The House of Windsor
Royalty has always been awash with scandal, which is made all the worse by their high profile and the intense media and public interest. However, it must be said that the House of Windsor does seem to have had more than its fair share of improprieties. The current queen, Elizabeth II, has had to cope with a lot of criticism, and yet she has proved to be a stoical figure who still retains the respect of her people. The behaviour of some of the younger members of her family has often evoked criticism of the monarchy and, at times, brought them close to collapse. Of course, scandal was not confined to the reign of the current queen – royals have long been known for their philandering ways and extravagant lifestyles.
prince of wales and the actress
Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and son of Queen Victoria, and his close circle of friends became known as the ‘Marlborough Set’ and were considered to be the crowning point of London society. They were the elite and anyone of importance dreamt of being accepted into the prince’s circle of friends. Lillie Langtry was the wife of a wealthy merchant, Edward Langtry, who gradually climbed the social ladder by inventing herself as an actress and an entrepreneur. She was intelligent, humorous and fascinated both men and women with her outstanding beauty and was admired by people from all walks of life. Lillie was a highly controversial figure, who had a string of affairs and left many men with a broken heart.
It was inevitable that the prince – ‘Bertie’ as he was known by his friends – should hear about Lillie and he told his confidantes that he would love to meet the woman with the famous violet eyes. A discreet dinner party was arranged at the home of Sir Allen Young. Some of his closer friends advised against such a meeting as Lillie was married and Bertie himself was married to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, and indeed had five children with her. Despite this fact he refused to give up his bachelor lifestyle and insisted that the meeting went ahead.
Lillie was placed next to the prince while her husband had no choice but to sit at the other end of the dining table. She was overawed at meeting the prince for the first time and it took Lillie quite a while to relax and found it difficult to get the words out. She was impressed by his sense of humour and the kindness he showed her, and it soon became obvious that Bertie was infatuated with the woman with the witty tongue and stunning face.
Not long after the first meeting, the prince and Lillie were seen out riding together in Hyde Park and, although this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, on this occasion the prince had become completely infatuated with his companion. It soon became obvious to both Lillie’s husband and the princess that the prince and Lillie were having an affair, and yet they both chose to accept the fact gracefully. This gave way to a period of blissful liaisons between 1877 and 1878, when they were both given the time to enjoy each other’s company. Bertie was so obsessed with Lillie that he even had a house specially built in Bournemouth, where they could share intimate time together.
Lillie would only have to ask and the prince would oblige and so, when she requested to have an audience with the queen, Bertie arranged a meeting. Although it is suggested that Victoria was somewhat frosty towards Lillie, it did open new doors with regards to her social life. She was invited to all the finest gatherings and soon her close circle of friends included such notable people as Oscar Wilde and the painter Whistler, both of whom helped her climb the ladder of fame. However, the spell was soon broken when the cost of Lillie’s high life was affecting the Langtry’s financial status. Lillie’s simple black dresses had been replaced by expensive haute couture and although Bertie had always been generous with his gifts, he had never given his lover money. Then came another stumbling block – the arrival of another stunning woman in London. Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage actress who had made her fame in Europe in the 1870s. The prince greeted Sarah with great enthusiasm and was soon under her charms, Lillie had quickly fallen from favour.
As soon as the rumours started spreading that the affair between Lillie and the prince was starting to lose its sparkle, the creditors moved in on the Langtrys. In October 1880 Edward Langtry was declared bankrupt. Lillie was heartbroken and embarrassed and sought solace in the arms of Bertie’s younger cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg. It wasn’t long before Lillie discovered that she was expecting the young prince’s child and immediately the royal house closed its ranks and sent Louis off to serve in the navy.
Lillie was moved away from London to try and avoid a major scandal and she rented a cottage outside St Helier on the island of Jersey. With Edward away on his travels, Lillie hoped that she could go through her pregnancy without attracting too much attention, but in such a small community it was impossible to keep it a secret. Although Bertie had not seen Lillie for many months, when he heard the news that she was pregnant he quickly came to her aid. He sent two men from Buckingham Palace to accompany her to Paris, where she stayed in an apartment belonging to one of the prince’s closest friends.
Lillie gave birth to Jeanne-Marie in March 1881, and after a brief spell at playing ‘mum’ she decided that she missed the bright lights of London and placed her daughter in the care of her own mother in Bournemouth. With no money and a husband who was permanently away, Lillie had to find a way of earning a living and, at the suggestion of Oscar Wilde, she tried her hand at acting. It wasn’t long before she was back on her feet and an accomplished actress.
