Ame

They wanted to leave but with a specific goal in mind and released the statement to force the BRF to give into their demands. I find their behaviour very offensive. How can they “fully support HMQ” & “honour our duty to the Queen” when they didn’t even deign to tell her they were doing this...? How can they be “financially independent” whilst still accepting huge 💰from the Duchy of Cornwall, set up to support heirs to the British throne? It wouldn’t hurt them if they waited a month/weeks to finalize plans that can accommodate their wishes while be supported by the BRF, this looks like a pre-emptive strike - setting out their stall to gain public support in advance. I feel like a lot of people are rewriting Harry‘s history here... He is also the same guy who once wore a Nazi uniform as a joke, compared firing missiles to a video game & used racial slurs to describe a fellow soldier. So maybe he’s not just that good at seeing consequences of his actions? I am also confused about the insistence that racist press coverage had anything to do with M&H's decision or, more importantly, bad coverage will be reduced due to their decision. If anyone thinks this is a winning move to "get one over on mainstream press" they are hopelessly naïve. Also I think Camilla has been more hated, more vilified more bullied than H&M.

About Princess Margaret & Tony Armstrong-Jones February 26, 1960 Press Agency reports official engagement of Princess Margaret to Antony Armstrong-Jones. Staggering. March 10, 1960 I know Tony Armstrong-Jones a little. I taught him at Eton 12 years ago and found him intelligent and agreeable. At the end of one half, he gave me some not very good photos he secretly took of me in school as I held forth: I thought it a good joke. Since then I have seen him from time to time. But of course he has a past which needs living down. May 6, 1960 Princess Margaret’s wedding. A lovely sunny day. Superb seat in Abbey. See John Betjeman wandering about gazing up at details of architecture. Then the Royal Family. The Queen has a sulking Queen Victoria face throughout the entire service — not a ghost of a smile. Queen Mother, on the other hand, like a great golden pussycat, full of sad little smiles. Prince Philip full of funny jokes and a great pink flower in coat. August 3, 1961 Dinner party at my flat. Martin Gilliat [Queen Mother’s private secretary] stays behind to talk about Princess Margaret and Tony Armstrong-Jones. We agree that at the present time of economic difficulty, some gesture waiving the £50,000 to be spent on their new house in Kensington Palace is needed. Their popularity is lower than ever. Martin says John Griffin [Queen Mother’s press secretary] thinks I am the only person apart from Princess Margaret who has any influence on Tony. And Martin thinks it would be wise if I talked to Tony about this August 4, 1961 I telephone Tony to ask to see him. ‘It’s nothing awful, is it?’ he nervously enquires. I agree to see him before lunch at their present house in Kensington Palace. Wearing a check jacket, trousers, suede boots, no coat and huge spectacles. He is rather deaf from having been to his shooting school this morning in readiness for Balmoral. Leads me up to his bed-sitting room. The house is so small, he says, that ‘for the first time in my life, I have no room of my own except a bedroom’. Then Princess Margaret comes in, warm in her welcome. But she tiresomely interrupts everything Tony says. I launch into my set speech on the need for them to make some gesture towards the economic needs of the country, such as announcing that they have asked for the postponement of renovations to their larger KP house. This is not at all well received. With a shrug of her shoulders, the Princess whines: ‘We must have a roof over our heads.’And when, a few minutes later, I am alone again with Tony, he bursts out: ‘She has given 20 years of service to the country, works very hard indeed and deserves something in return.’ I don’t bother to point out that she is still only 30, and already receives £15,000 a year from the State for a far from heavy burden of public duties. Instead, Tony takes me to see the terrible tumbledown state of 1A, which the Ministry of Works has wantonly neglected. Inside it is no more than a ruin, with gaping holes in the floorboards. Agree with Tony that the public has no idea of the state of the place. He asks me to draft a letter for him to send to the Minister of Works. Rose duly wrote Tony’s letter for him, pointing out that regardless of who went to live at 1A, the Ministry would have to spend £50,000 to stop this ‘magnificent example of Wren architecture crumbling to ruins.’ The Commons subsequently approved a payout of £85,000. October 11, 1961 On the subject of Tony Armstrong-Jones’s peerage, Strutt tells me that Prince Philip was against it. Princess Margaret not only insisted, but made herself quite ill with rage when she learned that the peerage patent would not be ready in time for Tony to carry out an official engagement in Glasgow as Earl of Snowdon. Even though special measures were taken to speed up the patent, she had to bear this disappointment. Strutt thinks that Prince Philip is still interfering too much in official matters November 16, 1961 John Griffin [Queen Mother’s press secretary] to dine at the flat. He says the Household at Clarence House are very bored indeed with Tony. When drinks are being poured out, he expects this to be done for him by the Household, and so on. They are also much shocked by his extraordinary dress. June 20, 1962 Pam Berry [wife of Daily Telegraph owner Baron Hartwell] telephones, full of a story about Princess Margaret and Tony. Apparently, they tried to photograph the Chichester Festival Theatre, but were driven away by Laurence Olivier with rude cries of ‘No Press, No Press!’ December 13, 1971 Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe comes to dine. He tells me that at the State Banquet the other day at Buckingham Palace, Princess Margaret put out her tongue at him. When he raised his eyebrows in interrogation, she whined: ‘You voted against our money.’ December 22, 1971 Princess Margaret telephones to say how much she would like to come to my party. She is so exactly like Jeremy Thorpe’s imitation of her that I almost say: ‘For heaven’s sake, do stop clowning!’ February 8, 1978 Princess Margaret comes to my flat for a drink. We talk of learning languages. She says she does not know any German. ‘You see, my mother and father made the mistake of beginning my German lessons in 1939. As I determined during the war never to talk to a German again, I didn’t get very far.’ Taken from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6309087/Princess-Margaret-ill-rage-Philips-bid-block-peerage-writes-KENNETH-ROSE.html

