Separate Lives

By MARTHA DUFFY LONDON

THE SPEAKER, IN A SEVERE PINstripe suit, makes a plea for the prevention and treatment of drug abuse by young people. Her speech is well reasoned and delivered with confidence. But toward the end, she turns a merry, mischievous eye on her audience of more than 800 media heavyweights. "Like it or not," she said, "I have been quite a provider for the media, and now I'm asking for your help." Of course the line gets a laugh, for the public obsession with the Princess of Wales and her troubled marriage to Prince Charles has provided a windfall for London's 11 dailies all year.

Diana's speech, her longest and most ambitious yet, made all the TV news broadcasts and all the papers. Her message was simple: the child who has been hugged and kissed and shown affection is less likely to demand attention by resorting to self-destructive behavior. But the tabloid press, always searching for subtext, heard the princess's remarks as a personal statement about her childhood, scarred by her parents' broken marriage, and her own marriage, marred by the rigid, distinctly unhuggy codes of royal behavior.

As a sorrowing Queen and her family watched the flames consume the halls and treasures of Windsor Castle last week, it seemed a cruel metaphor for the events of this past year. Britain's House of Windsor is under fire in 1992 as + it has not been since 1936, the year Edward VIII abdicated the throne. The notion of the family monarchy, a Victorian-era invention that accorded a symbolic and public role to royal offspring and consorts as well as to the crown, is on the brink of collapse. None of the four children of Queen Elizabeth II has been able to sustain a stable marriage. Princess Anne has divorced and may remarry, Prince Andrew is separated from his cavorting Duchess, and Prince Edward has not approached the altar or shown signs that he ever will. The scandal over Diana's secretly taped phone coos to a friend has been overshadowed by reports of a steamy conversation between Prince Charles and a longtime companion. And now, in what may be the severest blow of all, Diana and Charles seem ready to resign themselves to living separate lives, maintaining their marriage in name only.

Speculation about adultery, love affairs, "Dianagate," "Camillagate" -- the headlines are hurricanes buffeting a fragile, archaic institution that may not be able to withstand the impact. Each new revelation elicits more serious calls for the monarchy to be taxed, for a cut in its numbers who are paid a government stipend, and -- to entertain the unthinkable -- for the whole institution to be abolished. Even knowledgeable observers are writing off Charles and Diana as the next King and Queen. How could they take coronation vows, given their farce of a marriage, she possibly too high-strung to be Queen Consort, he exposed as quintessential neo-bachelor living the life of his choice and ignoring his marriage?

The most plausible alternative is for the Windsors to skip over their dysfunctional generation. The scenario goes this way. The Queen, whose performance during a 40-year tenure in a demanding job has been irreproachable, values above all the stability of the monarchy. Assuming she has inherited her mother's longevity genes -- the Queen Mother is going strong at 92 -- Elizabeth, now 66, could reign another decade or two. By that time she could skip a generation and name Prince William, now 10, to the throne. There has even been speculation in the tabloids that Prince Charles has already asked his mother to be permitted to step aside, though Buckingham Palace strongly denies this.

The turmoil of '92 began when Sarah Ferguson, or Fergie, the notorious Duchess of York, decided that a cramped, duty-bound life-style was not for her and bolted, leaving a trail of dubious liaisons, outsize bills and scandalous tabloid shots of her cavorting topless with a boyfriend in front of her two children. Then Diana went public with her marriage troubles, allowing her brother and close friends to talk to Andrew Morton, whose best-selling book, Diana: Her True Story, detailed her depression, bulimia, suicide attempts and estrangement from her prince. By royal standards of conduct, in which silence is not only golden but iron too, that was bad enough. Then a tape surfaced purporting to be a conversation between her and a too-close friend, James Gilbey, usually described as a man-about-town, and the tabloids began howling.

For a time it appeared that royal scruple still counted for something. While the women made the scandals, their husbands steadfastly said absolutely nothing. But the cellular phone, easy to pick up by ham operators, should be withdrawn from all in court circles. Two weeks ago, the newspapers got hold of a second tape, this time allegedly of an intimate chat between a lonely Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, a married woman with whom he has been linked since well before his marriage to Diana. Thus began Camillagate. John Casey of the Evening Standard wrote last week that he had learned that part of the tape included a discussion of the transmigration of souls. "In the next life," he quotes Charles as saying, "I should like to come back as your trousers."

Whatever rules of taste and fairness once governed even tabloid coverage of the royals have been consumed by the present feeding frenzy. The family has become fodder for London's fierce circulation wars, now particularly hot between the Daily Mirror and the Sun, two working-class tabs. Competition to move the story forward often means making up whatever elements are missing. On the much anticipated royal reunion trip to South Korea two weeks ago, the couple hit the front pages looking sad and sour, under headlines like TORTURED and THE GLUMS. But palace aides deny this, and the conservative Daily Telegraph came to their support by showing some of the tightly cropped pictures beside the full originals. Many grim shots were taken at a war memorial. Others came when the pair were trying to read a detail map as intricacies of the Korean War fighting were being explained to them. Says a photographer who covered the trip: "What are you going to do when the editor says he wants sad pictures?"