Although the real father of Lillie’s child was never revealed, when her husband eventually found out from a newspaper article that his wife had had a baby in San Francisco, he fell to pieces and had to be committed to a mental asylum.
Edward and Mrs Simpson
Although Bertie’s affair with Lillie Langtry did nothing to threaten the monarchy, when Edward VIII had an affair with an American divorcee, his infatuation cost him the crown.
Bessie Wallis Warfield always dreamed of becoming a debutante, but the bright lights of London’s socialites always seemed to elude her. She grabbed the first opportunity to escape her hometown of Baltimore by marrying a naval pilot, Earl Winfield Spencer, but it was a disaster from the start. Wallis was unable to put up with her husband’s moods ,which were exacerbated by a drink problem, and so after a short while she found herself a single woman once more.
Wallis married again in 1928 to a man named Ernest Simpson, who headed the London office of his wealthy family’s shipping business. At last Wallis was to get to live in London and quickly became a hit on the social circuit. She became the hostess with the mostest and entertained lords, ladies, dukes and duchesses, all of whom she charmed with her amazing confidence.
The dinner party that was to change her life took place in December 1930. It was hosted by Wallis Simpson in her own home and her illustrious guests were Benjamin Thaw (first secretary of the US embassy in London), his wife Consuelo and her sister Thelma, Viscountess of Furness. Lady Furness was not only stunningly beautiful, but she was also the subject of a well-kept secret. She was the mistress of the Prince of Wales, the future king of England. Wallis, Thelma and Consuelo became close friends and Wallis was soon privy to the intimacies of Thelma’s life.
Wallis, despite her popularity, had never met the Prince of Wales and she told her friends that she would love to meet him. Her wish came true when she eventually met him at a house party held by his mistress in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. As soon as she set eyes on Edward, Wallis was charmed and she knew if she could woo him, it would take her to the next level in her social life. Using intimate knowledge she had learned from Thelma, Wallis started to use her charms and seduce the most eligible bachelor in the world.
Soon the Simpsons became regular guests at the prince’s country retreat, and Edward was also a frequent visitor to the Simpsons’s home. Unaware that her so-called ‘friend’ had designs on her lover, Thelma confided in Wallis that she was off to the United States and asked her if she would look after the prince while she was away. And look after him she certainly did – by the time Thelma returned from her trip Edward and Wallis were already lovers.
Edward was not a particularly strong man and he loved the strength he found in Wallis. Wallis, in return, doted on the prince, realising that with him she had reached her pinnacle of social status. The prince threw all caution to the wind and started to display his mistress quite openly in public, while the press tried their hardest to keep the news under wraps to avoid a scandal. By January 1936 Edward had become king and his love for Wallis was something that he was not prepared to give up. The Simpson marriage cracked under the strain of the royal affair and Wallis sought for divorce.
Shortly before the death of his father, Edward had spoken to the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, informing him of Wallis’s intention to seek a divorce from her husband. As head of the Church of England, Edward was forbidden from marrying a divorced woman and Baldwin was horrified. It was one thing to turn a blind eye to the king’s affair with a married woman, but with a divorcee it was a completely different ball game. Baldwin begged the king to get Wallis to reconsider her situation, but the king replied that he had ‘no rights to interfere with the affairs of an individual’ and the prime minister realised that he had a very difficult situation on his hands.
For a while the king was allowed to carry on his affair, but the situation changed when he was chastised by Dr Blunt, the Bishop of Bradford, for his carefree lifestyle when storm clouds were gathering over Europe. The newspapers chose to break their code of silence and the affair made headline news.
Edward had made it quite clear that he wanted to marry Wallis and place her on the throne by his side, and foolishly he believed that his people would come round to his way of thinking. Wallis became the target of a hate campaign and had to suffer bricks and stones being hurled through the windows of her London apartment. Meanwhile, Edward was hopelessly in love with Wallis and seemed unable to perform even the simplest of duties. He started turning up late for appointments or cancelled them at the last minute. An emergency meeting was held at Buckingham Palace, aware that there would be no easy way to get Edward to give up Wallis Simpson.
