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6 Early years of marriage
In September, Prince Charles and Diana were sighted for the first time on an official engagement at
the annual Braemar Gathering and Highland Games, but it was not until mid-October that they
ended their honeymoon (Brown, 2008, pp. 182, 185). Their first public engagement as a married
couple was a three-day tour of Wales at the end of October (Smith, 2007, p. 125), and the press
turned up in force (Bradford, 2007, p. 100). Despite Diana’s pregnancy and her delicate mental state,
the trip proceeded according to plan (Smith, 2007, p. 125), although most of the time Diana felt sick
and was apprehensive of people’s expectations of her (Bradford, 2007, p. 100). According to Smith
(2007), at the time Diana was suffering from morning sickness as well as bulimia, and she was
convinced that she was doing everything wrong. As a result, Diana wept in the car between
engagements, terrified of facing the crowds again, but Prince Charles encouraged her to get out of
the car and just do it, so she did, drawing on her ability to put on a happy face despite how awful
she felt (p. 125).
According to Smith (2007), neither Prince Charles nor Diana had seen anything like the turnout of
people and press in Wales during their first official tour, and it unnerved them both. In addition,
although Prince Charles smiled proudly as Diana went through her paces, their new unsettling
dynamic became clear (p. 125): The people wanted Diana and not Prince Charles (Bradford, 2007,
p. 101). Diana was clearly feeling uneasy about the excessive attention directed at her, and she
urged her handlers to boost the response Prince Charles was receiving from the crowd, because,
like any woman who finds that the balance of power has suddenly shifted in her marriage, Diana
clearly saw how this would have a negative effect on their relationship (Brown, 2008, p. 193). Later,
Diana said that she did not receive any praise from Prince Charles, although Prince Charles had
commended her publicly by saying: “The response of the people in Wales during our visit there was
entirely due to the effect my dear wife has on everybody.” (Smith, 2007, p. 125). Diana had also
expected to receive praise from the Palace for her efforts, but she received none and it upset her
(Brown, 2008, p. 193). In her vulnerable, lonely position a little support would have helped her a lot
(Morton, 2010, p. 134).
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When Diana and Prince Charles returned to London at the end of October, they had no home of
their own as neither Highgrove nor their apartment at Kensington Palace was ready for them
(Brown, 2008, p. 185). According to Bradford (2007), for the next seven months, Prince Charles and
Diana lived in a relatively cramped apartment on an upper floor of Buckingham Palace, where they
had a bedroom, a sitting room, a study, a bathroom and two dressing rooms. Because of their close
proximity to one another, the imbalance between Diana’s empty life and Prince Charles’s busy one
became more marked as he had a programme of official duties while she had none, and Diana still
failed to comprehend why Prince Charles was not able to spend more time with her. Worse still, no
one seemed to take Diana seriously. Senior members of the Royal Family seldom considered other
people, and many of the courtiers shared the same view. An indication of the strange lack of
foresight and consideration where Diana was concerned was that it was not until three months after
the wedding, in September, that ladies-in-waiting were appointed to her (pp. 101-103). Smith (2007)
states that no one had thought out in detail what Diana would do, and she offered the courtiers
little guidance on her interests. In addition, during the early years, Diana refused to get too involved
in anything, and when she was presented with lists of charities and descriptions of what they might
mean to her personally, she did not show any interest to learn more about them (pp. 146-147).
Diana’s pregnancy was officially announced on 5 November 1981 (Morton, 2010, p. 134). However,
the pregnancy had made Diana even more volatile, and her bulimia had continued, further
complicated by the severe morning sickness that had plagued Diana from the early days of the
pregnancy (Smith, 2007, p. 126). She was violently sick every day (Brown, 2008, p. 195). In addition,
according to Smith (2007), Diana lost her appetite and had difficulties sleeping. As a result, during
the first two weeks of November, she had to withdraw from four official engagements, once
because Prince Charles insisted she stay in bed (p. 126). Diana’s behaviour caused disapproval
among the other royal women, because for them pregnancy was nothing out of the usual and should
be treated as such (Brown, 2008, p. 195). In fact, the highest value was placed on one’s ability to
leave a sickbed to attend an official engagement (Smith, 2007, p. 126).
It can only be speculated why Diana had elected to get pregnant for the first time so quickly after
the wedding even though she had so many other new responsibilities to get used to even without
46
the pregnancy. According to Brown (2008), Prince Charles had not wanted to start a family until
later on in the marriage so that Diana could get used to being a new member of the Royal Family
and her official duties, including royal tours. However, Diana was more than aware of the
importance of an heir. She knew that the way to regain instant approval within the Royal Family was
to first produce an heir and then a spare. Nevertheless, getting pregnant fast gave Diana something
real to do, and she needed the tenderness of a baby in her life because it gave her the warmth that
was lacking in the Royal Family (p. 196). Even so, a quick pregnancy robbed the couple of more time
to settle down together, and imposed yet another role on Diana who was already struggling to come
to terms with herself and her new roles (Smith, 2007, p. 125).
Meanwhile, the media interest in Diana remained intense to a degree which no one had foreseen
(Bradford, 2007, p. 100), and its fascination with her increased daily (Brown, 2008, p. 204).
According to Morton (2010), Diana and other members of the Royal Family had believed that her
fame would be temporary and the interest in her would fade following the wedding. Everyone, even
the press themselves, were caught unawares by the Princess Diana phenomenon: the readers could
not get enough of her. Diana was profoundly confused because she did not understand why the
press was so interested in her now as she had not altered overmuch since her single days (pp. 129-
130). Diana felt unworthy and inadequate of the attention aimed at her, but she somehow managed
to cope with it (Bradford, 2007, p. 100). According to Smith (2007), during the honeymoon, the press
had picked up that everything was not right in their marriage: they had noticed that she had
continued to lose weight, found it difficult to adapt to the royal routine, and felt the pressure to live
up to all that was expected of her. However, after their successful trip to Wales and the pregnancy
announcement, any concerns raised during their stay at Balmoral were forgotten, which was a press
pattern that was to persist throughout the marriage (p. 127). It was then that Diana began to
increasingly look to the media for the reassurance she was not getting at home (Brown, 2008, p.
204), and her celebrity simultaneously bolstered and bothered her, even though she was aware of
the difference between her public and private selves and felt disconnected from the superstar she
saw in the press each day (Smith, 2007, p. 128). In December, the pressure of the press became so
overwhelming that the Queen asked the editors of all twenty-one national daily and Sunday
newspapers and the key figures at the BBC and ITN to Buckingham Palace, and let them know that
she was worried about invasions of the privacy of the Princess of Wales, and asked for some
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