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Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances; née Spencer; 1 July 1961 –
31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Their two sons,
Princes William and Harry, are second and third in line to the thrones of the
United Kingdom and 15 other Commonwealth Realms.
 Education
Diana
was educated at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls' School
(later reorganised as the New School at West Heath, a special school for boys
and girls) in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as a poor student,
having attempted and failed all of her O-levels twice. In 1977, at the age of
16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a
finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. At about that time, she first met
her future husband, who was dating her sister, Lady Sarah. Diana reportedly
excelled in swimming and diving and is said to have longed to be a ballerina
but did not study ballet seriously and was too tall for such a career at
5'10".
Once it was clear that she would not earn any formal educational qualifications,
Diana begged her parents to allow her to move to London, a request granted before
she was seventeen. An apartment was purchased for her at Coleherne Court in the
Earls Court area, and she lived there until 1981 with three flatmates. During that
period, she studied for a Cordon Bleu cooking diploma, although she apparently
hated cooking,[citation needed] and worked at Madame Vacani's Dance Academy in
Kensington, but resigned because she didn't like the pushy stage school
parents.[citation needed] Lady Diana filled time as a cleaner and a cocktail
waitress, before finding a job as a part-time aide at the Young England
kindergarten.
Marriage
The Prince and Princess of Wales return from their 1981 wedding at St. Paul's
Cathedral.
The Prince and Princess of Wales with US President Ronald Reagan and his wife,
First Lady Nancy Reagan.
Diana dancing with John Travolta at a White House dinner on 9 November 1985.
Diana talking with First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan, as Charles and
President Ronald Reagan look on.Prince Charles's love life had always been the
subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous glamorous and
aristocratic women. In his early thirties, he was under increasing pressure to
marry. Legally, the only requirement was that he could not marry a Roman Catholic;
a member of the Church of England was preferred. In order to gain the approval of
his family and their advisors, any potential bride was expected to have a royal or
aristocratic background, as well as be Protestant and, preferably, a virgin. Diana
seemed to meet all of these qualifications. They married at St Paul's Cathedral on
29 July 1981, watched by a global audience of almost one billion.
Separation
and divorce
In the mid-1980s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first
suppressed, then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess
of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for
the marriage's demise.[5] Charles resumed his old, pre-marital affair with Camilla
Parker Bowles, while Diana had an affair with her riding instructor, James Hewitt.
She later confirmed the affair with Hewitt in a television interview with Martin
Bashir for the BBC programme Panorama. Charles confirmed his own adultery later in
a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby. Although no charges were ever
considered, adultery with the Queen consort or Princess of Wales has been high
treason in England at least since the Treason Act 1351, so if there had been a
trial and conviction of the Princess for adultery with Hewitt, both Diana and
Hewitt could theoretically have been executed.
Diana was also alleged to have had a relationship with James Gilbey, her telephone
partner in the so-called Squidgygate affair. Another supposed lover was
detective/bodyguard Barry Mannakee, who was assigned to the Princess's security
detail, although the Princess adamantly denied a sexual relationship with him.
After her separation from Prince Charles, she was said to have become involved with
married art dealer Oliver Hoare, to whom she admitted making numerous telephone
calls, and with rugby player Will Carling. She also publicly dated respected heart
surgeon Hasnat Khan before her brief involvement with Dodi Al-Fayed. Other men
rumoured to have been her lovers, both before and after her divorce, included
property developer Christopher Whalley, banker Philip Waterhouse, King Juan Carlos
of Spain, singer Bryan Adams, and John F. Kennedy, Jr.. There is little evidence to
support the idea that her relationships with these men were anything more than
friendships.
The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated on 9 December 1992, by which time
her relations with the some of the Royal Family, excepting the Duchess of York,
Sarah Ferguson, were difficult. Their divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.
Diana received a lump sum settlement of around £17,000,000 along with a legal order
preventing her from discussing the details.[citation needed] The Princess
relinquished the style Her Royal Highness and instead was styled as Diana, Princess
of Wales. Buckingham Palace stated that Diana was still officially a member of the
Royal Family, since she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the
throne.[citation needed] This has since been confirmed by the Deputy Coroner of the
Queen’s Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, who after a pre-hearing on 8 January 2007
ruled that: "I am satisfied that at her death, Diana Princess of Wales continued to
be considered as a member of the Royal Household."
After the divorce, Diana retained her apartment in Kensington Palace, which
remained her home until her death. She also completely redecorated and gave her
loyal staff members a pay rise.