Extracted from Who’s In, Who’s Out: The Journals Of Kenneth Rose Extracted from me 1, 1944-1979, edited by D.R. Thorpe November 26, 1969 I am invited to a large dinner party in the rue de Lota in Paris to meet the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I notice that most of the guests greet the Duchess as if she were Royal. After dinner, she sits in the main drawing room talking mostly to other women. The Duke, however, sits on a sofa in an alcove, and people are brought up to talk to him in the Royal fashion. When my turn comes, he keeps me talking for the rest of the evening. The first thing that strikes one is how tiny and shrunken he is. Standing, he leans heavily forward on a stick. But his head remains very handsome, in spite of a long upper lip, and he is dressed in an almost dandified fashion: his dinner jacket has vents at the back and he sports a red carnation. Throughout our talk, he drinks quite a lot of whisky, rather fussily demanding of the butler that it should be mixed exactly as he likes it. He also smokes, or rather plays with, a large cigar. Apparently, the sight of one eye has gone, as he seems to have difficulty in applying a match to the tip whenever it goes out. He has a somewhat staccato voice, with a slight Canadian accent. ‘Oh, yerse, oh yerse,’ he keeps saying. But what he really enjoys talking in is German. He is very proud of speaking it so fluently, and keeps interjecting, ‘Jawohl, jawohl’ in the course of our conversation. I gently lead him on to the subject of the Abdication, and he readily responds. On the refusal of the Government to make the Duchess of Windsor Her Royal Highness, the Duke says: ‘I served my country well for 17 years and all I got in return was a kick in the ass.’ I mention that I am seeing [former leader of the British Union of Fascists] Sir Oswald Mosley tomorrow. He tells me that they are friends and dine with each other. ‘He should have been Prime Minister, but it all went sour on him.’ The Duke tells me he is selling his house in the country because he can no longer garden in comfort. Not expecting to be taken seriously, he adds: ‘And another reason is that I am broke.’ At this point the Duchess bustles up, looking quite remarkable for her [73] years. She is smaller than I should have expected, but very trimmed and plucked and pressed, more like a woman of 40. She is dressed simply in pale blue, with a huge sapphire round her neck. She has a harsh voice, but great vivacity and friendliness. She says to the Duke in slightly bullying tones: ‘We must go, everyone is longing for you to go.’ A few more pleasantries, and they depart very regally, with much bowing and scraping all the way to the door. Thirty-three years after his Abdication, he is still very much a King in manner, and nobody takes the slightest liberty with him. January 14, 1970 Lunch with [Baron] Charles Tryon. When he was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse, he was warned that the Duke of Windsor would keep coming to him in order to screw more money out of the Royal Family — but that he was to harden his heart. January 29, 1972 Lunch with [ambassador] Christopher and Mary Soames at the British Embassy in Paris. Mary says that they are on very friendly terms with the Windsors and dine privately with each other about once a year. But they cannot really appear very much together in public, as Christopher, being the Queen’s representative, must always take precedence. In the evening, I go on to dine with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at their house in the Bois de Boulogne. I sign the visitors’ book, and am then shown into the drawing room. It is like stepping into a fairyland of fantastic luxury. Almost everything seems to be made of gold or crystal. There are wonderful carpets, exquisite gilt furniture, little tables covered with thickets of jewelled bric-a-brac. The only light comes from candles, which cast their golden haze from chandeliers and sconces. Two pictures dominate the room — one of the Duke in Garter Robes and another of Queen Mary. I am quite staggered by the Duchess’s appearance — the very slender figure of a schoolgirl and beautifully arranged auburn hair. She wears a very severe dark-blue dress with a bare back, two huge diamonds on her left breast. A third large diamond on one of her fingers that perhaps is a mistake, as it draws attention to her large hands. The Duke roars at me in his very strong American accent: ‘Why, Mr Albany himself [Albany was the name of Rose’s Sunday Telegraph column].’ He then personally takes me round, introducing me to the other guests. He takes me across to a large silver-framed photograph of the Emperor Hirohito, given to him the other day. The Duke says: ‘He came to see me. But he didn’t seem all there.’ We move off to dine next door. The room is again lit entirely by candles. There are two tables of eight or ten each, covered with gilt and silver objects, painted porcelain candlesticks, delightful flowers and porcelain-handled cutlery that is rather heavy and difficult to manage. Endless butlers and footmen, all in white ties. Throughout the meal, the Duchess catches their eye so that they may receive swiftly whispered instructions, perhaps even rebukes. The Duchess tells me a story of how her husband one day wanted to telephone the office of a new lawyer. He rang, and after inquiring who he was, the secretary said that her boss would ring back. But he did not do so, so the Duke tried again. Still the call was not returned. By now furious, the Duke made a third telephone call and absolutely insisted on talking to the lawyer. The secretary replied: ‘Do you really think I am going to believe that you are the Duke of Windsor with such an American accent?’ After the meal is over, the Duke obediently hobbles after the Duchess on his stick, and we all follow. At once, a man sits down at the piano and begins playing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and other antique melodies. A little pug dog called Diamond comes and sits on my lap, then jumps onto a pretty little sofa until the Duchess shouts at it across the room to get down. By now, it is 12.15 and the party begins to break up. I notice that all the women say goodbye to the Duchess with a kiss and a curtsy. February 24, 1972 Prince Eddie [now Duke of Kent] is interested to hear about my visit to the Windsors, but speaks bitterly of the Duke. ‘At the time of the Abdication, he treated even my father [Prince George, fourth son of King George V] badly — and he was his greatest friend.’ July 18, 1972 At 6pm to the Savoy for a drink with Noel Coward. Find him suffering from phlebitis and sitting rather mummified in an armchair wearing scarlet pyjamas. He never cared for the Duke of Windsor [who had died on May 28th]. ‘When he was Prince of Wales, I had to play the piano for him for hours on end while he learned the ukulele: it was a rough time. And the next day he would cut me in Asprey’s.’ November 1, 1972 At the Ritz to lunch with Oswald Mosley in a private suite. He tells me two stories about the Windsors. Although he was a fairly close friend of the Duke in the Twenties, he naturally saw little of him during his own Fascist phase. But during the Duke’s brief reign, [socialite] Emerald Cunard asked him to come and meet the King, who was accompanied not only by Mrs Simpson [as the Duchess of Windsor was then known] but also by [her husband] Ernest Simpson. [They later divorced in 1937.] The Duke, with his love of talking about the past, exchanged steeple-chasing memories with Mosley until there came a sharp rap on the table from Mrs Simpson: ‘Remember, sir,’ she said, ‘that Sir Oswald is a very serious person.’ The other story is of a dinner party given by the Windsors after the war. [Viscount and politician] Walter Monckton was also there, and the Duke turned to him and said: ‘Come on, Walter, admit that it was the Jews who brought us into the war.’ Monckton naturally refused to agree with the Duke, who then turned to Mosley and repeated the question. Mosley says to me: ‘As I was interned for three and a half years for maintaining just that, I had had enough and declined to discuss the matter with the Duke.’ November 25, 1975 Prince Eddie tells me that the Duchess of Windsor is less dotty than many people think. ‘She hates England, and is determined that none of the Duke’s possessions — least of all David’s money — shall find a final home in England.’ I suppose one can hardly blame her. May 12, 1976 The Duchess of Windsor, Martin Charteris tells me, is rather ill and could die at any moment. ‘I hope it will not be in Ascot week,’ he says. November 6, 1976 [Baron and scientist] Solly Zuckerman tells me the Queen Mother hates Mountbatten because he changed sides from the Duke of Windsor to King George VI too late for her to appreciate it, and he never exerted himself to get his friend Noel Coward made a knight. November 26, 1976 Lunch with [the Queen’s private secretary] Martin Charteris at White’s [gentlemen’s club]. Dickie Mountbatten continues to buzz with self-importance. ‘I have about three letters a week from him,’ says Martin, ‘usually on some topic such as how his decorations are to be arranged on the third cushion at his funeral.’ November 26, 1977 Dickie Mountbatten has been trying to persuade the Duchess of Windsor to return certain objects, particularly jewels that the Duke had inherited. But the Duchess has never forgiven Dickie for supposedly deserting them both in favour of George VI, and he got nothing out of her. [Baron Altrincham, historian] John Grigg tells me that when Queen Mary was at Badminton during the war, she came over to see [his mother-in-law] old Lady Islington at her house. As was usual on such visits, the Queen admired several objects which she wanted to be given as presents, including a large vase. But Lady Islington remained silent. Queen Mary, determined to secure at least one trophy, poured praise on a little table. Silence. So she had to continue her tour of the house without it. But at the front door, as she was about to get in her car, Queen Mary turned to Lady Islington and said: ‘I really must go back and say goodbye to that charming little table.’ So Lady Islington led her back and Queen Mary said goodbye to it. Still Lady Islington refused to make a gesture of giving her it, and Queen Mary departed in rather a huff. It must be the first time she had ever been outwitted in that way." These are from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6296539/amp/Shocking-day-former-King-blurted-Jews-brought-war.html February 2, 1958 Saw Martin Gilliat at Clarence House, on the eve of a six-week Commonwealth tour with the Queen Mother. He showed me a most interesting document he had prepared for her. It was divided into two columns. One showed the engagements to be done in each town on the tour. By the side of this, in the second column, were shown the engagements she did 31 years ago in the same towns when Duchess of York. It explains why the famous ‘royal memory’ is so often admired. January 12, 1961 Dine at Pratt’s [gentlemen’s club] and have much talk with Ralph Anstruther, who recently became Treasurer to the Queen Mother. He says that the Royal Family simply do not think of themselves as ordinary people nor imagine why their private lives can possibly be of interest to the public. April 16, 1962 In the evening, Martin Gilliat in for a drink. He talks of the Queen Mother’s solitary evenings at Clarence House, where she hardly ever has guests in the evening or goes out to dine. She eats alone and watches TV. One of the things though she does like is gossiping about racing with friends such as [racehorse trainer] Peter Cazalet. April 8, 1963 At Kempton Park races recently, the Queen Mother was not pleased when a television was put on in the box to see a football match. Then the TV started to play the National Anthem. ‘Oh do turn it off,’ said the Queen Mother. ‘It is so embarrassing unless one is there — like hearing the Lord’s Prayer when playing canasta.’ July 21, 1963 I hear that when Oliver Dawnay [the Queen Mother’s former private secretary] was in the Royal Household, the Queen Mother suggested he should have a grace-and-favour house in Windsor Great Park. Dawnay and his wife went to see it. It was a huge barracks of a place, so they came back and told the Queen Mother they did not think it would be quite suitable. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I knew it would be too small.’ February 3, 1964 James Pope-Hennessy [a biographer] tells me that the other day he had the Queen Mother to tea. She was enjoying herself so much that she lingered, and he managed to get rid of her only five minutes before the Windsors [the Duke of Windsor’s abdication in 1936 forced her husband to become King George VI] arrived for drinks. That indeed would have been an encounter. April 11, 1964 Pope-Hennessy tells me a story which came to him from the Queen Mother. When the King died in his sleep in 1952, she broke the news to little Prince Charles. She explained that when the valet had taken in the King’s tea that morning, he had found the King dead. Prince Charles listened gravely to the news, then enquired: ‘Who drank the tea?’ July 21, 1976 Staying at Boughton House [in Northamptonshire] for a party. The Queen Mother is among the guests. I tell her that I am writing a book about King George V, at which she shows much interest, even enthusiasm. The King was always sweet to me,’ she tells me. ‘But he simply could not bring himself to praise his children. The Duke of Gloucester once came to dine after being away for six months, but arrived a minute or two late. All that the King said to him was: “You’re late, as usual.”’ May 6, 1977 To Clarence House at 12.15 to talk to the Queen Mother. In the drawing room, good French furniture and masses of tulips. The Queen Mother simply dressed in a flowered blue frock with hardly any jewellery. As always, that wonderful smiling welcome. I begin by asking about King George V’s discouraging attitude towards his children. The Queen Mother rather plays down this side of the King’s character, emphasising that he was essentially a Victorian parent, weighed down by a sense of duty: ‘Even the slightest departure from custom would annoy him. ‘I remember a storm at breakfast once because the Prince of Wales was wearing hunting boots with pink tops. ‘He was always angelically kind to me, but then I was never frightened of his gruff ways. He had an obsession about punctuality, and if ever he had to wait for somebody he would stamp about furiously. ‘One reason why he got on so well with his Labour ministers was his early life at sea — weevily biscuits and all that sort of thing. It made it easy for him to understand how other people lived.’ At this point, I say: ‘His attitude towards the Labour Party was all the more remarkable in that he was a Conservative in all other things — perhaps I should say a conservative with a small “c”.’ Queen Mother: ‘I think that most of us are! Of course, the Labour ministers in those days were not the same as today — or even, between ourselves, as they were in the King’s day, my King that is. They were not intellectuals.’ The Queen Mother’s summing up of King George V: ‘He stood for duty and integrity. Those things are born in one. That is why it was so resented when the Prince of Wales took himself off [abdicated].’ As I take my leave, I hear her use the word ‘spiffing’. Did ever a woman in her eighth decade enjoy life so much! May 12, 1977 I talk with Martin Gilliat about the Queen Mother’s generous style of living, which she continues in the face of all difficulties, particularly expense and scarce servants. Princess Margaret likes to propose herself to lunch quite often and then the Queen Mother feels she must have some amusing guests. But Princess Margaret often falls into long melancholy silences, which do not add to the success of a luncheon party. As long as the Queen Mother is alive, nobody, not even that restless reformer Prince Philip, attempts to curb her financial exuberance. January 12, 1978 I hear the story of the Queen Mother watching on television the burial at sea of Edwina Mountbatten and saying: ‘Of course, dear Edwina always wanted to make a splash.’ April 24, 1979 To Clarence House at 2.30 for another talk with the Queen Mother. Two corgis accompany her: one friendly which licks my hand, the other unpredictable, which I am warned not to touch. We launch at once into our talk on King George V. ‘It is not true to say that he inspired fear in his children; it was more a sense of awe,’ she says. ‘The upbringing of children in those days was very severe everywhere. When my husband went to Osborne [Royal Naval College] as a naval cadet, it was real torture. ‘When the King was convalescing at Bognor [in 1929], he said he thought David [later Duke of Windsor] would never take over from him. We were astonished, and hardly understood what he meant.’ This leads us on to some talk about the Windsors. ‘I am afraid David never liked anything English, though he missed it all afterwards [he moved to France after the abdication],’ she says. On the Duchess of Windsor: ‘When I was last in Paris I tried to see her, but she was guarded by a dragon and I was told she saw nobody.’ I mention all the evidence I have found that the King felt both nervous and inadequate. She replies: ‘I suppose every Sovereign feels nervous and inadequate: the task is so overwhelming.’ When she speaks of the King’s insistence on the correct clothes, even down to the last button, I say: ‘What a lot of time seems to have been spent in changing one’s clothes in those days. I have read that one even changed for tea at Sandringham.’ The Queen Mother: ‘Well, we still do change for tea at Sandringham!’ She loved her father-in-law’s jokes. But they had an unfortunate consequence. ‘As he told his stories, he would bang you on the arm. By the end of a visit, it would be black and blue.’ By now it is about 1.30. We lunch at a round table in the small dining room. We have a hot creamy egg and cheese dish, chicken in a tomato sauce with mashed potatoes and courgettes; black cherries and an ice cream (I receive a surprised glance on declining the big silver jug of cream) and cheese. It is served by three men in livery. The claret is in an enchanting jug, shaped like a bird, with the beak as its spout, ruby eyes and claw feet. The Queen Mother tells me she saw it in a catalogue. We talk about politics. She makes no attempt to conceal her strong Conservative sympathies. On Margaret Thatcher, she is whimsical, particularly about the troubles she has with her voice, but her remarks stop just short of disparagement. She thinks Ted Heath has behaved disgracefully in refusing to say a nice word about Mrs Thatcher. ‘If only he had a wife to tell him how to do things in the right way.’ She adds: ‘He never listens to what I am saying — I can see his eyes wandering. The only time I have ever seen him entirely at his ease was when conducting a children’s concert.’ She is upset about the revolution in Persia [Iran] which has removed the Shah and led to the slaughter of his supporters. She will always be grateful, she adds, to have seen Persepolis and Shiraz before the Shah’s regime collapsed. Then in more playful mood: ‘What if such a thing were to happen here . . . I suppose Dickie [Mountbatten] would be the first to be shot.’ On Suez she says: ‘The Americans let us down. They usually do. It is the same in Ireland. We can’t abandon the people in the North who are so loyal to us.’ When I say I have never accepted [former leader of the British Union of Fascists] Oswald Mosley’s claim not to have encouraged violence or anti-Semitism, she taps the table and agrees with considerable vehemence: ‘He did, he did.’ From https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6300951/Why-Queen-Mum-bear-hear-National-Anthem-TV.html About the Queen & Prince Philip: January 10, 1956 David Loram to dine. Much amusing talk about his work as equerry to the Queen. He says she takes ‘a most minute interest’ in the running of her household. ‘One cannot move a cushion from one chair to another without her permission. She knows everybody’s name, arranges table seating plans, introduces all guests to others herself, makes sure a guest sits next to her at dinner the night before he leaves.’ April 22, 1956 Good story of Sir Henry Marten [Provost of Eton] when giving private tuition to the then Princess Elizabeth. Every lesson, he would begin by sitting down at the table, opening the book, and saying: ‘Page 96, gentlemen.’ May 17, 1956 Jim Cilcennin [First Lord of the Admiralty] says it broke Prince Philip’s heart to leave the Royal Navy, which provided an anchor to his life. As he once complained rather pathetically to Jim: ‘I never really had a country.’ March 6, 1957 Dine alone with Jim Cilcennin, then settle down to a great deal of gossip over brandy and cigars. Prince Philip asked him to go round the world with him in Britannia several months before he left the Admiralty. He not only wanted a friend and experienced politician, but knew that Jim would be able to have daily treatment for his arthritis in the sick bay of the Royal Yacht. September 17, 1959 At the end of a Privy Council meeting, the Queen asked [Viscount] Antony Head how his Guernsey herd was doing. Head replied: ‘Not at all well. The artificial insemination people sent me a Red Poll bull instead of a Guernsey by mistake.’ [Baroness] Woolton was furious at this flippancy, but the Queen was enchanted by it. August 15, 1961 I have Sir Austin Strutt, Deputy Under-Secretary at the Home Office, to lunch at the Savoy. Small, energetic, friendly, indiscreet.Strutt dislikes Prince Philip — ‘He will bring the whole monarchy down in ruins.’ He tells a story of how he was with Philip on the Royal Yacht during a Channel Islands visit with the Queen and a party of officials. It was necessary to change plan owing to bad weather. The Queen did not understand why it was necessary, and asked. At which Philip, in front of everybody, said to her: ‘Haven’t you the intelligence to realise . . .’ October 13, 1961 Lunch with [the Queen’s assistant private secretary] Martin Charteris at the Savoy. We discuss Prince Philip. Martin agrees with me that he is arrogant, largely because he is praised so much as an after-dinner speaker. Nor do his staff criticise him as they should. October 25, 1961 A characteristic story about Prince Philip. The other day he came to the Café Royal to present awards to Regent Street shopkeepers for export-window displays, or some such thing. Among those presented was Mr Rayne of the shoe firm. The following conversation ensued: Prince: ‘What do you do, Mr Rayne?’ Rayne: ‘I make shoes, sir. Prince: ‘Are you the company’s export manager?’ Rayne: ‘No, as a matter of fact I am Chairman of the company, which has the honour to make the Queen’s shoes.’ Prince: ‘That’s why she’s always complaining about her feet, no doubt.’ Prince Philip simply cannot realise the harm that this perpetual banter does him. April 16, 1962 At 12, I see Michael Parker [friend and former private secretary of Prince Philip] at his office in Conduit Street. He asks me how I think Prince Philip is getting on. I mention one or two of the obvious failings — his running-down of British industry when abroad; the impression he gives of despising the Press; and his tendency to drop people, having previously taken them up with some degree of intimacy. Jim Cilcennin [who went around the world with Philip on Britannia] complained to me often about this during the last year of his life. The trouble is, adds Parker, that the Royal Family have few friends and not many acquaintances. Part of Prince Philip’s problem actually springs from shyness. But this could be avoided by a staff of skilled advisers. December 17, 1967 Hans von Herwarth, former German Ambassador, tells me that on the occasions both of the death of George VI and of the Queen’s Coronation, the Queen received more letters from Germany than from any other country outside the Commonwealth. He was most touched on the occasion of the Coronation in 1953 by the Queen’s kindness. His little daughter, then aged ten, complained to him that it was a pity she had not been asked, too, ‘as it is a girl who is being crowned’. He mentioned this to the British High Commissioner in Germany, as a joke. But an invitation duly arrived, together with a seat for her in the stand outside the Abbey. May 11, 1968 Selwyn Lloyd [63-year-old former Tory Foreign Secretary and Chancellor] tells me that Prince Philip said to him recently, ‘What, are you still alive?’ Later, he apologised to Selwyn for his rudeness. February 6, 1971 I talk to [the Queen’s former assistant private secretary] Edward Ford about the Suez Crisis in 1956.As in almost every other house in the country, it caused a split in the secretariat at Buckingham Palace. Edward and [her assistant private secretary] Martin Charteris were against it, [her private secretary] Michael Adeane was for it. Their conflicting attitudes puzzled the Queen, who said: ‘I have three Private Secretaries and all of them give me different advice.’ July 20, 1974 At the gala at Covent Garden last Wednesday, Prince Eddie [now Duke of Kent] says that not only were the speeches far too long, but that [former Opera House chairman] Garrett Drogheda made Prince Philip furious by mocking the Royal Family’s indifference to opera. Apparently, the Prince told Garrett after his speech: ‘Buggered if I ever come again.’ June 17, 1975 Alec Home [former Tory PM] recalls the Queen’s reply when he asked if she would object to meeting Idi Amin of Uganda at a conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers: ‘It would not be the first time I have met murderers there.’ These are from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6304779/Prince-Philip-snipe-Queen-Royal-Yacht-revealed-secret-diaries.html

