<p>I respect Charles’s causes, but he’s never been much of a “people” person. He always looks stiff and aloof. I don’t think he relates to common folk well at all. Whereas Diana, for all her drama-queen and petulant ways within the royal family, had the ability to make whoever she was speaking to feel as if they were the most important person in the world. When she went to the hospital and hugged AIDS patients, it was a marked change in the way the world viewed the disease. She had a way with kids, old people, the common man on the street. I think that’s why she was the “people’s princess.” William seems to have that ability to relate to real people that his father has never shown.</p>
<p>edit: cross-posted with mythmom, great minds think alike! :)</p>
<p>If Charles was really hardwired to put country first, he would have done just that and kept his marriage intact like his parents did. His uncle, who abdicated, made a far more responsible decision. </p>
<p>I find it difficult to believe that the Queen minded having the crown pass over to her bloodline. History is filled with second-in-lines committing murder in order to get a hold of the crown. Edward was an aberration, made possible in all likelihood by that fact that the king no longer holds responsibility for the entire country in his hands. The King is head of state, and the PM is head of government. </p>
<p>Gone are the days when a greedy monarch could grab castle and lands away from someone just because they fell out of favor. With the Windsor family wealth, and the lack of real power accompanying the crown, there is less of an inspiration to serve.</p>
<p>Reading this thread, it is AMAZING how much we all know about theses people, all the little details from so many years ago. The Charles and Diana story was certainly captivating.</p>
<p>Coreur, I would not put much faith in anything Barbara Cartland had to say. She was a terrible writer of prim bodice-rippers before they really started to include sex–although admittedly commercially successful–and rather a figure of fun in her old age. Her daughter was married to Diana’s father after he and D’s mother divorced, and she avidly mined the connection between herself and the royal family.</p>
<p>The idea that C or D would have confided anything about such experiences to her is, to say the least, highly unlikely.</p>
<p>^^I don’t have any particular faith one way or the other in Barbara Cartland. Like I said, I have no notion of whether Charles was bullied or not, only that I have read that he was. You said you you had not even heard of such a thing. I have heard it over the years from various royalty articles, this Cartland thing being one example.</p>