After her divorce Diana did a great deal of useful work particularly for the Red
Cross and in a campaign to rid the world of land mines. Her work was always on a
humanitarian rather than a political level. She was extremely aware of her status
as mother of a future King and was prepared to do anything to prevent harm to her
sons. She pursued her own interests in philanthropy, music, fashion and travel -
although she still required royal consent to take her children on holiday or
represent the UK abroad. Without a holiday or weekend home, Diana spent most of her
time in London, often without her sons, who were with Prince Charles or at boarding
school. She assuaged her loneliness with visits to the gym and cinema, private
charity work, incognito midnight walks through Central London and by compulsively
watching her favourite soap operas (EastEnders and Brookside) with a 'TV dinner' in
the isolation of her apartment.[citation needed]
The alternative 'court' she cultivated was sometimes seen as unconventional and
controversial. Included within it were numerous New Age healers and spiritualists,
the feminist empowerment therapist Susie Orbach, well known personalities such as
Gianni Versace, George Michael, Elton John, and Michael Barrymore with whom she
would visit Soho nightclubs, bohemian members of the aristocracy such as Annabel
Goldsmith, university students, several tabloid journalists and Stephen Twigg,
nicknamed 'Rasputin' for his influence. It was apparently Twigg who helped Diana
realise her potential as an INFP, and introduced her to Jungian theories in
general, which she had previously derided as an interest of her ex husband.
Death
The Pont de l'Alma tunnel, where Diana was fatally injured.
The Flame of Liberty, which sits above the entrance to the Paris tunnel in which
Diana was fatally injured. The public fly-posted the base with commemorative
material for several years. It should be noted that the Flame of Liberty, an exact
replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame, has been at the Pont de l'Alma since long
before the accident and is in no way related to Lady Diana's death. However in the
past ten years, tourists have assumed it to be a memorial, hence the commemorative
material at its base after the accident. This material has since been removed by
the French authorities.Main article: Death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
On 31 August 1997 Diana was tragically killed after a high speed
car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris along with Dodi Al-Fayed
and their driver Henri Paul. Blood analysis shows that Henri Paul was illegally
intoxicated while driving. Tests confirmed that original postmortem blood samples
were from driver Henri Paul, and that he had three times the French legal limit of
alcohol in his blood. Conspiracy theorists had claimed that Paul's blood samples
were swapped with blood from someone else—who was drunk—and contended that the
driver had not been drinking on the night Diana died. Their Mercedes-Benz S280
sedan crashed on the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel. The two-lane tunnel was built
without metal barriers between the pillars, so a slight change in vehicle direction
could easily result in a head-on collision with the tunnel pillar.
Fayed's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was closest to the point of impact and yet the
only survivor of the crash; he was the only one to be wearing a seatbelt. Henri
Paul and Dodi Fayed were killed instantly, and Diana — unbelted in the back seat-
slid forward during the impact and, having been violently thrown around the
interior, "submarined" under the seat in front of her, suffering massive damage to
her heart and subsequent internal bleeding.[citation needed] She was eventually,
after considerable delay, transported by ambulance to the Pitié-Salpêtrière
Hospital, but on the way to casualty went into cardiac arrest twice.[citation
needed] Despite lengthy resuscitation attempts, including internal cardiac massage,
she died at 4 a.m. local time. Her funeral on 6 September 1997 was broadcast and
watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide.
The death of Diana has been the subject of widespread conspiracy theories,
supported by Mohamed Al-Fayed, whose son died in the accident. Her former father in
law, Prince Philip, seems to be at the heart of most of them but her ex husband has
also been named, and was questioned by the Metropolitan Police in 2005. Some other
theories have included claims that MI6 or the CIA were involved. Mossad involvement
has also been suspected, and this theory has been supported on US television by the
intelligence specialist barrister Michael Shrimpton. One particularly outlandish
claim, appearing on the internet, has stated that the princess was battered to
death in the back of the ambulance, by assassins disguised as paramedics. These
were all rejected by French investigators and British officials, who claimed that
the driver, Henri Paul, was drunk and on drugs. Blood tests later reported that
Henri Paul was drunk at the time of the accident, although CCTV footage of Paul
leaving the Ritz hotel with the princess and Dodi Fayed does not appear to depict a
man in a drunken or incapable state. Nonetheless, in 2004 the authorities ordered
an independent inquiry by Lord Stevens, a former chief of the Metropolitan Police,
and he suggested that the case was "far more complex than any of us thought" and
reported "new forensic evidence" and witnesses. The French authorities have also
decided to reopen the case. Lord Stevens' report, Operation Paget, was published on
December 14, 2006.
Within seconds of the crash, the paparazzi had surrounded the Mercedes, and
proceeded to take pictures of the dying princess. Not one called for medical
assistance.[citation needed] On 13 July 2006 Italian magazine Chi published
photographs showing Diana in her "last moments" despite an unofficial blackout on
such photographs being published.[citation needed] The photographs were taken
minutes after the accident and show the Princess slumped in the back seat while a
paramedic attempts to fit an oxygen mask over her face.
Source : Some of the information on
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Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Princess
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