Free The Murder of Princess Diana by Noel Botham Page B

It is a framed photograph of Prince Harry. Clearly Major Hewitt has a good reason for favoring this photograph above all others to gaze at last thing at night and first in the morning. Perhaps it is simply that he retains a strong and lasting admiration for the spirited young prince. When I asked him he declined, very politely, to give an explanation.

    Diana’s weekdays had become dictated by William’s school hours, for she saw it as her duty to drive him to school and pick him up each day. Newspaper editors universally approved of this, because her constant changes of outfit provided front-page pictures on an almost daily basis.
    Charles was, for the most part, content with the one mistress, although he did sometimes have friends line up a female companion—an old conquest or a royal groupie—for his amusement. Diana, on the other hand, starved of love and male attention for so many years, was unable to resist playing the field, and for the rest of her life would encourage several suitors at any one time.
    Their lifestyles evolved a regular pattern at that time. At weekends, if she and the boys made one of their infrequent trips to Highgrove, it was usually the signal for Charles to go hunting or to polo, his standard excuse for visiting Camilla. He seemed loath to be under the same roof as Diana, said the staff at Highgrove. Her revenge, always producing spectacular results, was to continue to upstage him on every possible occasion. When he made a speech on education she made one on AIDS. When he tried to seize a photo opportunity playing cello during a visit to an Australian music college, Diana stole the show by hammering out the opening bars to a famous Russian piano concerto on an old upright. She outshone her husband, and indeed the whole royal family, on every occasion and whenever it took her fancy to do so.
    Even when it came to using their children to score points off each other, the princess had no scruples. Charles was en route to Italy for a holiday with Camilla when he was told that the three-year-old Prince Harry had been rushed to hospital for a hernia operation. He was personally reassured by Diana that it wasn’t necessary for him to fly home. There was no danger to their son. It was not until the next day that Charles discovered how easily he had been duped by his wife. Diana had spent the night at the hospital, sleeping in a chair “to be close to my little boy.” Newspapers labelled her “a saint,” while Charles was left fuming, once more classified as the villain of the piece.
    But it seemed he had learned little from these experiences when Prince William was hit on the head with a golf club by another boy. He and Diana had rushed their separate ways to be by their son’s side, and later accompanied him to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London, where specialists had advised he undergo urgent surgery. Having been told there was nothing he could do until after the operation was completed and William recovered from the general anesthetic, the prince left, after strong urging from Diana, to fulfill a long-standing engagement at the Royal Opera House. Predictably for everyone except Charles, the headlines the next day demanded W HAT KIND OF DAD ARE YOU ? Charles’s answer, by now just as predictable, was to withdraw even further from his family and concentrate more on his affair with Camilla.
    It still riled Diana when the prince paraded his paramour in front of friends, though she now rarely made a fuss. However, she felt some places should remain Camilla-free zones, and one such place was the memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who had died of cancer. When she learned he had invited Camilla to attend this very private event, she was furious. Diana had cuddled Leonora when the brave little girl had watched the Trooping of the Colour from the balcony of Buckingham Palace shortly before her death. As she left St. James’s