a time when AIDS was incredibly stigmatized. Diana’s work with AIDS honestly shocked me when I learned of it, because it is still a stigmatized condition now.
Michaela: Charles truly does seem like he was a very boring person to follow for the press. But even when they did report on him and Camilla it was always his “close friend” kind of thing. It's absolutely ridiculous. It really is based in sexism and a misogynistic society but just makes me more angry about it.
It seems like Diana hit this point where she realized that no matter how good she was at her job and no matter how she cried out for help, she would never get the love and support she needed from her husband. Also, during a horrific accident involving an avalanche where they lost a close friend, she took charge of the situation and realized that she was actually very skilled in handling difficult and emotional situations. Then that peak and those events spurred her to be that support and love for herself. Then her friend, Carolyn Bartholomew, pushed her to get help for her bulimia. However, her method of this was pretty questionable. Threatening Diana with the press was pretty harsh and kind of below the belt. But then Diana found a therapist that finally told her it wasn’t her fault and that her struggles were in fact a symptom and not the problem. From that point forward she really began to blossom, still struggling with mental illness along the way, but she was going up in spite of it. It’s such a beautiful development, she was finally becoming the person she felt comfortable and confident being.
Diana did a very, seemingly simple thing that then changed the course of how the world would view people with AIDS, she just cared and touched someone. Literally by being genuinely herself, she changed history with the stigma of the AIDS crisis. Maybe the attitude towards AIDS would have changed at some point anyways but Diana was someone who was Royal, a person held above the rest of us, who physically touched a patient. This was just unheard of because the fear at the time was that just touching someone with AIDS would transmit it. But even beyond that event she continued to work towards awareness of the disease and those who suffered from it. Also, different occasions where she visited hostels, hospitals, facilities, etc. in secret just to do something nice and not for the photo op like so many others would have done. It's truly beautiful.
Diana and her friendship with Adrian and Angela was just so moving and then with William’s understanding of what was happening. I can’t handle how amazing that is as parenting and helping your son, who has an enormous amount of responsibility on his shoulders, to understand the world outside of the Royal institutional cage. It’s pretty clear that William was far beyond his age when it came to emotional responsibility, which Morton touches on with William’s protective nature with his mother. William comforted and defended Diana after a fight with Charles. Which is both really sad that such a young boy would feel the need to do that and very beautiful that he has such an amazing soul that he understood what she needed in that moment.
Morton wrote that Diana thought the family “were caught in an emotional time warp without the necessary vision to appreciate the changes that have taken place in society” and I really think she hit the nail on the head there. They are so out of touch with what it's like to be a person that they can’t even fathom why what Diana was doing was so important. Which is why Charles ends up being jealous of Diana and them competing with their work, Charles cannot understand that Diana is successful because she actually cares and shows it. I think it just does not compute with that family that what people truly want is to see them as human. For hundreds of years it would have been dangerous for the Royals to appear anything less than divinely chosen, but in our world today what people crave is relatability and genuineness. Which can almost fully explain the People’s Princess obsession.
Jacilyn: I don’t like the strategy that Carolyn used to address Diana’s bulimia at all, but I am glad that it worked. It really touched me that Diana was so happy to know that she wasn’t alone in her eating disorder after reading the books her therapist suggested. In my own struggles with disordered eating, internalized fatphobia, and even my mental health, knowing that there are others who can relate to your struggles honestly makes a huge difference. Diana was alone in so many ways at that time, but she needn’t be alone in her recovery. I wouldn’t be surprised if that realization helped motivate her work with AIDS - she recognized that no one deserved to be alone during their suffering.
This has been a hefty section, friends! There’s so many things we could talk about, but we’re going to leave it here. Let us know what you think about Morton’s portrayal of Fergie and Charles! We’re particularly interested in other people’s interpretations there. Until next time - happy reading!
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