The Queen Mother's favorite grandson, Prince Charles, the prince of Wales faced an agonizing decision about marriage in 1980, partly because he was already pressured by his family and countrymen to settle down. His conquest for a bride became the most favorite topic of debate in the newspaper that turn into a national past time. Unfortunately for the Prince of Wales, his stature as King-in-waiting offered him no freedom to choose for just any woman.
His favorite uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten (maternal uncle of Prince Philip and Queen Victoria's great grandson) warned him about falling in love: Love is not an option for the man who would be King of England, it is a consideration in marriage but not a guiding force. The Earl of Burma and the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II (Mountbatten was also the responsible of clearing the deck of the union of his nephew Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II), became vigilant in Charles's love life.
Any woman who did not fit into the standard of the royal family was out of the list. Among the woman who was strongly opposed by Mountbatten was Camilla Shand, a commoner daughter of a British Military officer. So Camilla married Andrew Parker Bowles. Not knowing that the woman would later become the attacked dog in Charles and Diana's marriage that would forever change the course of British History.
Lord Mountbatten was assassinated in August 1979 by the Irish Republican Army. Charles lost someone who had been his protector. The devastating incident further gave him room to rush into the altar. In July 1980 at last, he found her fairy tale Princess. The fresh and lovely Lady Diana Spencer who was working at the time as pre-school assistant at the All Kindergarten school at the Pimlico District of London, accomplished all the requirements of an ideal royal match. She is the aristocrat daughter of a wealthy nobleman, Johnny Spencer the 8th Earl of Althorp, who had been a Courtier to Charles's grand father King George VI and his mother Queen Elizabeth II. Her mother, The Honorable Frances Burke-Roche also boasted a noble lineage (daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy). Charles and Diana had known quiet well as they both came from Britain's upper class.
Diana's father was a direct descendant of King Charles II through his two illegitimate sons, the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of Richmond. Diana's grandparents on both sides served as Equerry, courtiers and Ladies in Waiting in the British Royal court for many generations. She was also a childhood playmate of Charles's two younger brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Furthermore, she was an aristocrat without a past. Her being lacked of education (where she was a high school dropped out and studied for a while in an exclusive finishing school for girls in Switzerland) did not matter. With her purity, innocence, beauty and royal pedigree, Lady Diana was pronounced as the most suitable Future Queen Consort of England.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married on July 29, 1981 at the glittering ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, where it was hailed as the wedding of the 20th century with an estimated 700 million viewers worldwide. Nothing was so important that day than the world's anticipation for “a happy ending”, but destiny decreed otherwise.
After giving birth to two adoring boys, Prince William and Prince Harry, Diana, whose primary mission in life (she later realized) is to help the world's downtrodden, devoted herself in various charity campaign-a crusade that made her famous even after death. Soon she became the most beloved figure in the Kingdom, outshining her husband. But she paid a high prize for being the most glamorous woman in the world and the most photographed. On the early morning of August 31, 1997, one year after her very public divorce battle with Prince Charles, she met a tragic death in a car crash in down town Paris, when the black mercedez benz she was riding with her new lover, chased by paparazzi, rebounded on the concrete wall of the Pont'de Alma tunnel.
The world mourned her passing, convulsed with grief people, across the globe who are deeply touch by her kindness and genuine compassion, offered sympathy. Her sudden death made a terrible blow to the Kingdom, they had lost their brightest star and the public, who adored the Princess of Wales, did not seem care with other members of the royal family, whom they regarded as impostors, wearing sparkling jewels and crowns yet they behaved worse than ordinary commoners.
The disenchantment of the public is attributed to the fact that the throne will no longer have a Queen Consort in the years to come. Prince Charles remarried in April 2005 to his mistress, but Camilla, who took the title Duchess of Cornwall (taken from Charles's second title Duke of Cornwall), would not be crowned as Queen Consort when the Prince of Wales ascended the throne, she was divorced and the British constitution prohibited it.