The king was now faced with three options: he either had to give up Wallis; keep Wallis and face the resignation of his entire government; or abdicate and give up the throne. After a discussion with his beloved Wallis, Edward decided that he had no option but to abdicate. Edward signed the papers that ended his rule at 10.00 a.m. on 10 December 1936, surrounded by his three surviving brothers. The next in line for the throne was his brother, who became King George VI.
Edward and Wallis married in a simple ceremony on 3 June 1937 and, with a gift bestowed by his brother the king, Edward was allowed the keep the family name of Windsor so that he became the Duke of Windsor and Wallis the Duchess.
Following the abdication, the Duke and Duchess were exiled from Great Britain and, although many people believed it would only be for a few years, the exile lasted for the remainder of their lives.
Edward died on 28 May 1972 at the age of 77, while Wallis lived for another 14 years still secluded from the rest of the world. She died on 24 April 1986 at the age of 89.
princess margaret and forbidden love
Margaret, born on 21 August 1930, was a beautiful child who was full of personality and born to shine. Had she not been born into a royal line she could have pursued her true passions in life, but as a member of the House of Windsor she was made to tow the line and give up her one true love.
Much of Margaret’s childhood was spent at Windsor Castle during the harsh years of World War II. To try and relieve some of the boredom she devised practical jokes and as she reached her teenage years loved to flirt with the soldiers. She was wilful, spirited and charming, a stark contrast to her more dutiful and staid older sister, Elizabeth. She was very affectionate and able to wrap her father round her little finger. At the age of 16 Margaret was invited to go on a tour of the Commonwealth with the rest of her family and seeing her father’s health take a turn for the worse, suddenly made her realise the role she was expected to play as a member of the royal family.
Accompanying the family on the tour was a man named Group Captain Peter Townsend, a loyal servant who knew he had an important role to play in protecting the royal family. He was 16 years older than Margaret, married with two sons, and at the time paid no particular attention to the younger of the two sisters. Margaret was thoroughly enjoying the tour and took full advantage of all the world had to offer.
Margaret’s father, King George VI, died in his sleep on 6 February 1952, about five years after their tour of the Commonwealth. Margaret, who was 21 at the time, was devastated by his death, something which she never fully recovered from. The Queen Mother appointed Peter Townsend as comptroller of the household, a position which meant he had considerable contact with Margaret. With Margaret still reeling from the loss of her father and Townsend struggling over the failure of his marriage, the couple found increasing solace in each other’s company. When Townsend was finally divorced he was given custody of their two sons. In 1953 Townsend accepted his next royal assignment, this time at Sandringham. It was during this time that the relationship with Margaret really developed and they declared their love for one another. However, being older and wiser, Townsend was aware that the relationship was doomed, realising that it would not be accepted by the all-powerful ‘establishment’. Until Margaret was 25, she would need the queen’s permission to marry and after that she would also require Parliament’s as well. Her uncle, Edward VIII, had been forced to abdicate and she knew full well that this would still be fresh in their minds.
Aware of the delicate situation, Margaret and Townsend managed to keep their love affair secret for the next few months. It wasn’t until her sister’s coronation on 2 June 1953 that a reporter noticed a rather familiar behaviour between the couple. After that they were caught on more than one occasion recklessly frolicking and showing careless intimacy. They became virtually inseparable and yet they were aware all the time that they were living on borrowed time. Aware that Margaret’s love affair was scandalous, Prime Minister Winston Churchill intervened by sending Margaret on a tour of Rhodesia with her mother. Townsend was sent on an assignment to Belgium the day before Margaret was due to return to England. It was hoped that their affection would cool during his absence, but they didn’t account for the old adage ‘absence makes the heart grow stronger’. Despite the obstacles put in their way, the pair managed to keep their love alive with letters, long-distance phone calls and liaisons at houses of loyal friends. Churchill made it clear that parliament would not allow them to marry under any circumstances and Margaret knew she was faced with a tough decision. If she gave up her life as a royal she felt Townsend would feel forever guilty for not providing her with the same standard of living. Reluctantly, they came to the decision to end the relationship and Townsend helped Margaret write her ‘official’ letter of decision.
I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage. But mindful of the Church’s teachings that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others. I have reached the decision entirely alone and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Peter Townsend. I am deeply grateful for the concern of all those who have constantly prayed for my happiness.
For Margaret, she had lost the two men she truly loved in quick succession and somehow her eyes lost a lot of their original sparkle. She made the very painful decision to put duty and family in front of the desires of her heart.
