The Royal Rows Of Windsor

By Martha Duffy

The trouble began even before the marriage. The 1981 royal match between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, a touchingly pretty aristocrat of 20, needed no hype. It really was a picture-perfect wedding. The sheltered bride- to-be blushed and gazed with ardor at her proud fiance. She had little to say for herself, nothing much at all in the way of experience, accomplishment or taste. But the press spotted its new idol. Diana quickly became an international obsession. Before the girl reached the altar, her distraught mother had written the Times of London to complain with poignant naivete that fictitious incidents were actually being concocted and quotes made up.

It was the dawn of a major British industry: the pursuit and glorification of the Princess of Wales. Last week it reached its apogee with the publication in the Sunday Times of excerpts from a forthcoming book alleging that the prince had all but deserted his wife and that the despairing princess had tried to kill herself. Diana: Her True Story, by royals watcher Andrew Morton, is big business. The Sunday Times paid $462,500 for its excerpts.

Never mind that the most sensational parts are among the oldest information. Morton makes much of Diana's bulimia, usually a disease of young girls who follow binge eating with self-induced vomiting in order to stay slender. But Diana's painfully thin phase goes back to the early '80s, after Prince William's birth. Some of the material sounds farfetched, including an account of her throwing herself down a flight of steps in view of the Queen Mother.

What was more shocking was that the Princess of Wales tolerated the cooperation of several intimates and friends with Morton's project. This is virtually unheard of. Anyone with a real royal connection never speaks to reporters, simply because doing so means instant and permanent ostracism at court. But Diana's late father Earl Spencer, always appealingly proud of his little girl and avid for personal attention, contributed dozens of unpublished pictures. Her brother and a sister apparently spoke to Morton, as did an ex- roommate, Carolyn Bartholomew, and a couple of her buddies. Buckingham Palace at once snapped that the princess in no way cooperated with the book.

If the suicidal "cries for help" did occur, they were in the early '80s, when Diana produced two sons while emerging from her own adolescence as the world watched. At times she burst into tears at photographers' endless prying. They were, of course, quick to pick up that the couple were appearing together less and less. One reason was obvious: the ever more glamorous princess always stole the show from her awkward prince.

But separation became routine. In Charles' defense it could be said that the role of king-in-waiting to a robustly healthy mother while acting simultaneously as consort to a superstar formed the basis of a dour midlife crisis. The new book makes much of the prince's relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, 43, the wife of a brigadier who is himself a courtier, with the title of Silver Stick in Waiting to the Queen. Camilla is one of Charles' old flames, dating from his lengthy bachelor days, when he courted classy girls enthusiastically but did not propose.

Some of this detail appears too good to be made up. According to Morton, Charles and Camilla communicate in code as Fred and Gladys, perhaps a plummy send-up of lower-class British names. The author claims that a few weeks before her wedding, Diana found a jewel box containing a bracelet inscribed FRED AND GLADYS, and considered calling the whole thing off. As usual, this yarn would probably not get past Murder, She Wrote's story editors: it seems unlikely that the virginal fiance would encounter such an object.

British reaction so far has been largely friendly to the royals. Even a few Labour stalwarts have criticized the intrusion into private matters. (The U.S. press was cruder. Headlined New York Newsday: THROW THE BUM OUT.) But will the public continue to support the Queen's fractious children? Prince Andrew's marriage to the feckless Fergie has been a botch. The popular, hardworking Princess Anne was last seen in the tabloids dancing the night away with a former equerry.

In her first appearance last week after the press ruckus, Diana wept briefly when, engulfed as usual by photographers, she left a cancer hospice in Liverpool. Was it for the dying? For herself? Who knows? The question remains why she broke the unspoken code and allowed friends to speak publicly. A year ago, it appeared that she had put private troubles behind her and embraced her unique public role. As her country's most effective symbol, she holds a commanding position. Charles could divorce her, but as future head of the Church of England, he could not remarry in church. After taking such an unpopular step, he might have trouble even appearing in public. But it may be that superstardom is wearing thin for Diana, that being exemplary and even adored is not enough. Maybe the fairy-tale princess wants romance, and is once again crying for help.

With reporting by Helen Gibson/London