About Queen mum and Margaret (and Tony) March 26, 1984 Dine with Princess Margaret, after which she absorbs her usual stiff ration of whisky. She still resents that she was not allowed to share the Queen's History tutorials with [Eton Provost] Sir Henry Marten. 'I was told that it wasn't necessary. I have often reproached Mummy with this.' May 9, 1984 I have dinner with Tony Snowdon. I have hardly seen him for many years, but it was as if we have been close friends since Eton [Rose taught him there]. 'Hello, Sir,' he begins and repeats the joke throughout the evening. Tony will never go to any reunion — Eton, Cambridge, etc. He is even shy of sitting at the communal lunch table in the House of Lords. Nor would he ever go alone to a restaurant. When we talk of watches, he shows me his: costing only £7 at Marks & Spencer. September 23, 1984 I talk with Jock Colville [former PPS to Churchill]. Princess Margaret once said to him: 'The two men who have ruined my life are Tommy Lascelles and Winston Churchill, who would not let me marry Peter Townsend.' Jock replied: 'I don't know about Tommy, but Winston did not want to repeat the mistake of 1936.' Princess Margaret was not pleased by this. January 22, 1986 Princess Margaret, pretty and animated, talks of [photographer] Cecil Beaton's jealousy of Tony Snowdon, and his drawling at her at the time of their engagement: 'Thank you, Ma'am, for removing a dangerous rival.' Princess Margaret continues: 'After we were married, Tony wanted to give up photography. We all thought this was wrong. So Lillibet and I worked on him for a year and eventually succeeded. He returned to photography.' June 8, 1989 Lunch with Tony Snowdon. He has always had a passion for Marmite, he says. He was once arrested for shoplifting at a Moscow hotel. The detective saw something bulging in his pocket: it was his personal jar of Marmite. July 20, 1982 Lunch with the Queen Mother at Clarence House. She describes going to see [PM] Ramsay MacDonald at Chequers. 'He took us to see some of the little churches in the neighbourhood. Now darling Mrs Thatcher would never do that! But then she has other great qualities such as PATRIOTISM — that's what we want!' She says that she thought Dickie Mountbatten [assassinated by the IRA in 1979] was rather a bounder in some ways, [such] as when he drove his speedboat off Cowes and made a dangerous wash. I tell the Queen Mother that although he was most kind to me, I have discovered that not all his stories were accurate. QM: 'Of course, and there were so many of them!' December 6, 1983 Lunch with [former PM] Harold Macmillan. He has known the Queen Mother for much of his life. 'But I still do not have the remotest idea of what goes on in her mind.' We laugh over her splendid extravagance and all those footmen when lunching in the garden. Macmillan: 'That is what happens when a poor woman marries a rich man. But when a rich woman marries a poor man, she makes a good frugal wife.' April 19, 1984 [Former assistant private secretary to both the Queen and her father] Edward Ford says that George VI's outbursts of temper — or gnashes, as they were called in the family — were probably epileptic. April 11, 1985 Martin Gilliat to dine. He thinks it wrong that the Duchess of Windsor has never become HRH. 'I hope that before she dies, my employer may come to see the lack of charity in this attitude.' I have never heard him express a stronger opinion. He tells me the Queen Mother never cared for either of the Mountbattens. She felt that Dickie was an outsider vis-à-vis the real Royals, such as Princess Marina, so rarely entertained them. January 16, 1989 Martin Gilliat tells me of a gaffe made by [author and broadcaster] Ludovic Kennedy when he met the Queen Mother recently at somebody's house. He told her he had been busy the previous weekend writing her obituary. May 13, 1989 Lunch with the Queen Mother. I say I regret that Philip Ziegler is writing another life of the Duke of Windsor. Queen Mother fervently agrees — 'It has been raked over so often.' She goes on: 'I wonder whether he really liked England. I am certain, however, that he did want to come back as King.' That is a most important historical statement, and sheds much light on her relationship with the Windsors. The QM also confides how much she dislikes the pound coin. 'So when I put something in the collection at church, it is always a Scottish banknote.' July 15, 1989 Pamela Hicks [Mountbatten's daughter] tells me the sense of being Royal or not persists in curious ways. When Dickie Mountbatten once asked the King for a photograph of himself with the Queen Mother, he asked whether it was for Dickie or [his wife] Edwina. If for Dickie, it would be signed 'Bertie and Elizabeth'; if for Edwina, 'George RI and Elizabeth R'. July 12, 1998 The Queen Mother tells me she is strongly against the lowering of the homosexual age of consent from 18 to 16, which is soon to be debated in Parliament. She has urged the Queen to speak to the PM about it. May 6, 2000 Lunch at Clarence House, just the Queen Mother, [her lady-in-waiting] Prue Penn and myself. We touch on the ejection of most of the hereditary peers from the Lords: QM makes her feelings all too clear. May 8, 2001 Prue Penn managed to get hold of [the Queen Mother's steward] William Tallon alone this morning and asked him what exactly had taken place when Princess Margaret descended on Clarence House six or seven years ago to 'tidy up Mummy's sitting room'. She spent a week going through every drawer, wearing white gloves and stopping only for a picnic lunch, throwing away most of her mother's personal correspondence. She filled no fewer than 30 black bags with the papers, which William thinks were shredded. Certain letters were not destroyed, mostly family: the King, Queen Mary, the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales. Since this happened, the Queen Mother has no longer kept the letters of her friends, but tears them up when read and answered. What a terrible act of destruction. March 30, 2002 The Queen Mother died at 3.15 this afternoon with the Queen at her bedside. So ends an epoch of history. September 17, 2003 The Queen has told [Queen Mother biographer] William Shawcross that she does not want him to write a political book, 'as my mother had no interest in politics'. The QM was in fact deeply interested in politics and firmly Conservative in her views. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7649439/amp/How-Princess-Margaret-secretly-destroyed-thirty-sacks-Queen-Mothers-letters.html

