The Diana Chronicles

"Diana is such a major figure in the history of the British monarchy and also in British popular culture. Her death and the week before her funeral were an absolutely crucial moment in the history of the monarchy and its relationship to the people—and Queen Elizabeth herself played the central role in that, as I describe in my own book. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Tina’s book captures Diana with such raciness, charm and insight. The book is based on incredible research. One of Tina’s strengths is that she is a great British journalist who has been living in America for many years. So she embodies that slightly bemused and admiring attitude of America toward the British monarchy. I think some Americans almost wish they had a monarchy—and, of course, they do. The American president gets selected by an arduous and ludicrously expensive and drawn-out electoral process. Then he—not yet she—is promptly turned into a monarch, complete with a First Family and all the trappings of empire. If you happen to be called Kennedy or Bush you are treated as part of a royal dynasty, and you are entitled to be considered for future succession. One of the things you see in The Diana Chronicles is the way in which there was more fondness and closeness between Diana and Queen Elizabeth than people realise. Queen Elizabeth, if only through a sense of duty, bent over backwards to support her daughter-in-law through her early difficulties. Right at the start of the marriage, she realised something was wrong and brought in the best medical and psychological help she could. She talked to the newspaper editors and tried to get them to lay off Diana and create less pressure, although she didn’t realise in those early days the full horror for Diana of the fact that Charles had given his heart to someone else—Camilla Parker Bowles. Tina has some very good quotes showing Diana’s respect for Queen Elizabeth. But she also shows how, when Diana gave that famous interview saying how she wanted to be ‘queen of people’s hearts’ that, consciously or subconsciously, she was issuing a challenge to the Queen and had taken a step too far. Yes, and this is a major theme of my book . In the speech she gave the day before Diana’s funeral she uttered that memorable phrase, “Speaking to you as your Queen and a grandmother”. There had been no plan until the day before for her to speak, and she did the two things which she hates most—broadcasting, and revealing her feelings. She reminded everybody that yes, she was the country’s queen, but she was also grandmother of these boys who had lost their mother in such tragic circumstances, and that her first priority that week was to look after the boys. The public wanted Queen Elizabeth to be their mummy or grandmother—while she felt that her first duty was to her grandsons. We can relate to that as a touching human family response, but of course it has turned out to be a major factor in the ongoing strength of the monarchy. Despite the difficulties that Queen Elizabeth had in her relationship with Prince Charles, she got on extremely well with her grandchildren. In this she is perhaps a bit like her grandfather, George V. She had a marvellous relationship with both William and Harry, and helped bring them up as model characters, in most people’s eyes, for the future of the monarchy. Whatever doubts people may have about Princes Charles, they feel that the long-term future of the monarchy is in very safe hands with William and Catherine, and Harry as a backup. People in Britain, and indeed in America, forget that Elizabeth II was not just queen of Great Britain but also queen of many other realms, such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand—for whom she is, in fact, Elizabeth I. She is head of the Commonwealth, a family of 54 different countries which used to be just members of the British Empire. But now you get African countries like Angola, never in the British Empire, that want to join the Commonwealth—which is a great tribute to the Queen. I often like to remind Americans that while Queen Elizabeth went to America three or four times officially in the course of her reign, in that same period she went to Canada over 20 times, because she was of course the Queen of Canada. I think one of the reasons why Canadians are so fond of the Queen and the monarchy is because it is what distinguishes them from America. Although, of course, she paid quite a few private visits to Kentucky to inspect the racehorses there, which were her great passion in life. I think the Queen was Britain’s number one asset as a focus of British history and past glory, while also showing our ability to change and adapt to the modern world, in the same way as she was able to do. ———————————————– Editor’s note: In 2022 the UK is celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, marking her seven decades on the throne. The result has been a host of new books on her life and reign, including Robert Hardman’s Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II , Andrew Morton’s The Queen (apparently not available in the US), and Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor . For an older biography recommended by historian Diarmaid MacCulloch among others, it’s also worth considering The Queen: Elizabeth II and the Monarchy ."

"I thought Tina did a good job. She didn’t come up with anything new, even though she worked very hard to get something new. But what she did was to come up with a compelling portrait that put Diana in a social milieu which was certainly accessible to Americans. If Tina was muckracking, she didn’t rack much muck! I think it is a nicely written, well-judged analysis that didn’t turn up much in the way of new material. I met her at Charles and Camilla’s wedding and she told me she was doing this book, and I said: good luck getting anything new. What she came up with was the portrait of someone who knows and understands the social scene in Britain and was able to explain it in a vivid way to an American audience. It was an extraordinary experience. I felt very privileged and very honoured to be asked to write her story. I think that I did a pretty competent job of it. I’ll give you a parallel. Kate Middleton did her university thesis on the author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll . I felt like a male version of Alice in Wonderland – that I had entered a parallel universe where nothing was as it seemed and everything was very unusual. I remember the first time I was ever told anything about Diana’s bulimia, about this woman no one had ever heard of called Camilla Parker-Bowles, about her suicide attempts and about her unhappy marriage… it was like literally going into a parallel universe. And I remember going back from that first meeting with the go-between and stepping further back from the edge of the subway than normal. It was like being in a spy drama where you now know a secret that nobody else knows. And I held that secret for a year – which was quite remarkable. Well exactly. I was under enormous pressure in those first few weeks from members of Parliament, from member of the House of Lords, the Palace and elsewhere, because of the controversial nature of the book. And it would have been very easy to say well actually, chaps, Diana was behind this. These are her words and her thoughts. But I kept quiet and kept on with the same mantra: that she wasn’t involved but her friends and family were. A few more perceptive journalists like Mark Lawson were duly sceptical but most of them accepted the story. Oh, outrage. Britain was in the grip of what people would call floral fascism, where I was damned for bringing the book out in the first place and not saying Diana was involved, and then damned for saying she was involved afterwards. So I couldn’t win. It was very much a case of ‘have a go at the messenger’."