Margaret married photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones (bestowed with the title Earl of Snowden and Viscount Linley by the queen) on 6 May 1960. Many believed that Margaret never truly recovered from her broken heart, and although the marriage lasted 16 years, it was often the subject of controversy. After their divorce Margaret lost much of her former vitality, and ill health forced her to scale down many of her public engagements. Suffering from repeated bouts of depression and several strokes, Margaret died on 9 February 2002, a very much loved member of the House of Windsor.
a dashing prince
Prince Andrew was born on 19 February 1960, the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Even during his school years at Gordonstoun, Andrew was the subject of several romantic rumours, resulting in the tabloids giving him the nickname ‘Randy Andy’. Having been described as the most dashing, daring and handsome of the Queen’s sons, it is not surprising that he had a stream of girlfriends, but none caused the same sensation as his affair with a soft-porn star called Koo Stark.
When Andrew had completed his A-levels in 1979 he joined the Royal Navy and quickly saw active service. His squadron was scheduled to sail to the Falkland Islands on HMS Invincible, from where he flew missions in Sea Kings. In 1997 Andrew took a desk job in the Ministry of Defence and finally retired from the Navy in July 2001.
Already being headlined as the ladies’ favourite, it was no surprise when he was seen out with a stunning brunette. The girl in question was Koo Stark, the daughter of film producer Wilbur Stark, with a promising career ahead of her in films and as a photographer. Koo is thought to have met Andrew at a party held by writer Nigel Dempster, and the chemistry was there right from the start.
Andrew was smitten and introduced his new girlfriend to the queen and the queen mother at Balmoral and she was an instant hit, particularly with Prince Philip, who always had an eye for a pretty lady. However, she quickly fell out of favour with the royal family when they learned of Koo’s involvement in soft-porn films in 1977, called Emily and Cruel Passion. Her relationship with Prince Andrew was quickly worldwide news – after all it’s not every day that one of the queen’s sons goes out with an actress who has been seen doing naughty things on film.
The family immediately put pressure on Andrew to end the affair, but the prince was besotted and found it hard to let go. They wrote impassioned letters to each other and talked about their future together, but deep down they both knew their relationship was doomed. Koo’s past had caused too much of a stir in the Windsor family, and under direct orders from the queen, Andrew reluctantly ended the affair in 1983. He was banned from having any contact with Koo, and the telephone operators at Buckingham Palace were told not to put any calls from her through to the prince. Although it caused a minor scandal in the House of Windsor at the time, had they realised what major waves one Sarah Ferguson would cause later on, they would probably have gladly accepted Koo into their family circle.
Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had been childhood friends because her father was the manager of Prince Charles’s polo team. In 1985 Sarah was invited to a house party at Windsor Castle to celebrate the Royal Ascot horse races, and it is believed that the romance started that same week. By March 1986 they were engaged and on 23 July 1986 they were married in Westminster Abbey. Many believed the couple were still feeling the effects of previous love affairs – Andrew for Koo Stark and Sarah for a former racing driver Paddy McNally. Despite this the crowds turned out to see the wedding of the year and 500 million television viewers tuned in to see the latest royal love match. Everyone was happy that the dashing prince had settled down at last and the beautiful red-haired princess had captured his heart.
However, after the initial excitement of a new relationship, the couple started to have problems. Andrew loved his life in the services and missed the excitement when he was home, and his periods away from Fergie, as she was affectionately known, became longer and longer. In 1987 he went back to sea on HMS Edinburgh, which drove an even deeper wedge between the couple.
To try and get over the loneliness, Fergie took to travelling around the world in a rather carefree manner and initially the press were kind to her. However, she soon became the subject of criticism – her clothes, her weight, her personality all made her a worldwide laughing-stock. She became miserable and despite frequent requests to be allowed to live like other military couples, the Windsors would not allow it for security reasons. Fergie threw herself into charity work and even learned to fly a helicopter to try and win favour with her husband, but the rift grew deeper.
While her own world was falling apart, Fergie was unaware that her father, Major Ron Ferguson, had secrets of his own. In May 1988 he was exposed by a Sunday newspaper as being a frequent visitor to a massage parlour who offered ‘extra services’ for those who wanted it. Although the royal family supported the major, Andrew then had his own doubts that he had chosen the wrong person to be his wife.