And these are less sensational but might have Spoilers for the next two seasons. May 4, 1986 Edward Ford [Extra Equerry to the Queen, and her former assistant private secretary] tells me that he used to suggest to the Queen that she might publicly heal the breach with the Windsors [Edward and Wallis] by inviting them for a day or two of Ascot races, where they would be swallowed up among the other guests. But the Queen said no. May 27, 1986 I hear that the Queen found she had an unexpectedly free evening recently and that Philip was away. So, on the spur of the moment, she decided to give a little dinner party. ‘And wasn’t I lucky?’ she said. ‘I asked about a dozen people at 24 hours’ notice, and by great good fortune they were all free to come!’ November 21, 1988 [Historian] Steven Runciman tells me that when it was decided that Prince Charles should go to Gordonstoun, Princess Marina (later the Duchess of Kent) said to Prince Philip: ‘How like you to send him to the only German school in Britain.’ The Queen Mother, overhearing this, said to Princess Marina: ‘I have always wanted to say that, but didn’t dare.’ Steven adds that it was Princess Marina, not Mountbatten, who was the marriage broker between the Queen and Prince Philip. February 25, 1992 Prince Eddie [the Duke of Kent] tells me that when Philip Hay was about to become Private Secretary to Princess Marina in 1948, he was asked to see Tommy Lascelles [private secretary to George VI and to Elizabeth II] at the Palace. Walking down a passage, they passed Anthony Blunt [Surveyor of the King’s Pictures]. When Blunt was out of earshot, Tommy said to Philip: ‘That man is a Soviet spy, you know.’ [Blunt — knighted in 1956 — wasn’t unmasked as a spy by MI5 until 1963. The Queen was informed the following year. Granted immunity in return for a full confession, he continued as Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures until 1973. When Mrs Thatcher exposed his treachery six years later to the House of Commons, he was stripped of his knighthood.] July 27, 1992 Former Prime Ministers and their spouses give a dinner for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Spencer House. There is a large reception beforehand for others, to which I am invited. I speak to both the Queen and the Duke, who talk freely. The Queen tells me she was much amused by the attempt of Winston Churchill during the war to call a dreadnought HMS Oliver Cromwell. [Former Labour Prime Minister] Jim Callaghan says: ‘I must confess I should have done the same.’ I ask the Queen whether she still has to approve the names of all the new warships. ‘Oh yes,’ she tells me, ‘and New Zealand ships, too. That is not so easy, as they often have Aboriginal names.’ Most fascinatingly of all, the Queen tells me of her diary, which she keeps without fail. ‘And how much do you write, Ma’am?’ I ask, not adding, ‘We diarists!’ She replies: ‘About so much,’ spreading out her hand, from thumb to little finger, i.e. about six inches. ‘But I have no time to record conversations, only events.’ Nor, she says, does she dictate, finding it inhibiting. July 16, 1982 An extraordinary episode of a man [Michael Fagan] who a few days ago penetrated all the security arrangements at Buckingham Palace and sat on the Queen’s bed for ten minutes, with a bleeding hand and clutching a broken glass ashtray. No novelist would have dared to imagine such a thing. November 28, 1988 The Queen was talking one day to one of her courtiers about the intruder in her bedroom in 1982 at the Palace. She said: ‘Of course, it was easier for me than it would be for anybody else. I am so used to talking to strangers.’ November 5, 1994 Princess Margaret tells me her maid is the one who found a man in the Queen’s bedroom and exclaimed: ‘Bloody ’ell, what’s going on ’ere?’ I have a talk with Peter Wilmot-Sitwell [chairman of SG Warburg] about the Royal Family. We are agreed that the Queen is good with ministers, ambassadors and representatives of the Commonwealth, but not with her children or indeed many other people. June 3, 1995 I stay for the weekend with [interior decorator] David and Pamela Hicks. Pammy says that she sometimes writes to the Queen to tell her things of supposed interest. ‘The only time she has ever replied was when I sent my sympathy after one of her dogs had been killed by a Clarence House corgi. She then wrote six pages.’ March 21, 1997 Prince Charles tells me that the head of Wimbledon asked whether he thought the Queen would come to open a new court. ‘I doubt it,’ Prince Philip replied, ‘unless there are dogs and horses.’ June 12, 1998 Long talk with Edward Ford [Extra Equerry to the Queen, and her former assistant private secretary] at dinner. He says Anthony Blunt should undoubtedly have been sacked from the Royal Household when his treason was first known. June 19, 2001 Dine at Eton. I hear an amusing story about Martin Charteris as Provost. When Prince Philip was coming on a visit, Martin would give boys lessons on how to answer back his rudeness. September 25, 2006 I see the film The Queen, with Helen Mirren utterly brilliant in the title role. It is the Queen one is watching, in every nuance. December 7, 2007 Prince Eddie, [the Duke of Kent] describes how the Queen plans the annual family Christmas lunch down to the last detail. The grown-ups are in one big room, the children in another. Towards the end of lunch, the doors are flung open and in rushes the horde January 29, 2009 I remember Martin Gilliat [the Queen Mother’s private secretary] telling me that the Queen Mother did not like to hear Anthony Blunt disparaged even after he had been exposed by Mrs Thatcher as a Soviet spy. June 25, 1980 Lunch at the Beefsteak [London men-only club], Edward Ford [Extra Equerry to the Queen, and her former assistant private secretary] tells the story of Winston [Churchill] at Balmoral in the early 1950s. He was awaiting the result of a nuclear test on a new bomb, and said to the Queen: ‘By this time tomorrow, we shall know if it is a pop or a plop.’ February 26, 1981 Martin Charteris [the Queen’s private secretary, later Provost of Eton] to lunch at Claridge’s. [He says] the Queen felt strongly about [former Labour Prime Minister] Harold Wilson’s resignation Honours List, but felt she could not remonstrate with him, much less turn it down. Instead, Wilson was merely asked whether he really wanted to recommend so many more names than his predecessors had done; and whether they were the names which on reflection he would still wish to put forward. To both questions he replied yes, and there the Queen felt that her right to interfere had ended. June 5, 1981 [Former Conservative Prime Minister] Ted Heath tells me of one of his visits to Windsor just after [businessman] Arnold Weinstock had won the 200th running of the Derby, so beating the Queen’s horse. Ted said to the Queen and Prince Philip: ‘Of course, if it had been a sailing race, we should all have hung back so that the Queen could have won it.’ Prince Philip retorted: ‘Like hell you would!’ September 20, 1983 [Former Labour PM] Jim Callaghan shares my delight in the personality of the Queen Mother. At a lunch given by the Queen for heads of Common Market countries, she observed to Jim in a loud voice: ‘I am glad we are in the Common Market. You see, they have so much to learn from us.’ December 6, 1983 Lunch with [former PM] Harold Macmillan. On the Queen, he takes an affectionate but detachedly Whig view. ‘I tried to interest her in politics, but she is only interested in the personalities of politics. I still see her sometimes. She is lonely and apprehensive about the future.’ September 18, 1985 Jean Trumpington to dine. She relates how when she went to take her leave of the Queen as a Baroness-in-Waiting on being promoted to be Under-Secretary in the Department of Health and Social Security, the Queen said of the PM [Mrs Thatcher]: ‘She stays too long and talks too much. She has lived too long among men.’ May 13, 1989 Lunch with the Queen Mother. She expresses strong admiration for Mrs Thatcher’s determination to concede no sovereignty to the EEC. June 1, 1997 To Headington for tea with [philosopher] Isaiah Berlin. We talk of relations between the Queen and her Prime Ministers. The Queen is careful never to reveal what she thinks of each, although it is generally known that she and Margaret Thatcher had sharp disagreements on the importance of the Commonwealth. Isaiah now has an important piece of evidence. Both the Queen and Thatcher came to a gala at Covent Garden, but sat in different parts of the house. In the interval, the Queen let it be known that she did not want to meet Mrs Thatcher — who was sent to an upper room for drinks, as was Isaiah. Thatcher then said she would like to say goodbye to the Queen, a request that was ignored. April 1,1998 The Queen evidently has much longer audiences with Blair than those in the Thatcher and Major years. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7645549/amp/KENNETH-ROSE-Queen-sent-six-page-letter-death-beloved-corgi.html

