47
restraint (Brown, 2008, pp. 205-206). Nevertheless, the newspapers continued to cover the royal
couple nonstop, even though the photographers backed off for a while (Smith, 2007, p. 128).
Christmas at Windsor was a rare period of peace and happiness for Prince Charles and Diana, but
Sandringham in January was a different matter (Bradford, 2007, p. 103). According to Morton
(2010), during that time, Diana was three months pregnant with William and felt terrible. The
relationship between her and Prince Charles was rapidly unravelling, and Prince Charles seemed
incapable of understanding or even wishing to comprehend the turmoil in Diana’s life. Diana was
suffering from morning sickness, haunted by Camilla, and desperately trying to accommodate
herself to her new position and new family (p. 132). During their time at Sandringham, Diana
accidentally fell down the stairs, and landed at the feet of the Queen Mother (Bradford, 2007, p.
104). Prince Charles had been desperately concerned when Diana took her tumble, and it was he
who called the doctor to make sure both Diana and the baby were all right (Brown, 2008, p. 202).
He sat with Diana until the doctor arrived (Bradford, 2007, p. 104), and after the examination had
proved that neither she nor the baby had been hurt during the fall, Prince Charles stayed with Diana
the rest of the day and took her out for a royal barbeque later (Brown, 2008, p. 202). Later, Diana
said she had thrown herself down the stairs on purpose and landed in front of a horrified Queen,
and Prince Charles had just ignored her antics and went riding (Bradford, 2007, p. 104). In truth, the
last thing Diana would ever have done was hurt her unborn child in any way (Brown, 2008, p. 202).
According to Brown (2008), in February 1982, Prince Charles and Diana flew to the Bahamas for
what amounted to a second honeymoon. They stayed at Windermere on Eleuthera, the home of
Lord and Lady Brabourne. There they could focus on their relationship for the first time. The press
sighted them standing in the sea with their arms around each other, kissing, which was proof that,
removed from the pressures of Palace life and the shadow of Camilla, their relationship might have
had a chance of succeeding (p. 206). The vacation was good for Diana (Smith, 2007, p. 131).
However, during this holiday, the tabloids got pictures of a pregnant Diana in bikini (Bradford, 2007,
p. 105), and the Queen took the invasion of the privacy of Diana personally and issued a statement
calling the invasion of her daughter-in-law’s privacy “tasteless behaviour” and said that it “is in
breach of normally accepted British Press standards” (Brown, 2008, p. 207). As a result, the press
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apologized half-heartedly (Smith, 2007, p. 130). Diana seldom appeared in public as her pregnancy
progressed (Smith, 2007, p. 131), and when she did, she was constantly watched by photographers
and reporters, while newspapers commented on her every action (Morton, 2010, p. 137).
At 9.03pm on 21 June 1982, Diana gave birth to Prince William in St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington,
London (The Royal Household, n.d.). The media interest in the forthcoming birth had been too much
to bear for Diana and she had decided to have the labour induced (Morton, 2010, p. 137). As per
Diana’s wish, Prince Charles was present throughout all sixteen hours of labour, becoming the first-
ever Prince of Wales to be in the room when his wife gave birth (Brown, 2008, pp. 209-210).
William’s birth came just over a month before their first wedding anniversary: Diana had had little
time to accustom herself to being Princess of Wales and now she was the mother of the future King
(Brown, 2008, p. 208). Joy was unconfined, and when Diana arrived back at Kensington Palace,
Princess Margaret had organized a welcome reception outside where everyone waved and cheered:
it was perhaps the high point of Diana’s life as Princess of Wales as she had fulfilled her duty to the
Crown by producing the next heir to the throne (Bradford, 2007, p. 106).
According to Smith (2007), after leaving the hospital, Diana went into seclusion for a month, and did
not appear until late July, when she attended a service at St Paul’s. However, the press coverage
drove her back into hiding, as the tabloids wrote that she looked plump and behaved
inappropriately. As a result, Diana stayed out of the public eye for the rest of the summer and into
the autumn, and sank into a deep malaise (pp. 132-133). At first, the joy of motherhood overcame
Diana’s bulimia and the mood was infectious: for a time Prince Charles surprised his friends by his
enthusiasm for the nursery routine (Morton, 2010, p. 139). However, it was not long until Diana’s
postnatal depression started (Brown, 2008, p. 210). By the time Prince William was barely a month
old, Diana was hit with a depression even worse than what she had experienced during her
honeymoon and pregnancy, and at the same time, Diana’s abandonment fears grew more acute
and she panicked whenever Prince Charles did not arrive home on time, but Diana concealed her
worry from Prince Charles (Smith, 2007, p. 132). Prince Charles cleared his diary and stayed home
with Diana and the baby (Brown, 2008, p. 210). On August 4, 1982, Prince William was christened
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Prince William Arthur Philip Louis in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace (The Royal Household,
n.d.).
On August 14, Prince Charles, Diana and Prince William left for the Royal Family’s annual holiday at
Balmoral (Smith, 2007, p. 133). Prince Charles still did not understand Diana’s aversion to the annual
summer holiday at Balmoral (Brown, 2008, p. 211). At Balmoral, Diana was plagued by insomnia and
continued to binge and purge, and, once again, her weight dropped alarmingly (Smith, 2007, p. 133).
Prince Charles worried about her, but he did not understand post-natal depression, and no one in
the Royal Family recognized either that or her bulimia (Bradford, 2007, p. 111). In addition,
according to Smith (2007), Diana’s obsession with Camilla continued, and despite Prince Charles’s
denials, Diana persisted in accusing him of maintaining the affair. While Prince Charles had ended
his relationship with Camilla, it is likely that they continued communicating in some form, even
though it has also been said that once engaged Prince Charles made virtually no contact with Camilla
for over five years and that he had seen her only fleetingly at social gatherings. Regardless of the
real state of the affair, Diana’s imaginings had a profound impact on the relationship, and on her
own behaviour, which took an alarming new turn in during her time at Balmoral as she began to
injure herself with sharp objects. She did not characterize her actions as suicide attempts but as
cries for help, although she later said that she had tried to commit suicide a number of times without
naming the specific incidents. Diana enacted some of her self-harm in Prince Charles’s presence.
Diana’s distressing behaviour greatly worried Prince Charles, and after Prince Charles consulted with
his confidants and talked to Diana, they agreed that she should again undergo psychiatric
counselling. Neither the Queen nor any other member of the Royal Family were privy to these
discussions. Prince Charles was still unaware of Diana’s bulimia, so the incentive for treatment was
her self-harm. On October 17, Prince Charles took Diana, along with Prince William and the nanny,
to London so Diana could begin treatment. She did not return to Balmoral that fall. As Prince Charles
had done a year earlier when he urged Diana to find professional help for her depression and mood
swings, he showed that he considered her symptoms serious enough for special care (pp. 133-136).
Nevertheless, Diana again withheld the crucial facts about her bulimia (Brown, 2008, p. 214). The
analysts blamed everything on her broken home, although later the doctor who treated Diana
attributed her bulimia directly to her problems with Prince Charles and it became noticeably worse
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