When their first daughter, Beatrice, was born in 1988, it not only took the pressure off her father’s scandalous behaviour, but it also seemed to briefly reunite the royal couple. Their second daughter, Eugenie, was born in 1990, but to Fergie’s dismay it did not keep Andrew at home – it appeared that the sea was still his first love. Once again Fergie’s behaviour was plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids, knocking her for her frumpy image compared to the beauty and style of her rival Princess Diana.
Downhearted and feeling badly treated by both the press and the royal family, Fergie sought for affection elsewhere. Fergie first met Texan businessman Steve Wyatt in Houston, Texas, in 1989, while she was pregnant with her second child. She immediately fell under his spell and after that the couple made love whenever and wherever they could. Wyatt was heir to an oil fortune and owned his own private jet, and the couple had romantic holidays in Morocco and the south of France. They threw caution to the wind, not afraid to be seen together and even romped in the gardens of ‘Southyork’, the mansion Fergie shared with Andrew in Sunninghill, Berkshire.
However, the holiday in France came back to haunt Fergie when 120 photographs of the two of them together were mysteriously found in a London apartment and then printed in a daily newspaper. For Andrew it was the final straw and he told the queen that he wanted to get out of the marriage, adding that it had been a mistake right from the start. Although the queen tried her hardest to get the couple to reconcile their differences, her efforts fell on stony ground – little did she know there was much worse to come.
Fergie had turned to writing, and published a series of children’s books about Budgie the Helicopter. Despite their success, the Duchess found herself heavily in debt as a result of her jet-set lifestyle. In 1992 Fergie had a new man in her life, John Bryan, who called himself her ‘financial adviser’. Although he was advising Fergie about her finances, it soon became evident that he was offering other more personal services and once again the panic button went off in Buckingham Palace. In August 1992 Fergie and Bryan went away together with the children to a villa in the south of France. Unbeknown to them, a cunning member of the French paparazzi had hidden in the bushes at the edge of the villa and managed to capture them in compromising positions. He took photographs of Fergie going topless by the pool and also, more incriminating, one of Bryan sucking the duchess’s big toe. All this took place not only in front of the two young girls, Beatrice and Eugenie, but also in the presence of two bodyguards. Rather a funny way of managing Fergie’s finances!
Andrew and the royal family reeled in discomfort from the press releases, and Fergie’s already low status was now at rock bottom. It was the final straw and Fergie was seen leaving Balmoral in her car, banished from the House of Windsor.
A few months later, Major Ferguson added to the misery with another exposé, this time from his previous involvement with a 26-year-old stable-girl called Lesley Player. She had written a book about her affair with the major and also given explicit details about Fergie’s romps with Steve Wyatt.
To add even more fuel to an already raging fire, John Bryan gave book publishers a taste of excerpts from diaries he claimed to have kept during his four-year affair with Fergie. Royal insiders were convinced that it was a ploy to exert pressure on Fergie to get cash out of her, and the queen’s advisers were put under pressure to hand over money so that Fergie could buy her ex-lover’s silence.
The couple’s divorce finally became official in April 1996, and Andrew and Fergie were given joint custody of their children. However, despite the major rift and everything that has happened over the years, the couple have amazingly managed to stay friends and in 2004 Fergie was photographed with the queen for the first time in over a decade. Seemingly, that was one series of scandals that the royal family were able to put behind them.
princess anne
Princess Anne was born in 1950 and is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. She was given the title princess royal by her mother in June 1987 and it could be said that she is the most austere of the queen’s children. She is known to have a temper and will not suffer fools gladly, and she has made it plain on more than one occasion that she will not put up with media prying into her private life. Cameramen have often been the brunt of her sharp tongue and she soon gained herself the reputation of being a frosty royal.
After a string of boyfriends, Anne finally settled down and married Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey on 14 November 1973 with all the usual pomp and ceremony. Phillips was a lieutenant and later captain in the 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards and was considered to be an ideal match for the princess royal, being described as a ‘tweedie’ sort with a love for countryside pursuits.
The following year Anne was the target of a failed kidnapping, and to this day remains the closest any individual has come to abducting a member of the British royal family. The incident occurred on 20 March 1974, when Anne and her husband were returning to Buckingham Palace after a local charity event. Their car was forced to stop by a man driving a Ford Escort, who jumped from his car and started firing a gun. Anne’s private detective responded with amazing speed and jumped out to shield the princess. However, his gun jammed and he was shot in the head and chest. Their chauffeur was also shot as he tried to disarm the man. Anne managed to dive out of the car on the far side and the gunman was eventually stopped by a passer-by who punched him in the back of the head. The man who attempted the kidnap was Ian Ball, who doctors later judged to be mentally unstable.
