'I dreamt of Camilla the whole time': Princess Diana's broken marriage and obsession with Charles' lover
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer got married at St Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981. It was one of the biggest royal events in Britain after the Queen's coronation and was watched by an estimated 750 million viewers worldwide. It was even declared a national holiday. Also sitting in the congregation that day was Camilla Parker Bowles, one of the Prince's former mistresses.
In a Daily Mail article, English journalist and writer Andrew Morton said Diana believed Charles was still in love with Camilla at the time of their wedding. In fact, Diana had even considered calling off the wedding, but it eventually took place. The details were described in a book by Morton called 'Diana: Her True Story-- in Her Own Words.'
READ MORE
All the men who stole Princess Diana's heart: 25 years after her death, here's what they're doing
Soon after their wedding, cracks began to appear in Charles and Diana's marriage. In 1996, the divorce was finalized. In February, Queen Elizabeth II declared it was her “sincere wish” for Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall to become Queen Consort when Charles becomes king. Charles and Camilla have been married for 17 years now. Diana died in a horrific car crash on August 31, 1997.
"I had a very bad fit of bulimia the night before the wedding. I ate everything I could possibly find, which amused my sister Jane because she was staying at Clarence House with me," Morton quoted Diana as saying. "Nobody understood what was going on. It was very hush-hush. I was sick as a parrot that night. It was such an indication of what was going on. Charles sent me a very nice signet ring on the same night, with the Prince of Wales feathers on and a very nice card that said: ‘I’m so proud of you and when you come up, I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ’em in the eye and knock ’em dead.’"
"The next morning, I must have been awake about 5am. Interesting — they put me in a bedroom overlooking The Mall, which meant I didn’t get any sleep," Diana added. "I was very, very calm, deathly calm. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter. I knew it and couldn’t do anything about it. My last night of freedom with Jane at Clarence House. On the day, there was great anticipation. Happiness because the crowds buoyed you up — but I don’t think I was happy. Father [still suffering from the after-effects of a massive stroke] was so thrilled, he waved himself stupid. We went past St Martin-in-the-Fields and he thought we were at St Paul’s. He was ready to get out. It was wonderful, that. As I walked up the aisle, I was looking for Camilla. I knew she was in there, of course. I looked for her."
As Diana walked back down the aisle, she spotted Camilla, describing her as a "pale grey, veiled pillbox hat" adding that she "saw it all, her son Tom standing on a chair." "To this day, you know — vivid memory. When we got out, it was a wonderful feeling: everybody hurraying, everybody happy because they thought we were happy. And there was the big question mark in my mind. I realized I had taken on an enormous role but had no idea what I was going into — just no idea," Diana said.
Speaking of their honeymoon, Diana said, "[On the second leg of the honeymoon, aboard the Royal Yacht] we had to entertain all the top people on Britannia every night, so there was never any time on our own. Found that very difficult to accept." The yacht, she said, was manned by 21 officers and 256 men. "Evening meals were black-tie affairs, attended by selected officers. And while everyone ate, a Royal Marine band played in an adjoining room. By then, the bulimia was appalling, absolutely appalling. It was rife: four times a day on the yacht. Anything I could find, I would gobble up and be sick two minutes later — very tired," Diana recalled. She said she cried her eyes out on their honeymoon because she was tired "for all the wrong reasons" From the yacht, she said they went off to Balmoral where everyone welcomed them. Then, she said, the "realization" set in.
"My dreams were appalling. At night, I dreamt of Camilla the whole time," Diana said. "I was obsessed by Camilla totally. I didn’t trust Charles — thought every five minutes he was ringing her up, asking how to handle his marriage. Charles got Laurens van der Post up to come and help me. Laurens didn’t understand me. Everybody saw I was getting thinner and thinner and I was being sicker and sicker."
"Basically, they thought I could adapt to being Princess of Wales overnight. All the guests at Balmoral coming to stay just stared at me the whole time treated me like glass," Diana said. "As far as I was concerned, I was Diana — the only difference was people called me ‘Ma’am’ now, ‘Your Royal Highness,' and they curtsied. That was the only difference, but I treated everybody else exactly the same."
Diana expressed her disappointment at how Charles refused to make her his priority. She described how she was always the "third" in the room. "He was in awe of his Mama, intimidated by his father, and I was always the third person in the room. It was never: 'Darling, would you like a drink?’ It was always: ‘Mummy, would you like a drink?’ ‘Granny, would you like a drink?’ ‘Diana, would you like a drink?’"
"Fine, no problem. But I had to be told that that was normal because I always thought it was the wife first — stupid thought!" she said. "We stayed up there at Balmoral from August to October. I got terribly, terribly thin. People started commenting, ‘Your bones are showing.’ By October, I was in a very bad way. I was so depressed, and I was trying to cut my wrists with razor blades. It rained and rained and rained."
Diana later came to London for treatment, and she was put on "high doses of Valium and everything else." "They were telling me ‘pills’! That was going to keep them happy — they could go to bed at night and sleep, knowing the Princess of Wales wasn’t going to stab anyone," she said. "Anyway, a godsend, William was conceived in October. I was told I was pregnant, fine, great excitement. Marvelous news occupied my mind. In those days, my greatest pleasure was that I was lucky enough to have a baby on the way."
The couple went to Wales in Wales for three days in October 1981 to visit as Princess and Prince of Wales, and she describe how that was a culture shock for her. "Wrong clothes, wrong everything, wrong timing, feeling terribly sick, carrying this child, hadn’t told the world I was pregnant but looking grey and gaunt and still being sick. [I was] desperately trying to make Charles proud of me. Made a speech in Welsh. He was more nervous than I was. Never got any praise for it. I began to understand that that was absolutely normal," she said.
In the following days, Diana fell extremely sick while she was pregnant. "People tried to put me on pills to stop me from being sick. I refused to risk the child becoming handicapped as a result. So sick, sick, sick, sick, sick," she said.
William was born on June 21, 1982. "When the Queen came to see William in hospital, she looked in the incubator and said, ‘Thank goodness he hasn’t got ears like his father,'" Diana recalled. "Came home, and then postnatal depression hit me hard. And it wasn’t so much the baby that had produced it — it was the baby that triggered off all else that was going on in my mind."
Diana added, "Boy, was I troubled. If Charles didn’t come home when he said he was coming home, I thought something dreadful had happened to him. Tears, panic, all the rest of it. He didn’t always see the panic because I would sit there quietly. At William’s christening [on August 4, 1982] I was treated like nobody else’s business. Nobody asked me when it was suitable for William — 11 o’clock, couldn’t have been worse. Endless pictures of the Queen, Queen Mother, Charles, and William. I was excluded totally that day. I felt desperate because I had literally just given birth — William was only six weeks old. And it was all decided around me. Hence the ghastly pictures. Everything was out of control, everything. I wasn’t very well and I just blubbed my eyes out. William started crying, too. Well, he just sensed that I wasn’t exactly hunky-dory."