This is so delicious! Extracted from Who Loses, Who Wins: The Journals Of Kenneth Rose, Vol II 1979-2014 February 24, 1981 Watch the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer being interviewed on TV. There is something sad about a girl of 19 being led into royal captivity. July 16, 1981 Johnnie [Earl] Spencer [Diana’s father] tells me that he wanted to wear his Greys [cavalry regiment] uniform when Diana marries the Prince of Wales, but that Diana herself objected. She thought it would detract from her own appearance. This is most extraordinary, like something from King Lear. August 8, 1981 On the Royal Wedding, I hear that it was originally arranged that in the carriage procession from St Paul’s back to the Palace, Johnnie Spencer should drive with his former wife (and of course Diana’s mother), Mrs Shand Kydd. But when told this at a meeting in Buckingham Palace, Johnnie pulled such a long face that the Queen said: ‘Oh, all right then, you can drive with me,’ which much to his delight he did. The Spencers were given 50 seats for St Paul’s. When Johnnie showed Diana his draft list, she crossed out all the family who had not bothered to come to the weddings of her sisters! One day she will be very formidable. October 9, 1981 Duke Hussey [future BBC chairman, married to the Queen’s woman of the bedchamber] has been staying at Balmoral. He reports that rumours of Princess Diana’s boredom are accurate: the Prince goes out at nine to shoot or fish and she does not see him again until seven. Dukie wonders if he will make a sufficiently good king: he thinks not. The Prince is too immature, and the contrast with the firm style of the Queen will be most marked. February 6, 1983 I hear reports of the school where the Princess of Wales taught infants. She is apparently not very clever and certainly without any of the intellectual resources needed in marriage to the Prince of Wales. December 24, 1985 Marie-Lou de Zulueta [wife of a diplomat] tells me a charming story of Prince Charles when a small boy. One day he came barging into [Comptroller] Boy Browning’s room and heard him talking on the telephone to the Queen. So he asked: ‘Who is the Queen?’ Boy explained that it was his mother, but Charles simply did not believe that she could be both his mother and Queen. The next day, however, he admitted that Boy Browning had been right. ‘How do you know?’ Boy asked. ‘I asked the policeman.’ January 25, 1986 Prince Charles tells me that the only thing the Duke of Windsor left him in his will was a collection of kilts: ‘But as my great-uncle was such a tiny man, none of them fit me!’ November 13, 1986 I ask [Eton provost] Martin Charteris whether there is any truth in the rumour I have heard: that the Princess of Wales is having tuition in English literature and other matters at Eton from [former provost] Eric Anderson. He tells me it is so, although officially it is being denied. April 27, 1988 Raine Spencer [stepmother to Princess Diana] telephones to ask me to lunch at Althorp [the Spencer family seat in Northamptonshire]. She talks at length about the Prince of Wales’s marriage. She much admires the public qualities of the Prince, especially his concern for the inner cities. But she thinks the Princess of Wales has a difficult life. ‘They don’t look to me like two people in love. They have different bedrooms and she never seems to want to touch him. When he says, “Give me a kiss” she does not respond.’ She has no artistic side to match his, which is a further gulf December 9, 1992 I hear on the wireless the PM making a Commons statement on the impending separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales. December 13, 1992 [Lawyer and political adviser] Arnold Goodman calls. We talk about the Wales affair. He does not care for Charles’s ‘empty pretensions to be an intellectual’, nor for his unforgiving character. ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘Diana has deliberately and publicly humiliated him — and incidentally made [Andrew] Morton [author of Diana: My Own Story, for which she was the anonymous source, explaining her unhappiness and revealing that Charles was having an affair with Camilla], a millionaire. So it is not surprising that he hates her and has not the generosity of spirit to offer a reconciliation.’ How will Diana now behave? Will she lead a quiet and dignified life that could one day lead to a reconciliation? Almost certainly not. She wants to make it difficult for Charles to become King, and to ensure that she will be the nemesis. April 5, 1993 I hear how cunning the Princess of Wales is. The other day, she discovered when the Prince would be in his new quarters in St James’s Palace, then turned up and told him she had come to see if he was comfortable. She even insisted on looking at his bedroom, and saying that it needed a small table which she would find for him. The Prince is terrified of her. Martin Charteris tells me: ‘If the Queen had taken as much trouble over the bloodlines of her sons’ wives as she has over her horses and dogs, she would have avoided a lot of trouble October 18, 1994 I talk to King Constantine [of Greece] about [broadcaster and author] Jonathan Dimbleby’s book on Prince Charles. We agree that it cannot do the Prince any good and almost certainly will bring him into public contempt. It might have been worse had certain political passages not been removed from the earlier drafts, e.g. that the Prince was opposed to cuts in the Armed Forces. November 5, 1994 Staying at Blagdon [home of Viscount Ridley]. Princess Margaret is a fellow guest. She agrees with me that the Prince and Princess of Wales must divorce. ‘But Charles simply won’t listen to my advice. As I talked to him, I noticed his eyes roaming round the room.’ PM minded very much that the Dimbleby book about the Prince came out during the Queen’s visit to Russia Royal Family come to? June 3, 1995 I stay for the weekend with [interior decorator] David and Pamela Hicks. Princess Alexandra told Pammy that she never argues with Prince Charles, so terrible is his rage. He never consults the Queen. ‘There has been a complete break.’ Prince William is tiresome, always attracting attention to himself. Hardly surprising when he is so spoilt by the tug-of-war of his parents and by courtiers, servants and detectives. November 21, 1995 The Princess of Wales’s [BBC Panorama] TV interview seems to have been technically accomplished but horribly indiscreet — an admission of adultery with James Hewitt. December 21, 1995 I give breakfast to [Chief of the General Staff] Charles Guthrie at the Hyde Park Hotel. The Army does not like the Prince of Wales. When Charles Guthrie was received by him the other day, the Prince complained of overwork, which is absurd. January 14, 1996 [Baroness-in-waiting to the Queen] Jean Trumpington has been told that the Princess of Wales spent 17 hours recording the notorious [Panorama] TV broadcast: she did each bit again and again until she had achieved the right degree of spurious sincerity. May 31, 1996 Princess Margaret says: ‘How glad the family will be to be rid of the wives, Diana and Fergie.’ August 31, 1997 I am awakened by the telephone at 6.15. It is NBC from America. ‘Have you heard the news? Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed have been killed in a car crash a few hours ago. Will you take part in a programme on her?’ At such a moment only undiluted appreciation will serve. So I decline. September 11, 1997 [Tory politician and former high master of St Paul’s School] Peter Pilkington was as horrified as I was by the funeral address of Charles Spencer. ‘I have preached many funeral sermons, but have always made it a rule not to parade division and hatred.’ Peter puts down the mass hysteria, which is still continuing, to a rootless, under-educated urban population. Not that Peter has a lot to say for Prince Charles. ‘He has compounded his personal failings by too much moralising. On the Duchy of Cornwall estates, he is known for his high rents and expensive organic farming.’ February 3, 1998 Dukie Hussey to lunch at the Ritz. We are at one on the spurious reputation for saintliness of Diana. She wanted to watch an operation at the Royal Marsden Hospital, of which Dukie was chairman. Dukie was absolutely against it, but how to put her off? The solution was to find a patient who would refuse to give permission for any spectator to be present. This the administration managed to do and the news was broken to a sorrowful Diana June 4, 1998 Princess Margaret tells me about the proposed memorial garden to Princess Diana in front of Kensington Palace: ‘Of course we don’t want it. After all, she lived at the back of the house, not the front. ‘It will be quite enough of a memorial to restore the grass in front which all these people trampled the week she died. And certainly no 300ft fountain in the Round Pond!’ July 12, 1998 The Queen Mother tells me she is not in favour of a memorial to Princess Diana in Kensington Gardens. July 21, 1998 Prince Eddie [the Duke of Kent] to lunch at Le Gavroche. He is utterly furious about the plans for a memorial garden to Princess Diana in Kensington. August 15, 1998 The Prince of Wales has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer approving the proposed memorial garden to Princess Diana in Kensington Gardens. Why should the public be deprived of part of that lovely park to soothe the Prince’s conscience? I make a point of sitting there for some time this afternoon: utter peaceful January 2, 2001 Prue Penn [the Queen Mother’s lady-in-waiting] tells me that at Sandringham in the summer, the Queen invited her to attend a little service in one of its rooms conducted by the local parson. The only other person present was the Queen Mother. Some of the servants had complained that the room was haunted and did not want to work in it. The parson walked from room to room and did indeed feel some sort of restlessness in one of them. This the Queen Mother identified as a ground-floor room which had been turned into a bedroom for George VI during his last months. So the parson held a service there, not exactly of exorcism, which is the driving out of an evil spirit, but of bringing tranquillity. The congregation of three took Holy Communion and special prayers were said, I think for the repose of the King’s soul in the room in which he died. The parson said that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere may have been because of Princess Diana: he had known such things before when someone died a violent death. December 4, 2002 I lunch at the Savoy with John Riddell [former private secretary to Prince Charles]. We talk about the mess that the Royal Family continues to be in, after the break-up of Charles and Diana’s marriage and her tragic death. Both of whom led separate lives almost from the moment of marriage. John tried to jolt the Prince out of his self-absorbed life by telling him that he ought to learn how ordinary people live by talking to Diana more; she, after all, had lived an unsheltered life with her friends in a London flat. Charles replied: ‘I prefer to talk to [author and philosopher] Laurens van der Post.’ February 13, 2005 I ask Edward Ford [Extra Equerry to the Queen, and her former assistant private secretary] whether he will give a royal bow to Camilla once she becomes the Duchess of Cornwall. He says: ‘I shall look at my shoes, as if they need cleaning.’ December 23, 2005 Prince Eddie [the Duke of Kent] tells me about the Royal Family Christmas lunch. ‘I was lucky enough to sit next to Camilla. She is one of the best things to have happened for years. I like her down-to-earth good sense, total lack of airs, warmth, friendliness and sense of humour.’ September 14, 1994 Motor down to see the Duchess of York. I am greeted with shouts of ‘Ken, Ken’ from Beatrice and Eugenie. There is the biggest, richest chocolate cake I have ever seen, and crumpets, sausages, sardines and fish fingers. Fergie has both sides of her correspondence with Andrew: when he was away, she wrote to him every day. She also has the letters written to her by the Queen. She goes on: ‘I also have Prince Philip’s letters, telling me that I have let down The Firm. In one of them, he wrote that he had been reading a book about Edwina Mountbatten [Lord Mountbatten’s wife, notorious for having had many lovers including, allegedly, Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India], and that my conduct reminded him of hers.’ April 27, 1995 I see Fergie again at Sunningdale. She realises she has made mistakes, and even that she is vulgar. ‘But if I am cheerful and noisy, it is not because I am overconfident but because I am insecure.’ She has adjusted to this in the face of hostility from all the Royal Family except the Queen. Her children are the best link she has with the Queen. ‘I have taught them to hug their granny when they see her. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7640869/amp/KENNETH-ROSES-secret-diaries-Diana-Prince-Philip-revealed.html I

Princess Anne also sent both her kids to Gordonstoun. I think the broken window thing was make up.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1471559/We-did-our-best.html An article about the queen and Philip as parents. The Author tried to defend both of them,but he did a lot of interviews with those who know them back then as well as Prince Philip and Princess Anne. And I think it's a realistic portrayal. Always wonder what she means by that? Is House of Spencer much older than House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg or Mountbatten?Or did she mean Princess of Wales is a much older title than Prince Consort? Always confused by why it is seen as a clever reply.

https://youtu.be/DvkAGSgacVo Here is a documentary about Anne's relationship with the media, as well as her relationship with her ex-sister-in-laws. It's a bit of silly at start and take itself way seriously, and it just blames Anne for her marriage failure without mention that her first husband had fathered a child out of wedlock. But it got a lot of journalists and Royal photographers in it and I learned a lot about press's relationship with the royal family. Also I love Anne's horsebox with the 1 ANN plate on the back

Only Charles's children are working royals, and both Anne and Edward agreed that their children would not have royal titles. Those are also reasons why they are not being photographed and generating headlines as much as the Cambridges or the Sussexs.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/a-strange-life-profile-of-prince-philip-1563268.html?amp I found this extremely good interview profile of Prince Philip. It offered very detailed overview of his childhood, touched on his earlier frustration at being prince consort, his relationship with the Queen, and Prince Charles, as well as questions about his alleged infidelity. Although dated back in 1992, It's very insightful

Honestly part of me that is bitter kind of hoping they deliver a "surpising" portrayal of Diana so people can finally realize it's a drama and stop saying all Philip did was whine and bully the queen like it's a fact.

Here is a similar one but with Philip