With the knowledge that Anne loved the country, the queen bought the couple their own mansion at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, where Anne’s two children Peter and Zara were born. Although the public saw Anne leading the idyllic life, in reality domestic life in the country disagreed with her. She became bored, not satisfied as her role as wife and mother. She threw herself into her work as a representative of the royal family and made a name for herself with her charity work. For the first time there was a chink in the armour, allowing the people to see the human side of a person who truly cared about what was happening around the world. However, with this new-found fame came the whispers of marital problems.
The problem first came to light when Anne and Mark were attending the Olympic games as part of the equestrian team. They no longer shared the same bedroom and it became obvious that they barely tolerated one another. It wasn’t until the disclosure of a former royal bodyguard that anyone realised just quite how serious their differences had become.
Peter Cross was Anne’s former minder and in 1985 he threatened to sell his story that he had had a ‘special relationship’ with Anne. He intimated that she was in love with him but the royal family managed to weather the storm because he was soon exposed as a man who had had numerous affairs. Despite this the marriage between Anne and Mark did not survive the scandal, and the couple only stayed together allegedly for the sake of the children and the reputation of the royal family.
In 1986 Timothy Lawrence was employed by the queen as an equerry. He a tall and handsome naval officer who not only caught the eye of the princess royal but also stole her heart. Unhappy in her marriage, the new man in her life seemed to bring back some of her old sparkle. The world, however, did not learn about the attraction between Anne and Commander Lawrence until 1989. A number of letters written by the commander to Anne had been stolen out of his suitcase and sent to The Sun newspaper. For some reason the paper decided not to print the contents of the letters and returned them to Anne, averting yet another crisis in the royal family.
Shortly afterwards Buckingham Palace released a statement that Anne and Mark were to separate, but with no plans for a divorce. The couple remained friends, but there was still more trouble ahead. In March 1991 Heather Tonkin, a 40-year-old teacher from New Zealand, claimed that Captain Mark Phillips was the father of her six-year-old child and launched a paternity suit against him. She alleged that she had received several thousand pounds in maintenance money, which had been cleverly disguised as equestrian fees but wanted more knowing that Mark was about to receive a tidy sum following his separation from Anne. Although the paternity suit was eventually dropped, it is believed that the matter was settled out of court to save any further scandal.
Princess Ann became the second member of the royal family, after Margaret, to get divorced. It was all finalised on 13 April 1992. On 12 December 1992 the princess royal married Timothy Lawrence in a small family ceremony at a modest parish church in Crathie, Scotland. Exchanging vows that they would stay together until ‘death do us part’ may now seem to be just meaningless words, as rumours that Princess Anne and Commander Laurence were leading separate lives surfaced in 2001.
daughter of an SS member
Princess Michael of Kent is the youngest child of the late Baron Günther von Reibnitz and Countess Szapary. She is a descendant of four European monarchs on both sides of her family. The princess gradually climbed the social ladder but it wasn’t until she moved to the United Kingdom that she really received any recognition. Her marriage to an Old Etonian banker lasted only a few years, but it did introduce her to an exclusive London set, which included Prince Michael of Kent.
When the news broke of Marie Christine von Reibtnitz’s engagement to Prince Michael of Kent, the queen is said to have commented: ‘She sounds far too grand for us’, and the Catholic divorcee claimed she didn’t receive a very warm welcome. Since her marriage to the prince in 1978, the princess has not been scared to speak her mind, describing the decor at Windsor Castle as ‘awful’ and also that the queen’s corgies ‘should he shot!’. Princess Anne reportedly nicknamed her ‘Princess Pushy’, a term that has been mercilessly used by the press whenever the opportunity arises.
The princess’s reputation was taken down a further notch when it was revealed that her father had been a member of Hitler’s notorious SS. Apparently he had been one of Hitler’s servants, those men who were responsible for the death of many prisoners of war and civilians in the Nazi’s evil death camps. Although there is no evidence that her father was actually involved in the genocide or the atrocial medical experiments carried out by the SS, he did join voluntarily and was closely connected with the SS ‘Lebensborn’ programme. This project was one of the most secret and perhaps terrifying of the Nazi programmes. The goal was to coax girls of ‘racially pure’ origin to have babies in secret, which would then be given to the SS to raise, in an effort to produce the perfect race. When the news broke it hit royalists hard and there was a public outcry. The idea that someone could enter the House of Windsor with a father who had been a member of the SS was simply unthinkable. Buckingham Palace called an immediate meeting between the queen and Princess Michael.
Advised by her minister, the queen decided there should be no recriminations or disgrace, and told the princess that she could not be blamed for the actions of her father. Princess Michael publicly spoke on television the following day saying:
Here I am, 40 years old, and I suddenly discover something that is really quite unpleasant. I shall just simply have to live with it.
It was indeed a great blow for the princess who had always worshipped her father like a hero. However, she did go on to say that she had a document that proved his membership of the Black Guard was purely honorary, adding that he never actually wore a uniform. Princess Michael did manage to survive the scandal, but she continues to be outspoken and often makes herself very unpopular. A recent event in the United States did nothing for the reputation of the royal family when she turned to some roudy black diners in a New York restaurant and said “You need to go back to the colonies!’ Of course the princess vehemently denies she ever made such a racist remark. It appears that Princess Michael of Kent will always be famous for outspokenness, even down to defending Prince Harry recently for wearing a Nazi costume as a fancy dress. Which is ironic, considering the revelations about father.
charles and diana
The House of Windsor has certainly seen its fair share of inglorious days, but the scandal that rocked it to the very core was the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
When Charles, the Queen’s eldest son, announced in 1981 that he was engaged to a kindergarten teacher of aristocratic birth, it rekindled the public’s interest in the British monarchy. The fact that she was 12 years his junior and someone with a spotless past was cause for a national celebration and Lady Diana Spencer immediately became the public’s sweetheart. With her coy looks and complete look of innocence, it was felt that she was a wise and suitable choice to act as Prince Charles’s royal ambassador and Buckingham Palace were delighted. The wedding would hopefully improve their long-suffering reputation after a spell of recent transgressions and scandals. Diana was the daughter of one of the queen’s oldest friends, the Earl of Spencer, and also the younger sister of one of Charles’s previous girlfriends, Sarah Spencer. Diana proudly showed off her engagement ring which was white gold with an oval sapphire in the middle and 14 diamonds round the outside. Her face was lit up with excitement and expectation, but little did she know what torment lay ahead of her.
On 29 July 1981 over 600,000 people crowded the route that Diana took from Buckingham Palace to London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, and a further estimated 750 million people followed the fairytale wedding on their television screens. There was an air of excitement everywhere: for the first time in 300 years an English girl was betrothed to a British heir to the throne. It was indeed the wedding of the century with Diana riding in a glass coach; Britain had never seen such extravaganza. Diana waved and smiled to her fans, but it was more the wave of a film star than someone who was about to become a member of the royal family. In the House of Windsor everything had to be far more discreet and this was a painful lesson she was soon to learn.
Buckingham Palace and its loyal followers were delighted when Diana gave birth to the first of their two sons, William Arthur Philip Louis on 21 June 1982. Her natural aptitude towards motherhood not only delighted her new family, but was greeted with delight by her adoring public who were not used to such a hands-on approach by a member of the royal family. However, by the time their second son, Harry, was born two years later, details of their not-so-happy marriage had become public knowledge. There were even rumours that Harry was not Charles’s son and cruel headlines ran the story ‘An heir and a spare’, intimating that he was the result of some illicit liaison. There is no doubt that they had both been unfaithful to each other. Charles, who had been quite open about his long-term love affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, who was the wife of one of his dearest friends, was not prepared to stop seeing her even after his betrothal to Diana. He had been in love with Camilla since he had been a young man of 23 and it would appear that nothing would sway his affections. Diana, who it is believed truly loved Charles at the beginning, almost called the wedding off when she discovered an expensive bracelet intended for Camilla to show her where his true affections lay.
Diana cleverly hid from her public the torment she must have been going through. No one except her closest associates were aware of the emotional breakdowns and suicide attempts that went on behind closed doors. Diana was a people person and she resolved that she would not let her unhappy marriage be her undoing. Instead she threw herself into her royal duties: touring the Commonwealth; visiting drug abuse centres; inspecting troops; visiting hospitals where lepers were being treated and became a patron of the National AIDS Trust among hundreds of other official duties. She became the people’s princess and she was adored wherever she went.
The news that all was not well was met with shock horror when a tell-all biography of Diana’s private life of hell hit the shelves in 1992. The palace had tried their hardest to hide the ever-widening divide between the prince and princess, but now it had become public knowledge and there was worse to come. British intelligence, aware that the news was out, decided to release to a London newspaper a taped telephone conversation between Diana and one of her close male friends, James Gilbey. The Sun’s reporters knew they were sitting on dynamite and on 14 August the so-called ‘Squidgy’ tapes were splashed all over the tabloid. The next day they offered a phone line for the public to listen to them – they received over 60,000 calls. They listened to Gilbey passionately declaring his love for the princess in which he lovingly referred to her as his ‘squidgy’.
Still reeling from the scandal of the tape, the realm then had to face a counter-attack that sent more shockwaves through Buckingham Palace. In September 1992 an Australian publication printed a transcript from an alleged sexually explicit telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla, in which Charles said something about wishing he was a tampon so that he could be inside her. This latest revelation left the prince and princess with no other choice but to give the prime minister leave to announce their official separation.
Added to the already considerable misery of their dirty laundry being washed in public, the House of Windsor had to face another disaster before the end of 1992. On the night of 21 November a fierce fire raged through Windsor Castle, threatening one of the world’s greatest collections of art. It took 250 firefighters 15 hours and 1.5 million gallons of water to douse the flames, while the queen and the duke of York desperately helped rescue priceless works of art. Over 100 rooms were damaged in the fire, which in itself became the topic of an intense public debate. As the castle was owned by the British government and not the royal family, it meant that the taxpayer would have to meet the £40 million restoration fee. However, to settle the dispute the queen agreed to meet 70 per cent of the costs and opened Buckingham Palace to the public to try and generate extra funds. The queen was visibly distressed by everything that had taken place in 1992 and described it has her Annus Horribilis, which no one can deny was a most miserable year for the Windsor family.
For a while Diana withdrew from the public eye and her official duties but it wouldn’t be long before she was back making headline news. In June 1994 Prince Charles agreed to a television documentary in which he admitted he had committed adultery. In October the same year three more new tomes arrived on the shelves of high street bookshops, detailing the obvious sham of Charles’s and Diana’s marriage. One of the damning books was a memoir by life guard officer James Hewitt, who claimed he had had a torrid five-year affair with Princess Diana.
In November 1995 Diana decided to come forward with her side of the story, and in an interview on a BBC news show, Panorama, she openly admitted that it was Charles’s on-going affair with Camilla that had led to her health problems and the eventual downfall of the marriage, and that it was true about her affair with James Hewitt. She added at the end, and probably to the delight of all her fans, that she did not intend to ‘go quietly’.
With the foundations of Buckingham Palace visibly cracking, a British bookmaker set odds at 5:1 that the monarchy would collapse by the turn of the century. In the meantime, it was the messy job of the royal solicitors to try and work out some sort of amical agreement to release Charles and Diana from their marriage vows. In July 1996 everything was finalised and although, technically speaking, Diana would no longer be a member of the royal family, she would be allowed to keep the title of the princess of Wales and some of the royal perks that went with it. It went without saying that she would still have a major say in the raising of her two sons.
Diana definitely left the palace a much stronger and wiser woman, and with a $26 million settlement to boot. Her name and pictures were always splashed all over the newspapers, whether it was to do with her constant charitable endeavours or her personal affairs. She openly admitted that the constant intrusion by the press affected her deeply and that had it not been for her two sons, she would have left her native country a long time ago.
No one could believe it when the news broke on 13 August 1997 that Diana and her latest beau, millionaire Dodi Fayed, had been killed in a car crash in a Paris tunnel. The chauffeur of the Mercedes car was also killed as a result of being pursued at high speed by paparazzi on motorbikes. Although Diana was cut from the wreckage and rushed to hospital, doctors were unable to save her life. The whole of Britain went into shock and hundreds of mourners gathered at the princess’s London home of Kensington palace to lay flowers at the gates. Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones survived the crash and tests later showed that the driver, Henri Paul, had taken both drugs and quite a large amount of alcohol just prior to the accident.
In the period when Britain was mourning the loss of their princess, some members of the royal family were criticised for their visible lack of concern, which once again showed the monarchy in a poor light. There has been much controversy and conspiracy theories regarding the death of Princess Diana and today the matter has never been truly resolved. There is no doubt she will never be forgotten for as Tony Blair so rightly said ‘People everywhere . . . they liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people.’