So ardent is the press in its pursuit of new rumors that reporters have become targets of charges that they have crossed the line. Last week Lord McGregor of Durris, the chairman of the British Press Complaints Commission, defended the notion that the royals were public property, but nonetheless called some of the stories "prurient reporting." He added, "The most recent intrusive and speculative treatment by sections of the press (and indeed by broadcasters) of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales is an odious exhibition of journalists dabbling their fingers in the stuff of other people's souls."

William Rees-Mogg, chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council and former editor of the Times of London, also made an unusual, almost romantic appeal for some sympathy for the beleaguered couple. Writing in the Independent, a dead-serious newspaper that makes a point of ignoring the royals when at all possible, he noted, "The Prince of Wales is not a tiresome cad, the Princess of Wales is not a crazy witch."

The author has a persuasive notion about why Charles, who often seems obtuse, is so elusive. He places the responsibility largely on gruff Prince Philip, whose military deportment may have terrified the little boy. Philip thought it took a hard education to make a strong prince, and packed the sensitive Charles off to Gordonstoun in Scotland -- a place that was as much marine boot camp as school. He hated it. Of Diana, Rees-Mogg said that "she knows herself to be a remarkable person, and remarkable people usually need to be admired. It is no good asking a star to accept the role of a glowworm."

Their marriage was doomed from the start, he wrote, because each had slogged through a hard childhood and needed an exceptional amount of emotional support that the other was unable to give. He portrays Diana as the more robust personality of the two, a born leader who will only grow stronger. In the end he fancifully envisioned them both in the 15th century. She would be another Joan of Arc, commanding armies in battle. Charles would be Archbishop Henry Chichele, founder of All Souls College, Oxford. In the 20th century, says the author, "we must be compassionate to them." At the palace, the article was a hit.

But the Windsors still remain uneasy with their St. Joan. After all, she does their job better than they do, and she is fully aware of her power. Many people think she holds the future of the monarchy in her hands, both as the mother of Prince William, the future King, and as the most popular and successful royal now active. If she were to leave, the country would not suddenly turn into a republic, but the burden on the institution would be heavy.

Even if she forever remains legally a part of the family, Diana has made it clear in recent weeks that she relishes the prospect of going her own way. On the weekend of Nov. 14, while Charles was home celebrating his 44th birthday, Diana made a high-profile trip to Paris that turned into a triumph. Looking relaxed and radiant, she spent nearly two hours with the Mitterrands, much of it with the President himself. She appears confident discussing humanitarian and social issues in such powerful surroundings and invariably wins the rapt attention of Presidents and ministers with a distinctly honest way of speaking and asking questions -- a far cry from her earlier repertoire of girlish smiles and playing dumb.

Diana relishes being her own woman, playing the role to the hilt. She has become an ardent patron of many causes, especially involving AIDS patients, the infirm and deprived children. "I doubt if anyone in the British Isles is better at going into a ward filled with people with cancer or AIDS," says biographer Philip Ziegler. Those close to her say the princess is very savvy and streetwise and, when not in the grip of frustration or rage, well able to size up her position. "She recognizes what people want from her," says someone who has worked with her, "and she just goes and works along. And she gives as good as she gets." She is said to live very intensely and put her all into anything she undertakes.

She expects others to do the same. She is a warm, demonstrative mother to her boys, but they know who's boss. Never try to put anything past her, says an ex-employee who wishes her well. "She has remarkable recall, incredible peripheral vision. Never try to do anything behind her back, because she has eyes there too. She is a fair but exacting person to work for. And she can spot bull a mile off."

One less tangible function of the royal family is to act as a sort of projection for people's emotions or aspirations. Diana's contemporaries, especially women, see her as a kind of feminist heroine, a fighter who knows her own worth, what she wants out of life and how to flout traditional protocol to get it. Even Camille Paglia, the American feminist movement's holy terror, got the message and has jumped on the bandwagon. Writing in the New Republic, she argued that "Diana may have become the most powerful image in world popular culture today."

The revelations of Morton's book and the Dianagate tape have done nothing to diminish her enormous public appeal. Some recent polls rank her as the family's most popular member. No wonder then that she is not at all daunted by a solo life if that is to be her fate. "After all," says broadcaster and veteran royal biographer Penny Junor, "she's been orchestrating events." Her confidence is such that on her Paris trip, though she has only patchy, schoolgirl French, she did not hesitate to use it -- no mean attainment, since the French have a way of intimidating foreign speakers considerably more fluent than Diana. People who have worked with her on various causes and charities are convinced that her secret lies not in her looks or her title but in her directness. It is hard not to respond to it.

But her directness and warmth, so charming to outsiders, may be the qualities that alienated the remote Prince Charles. Prince Andrew may have erred by marrying a lively girl with no visible sense of responsibility, but Charles' downfall was marrying a superstar, a charismatic beauty, perhaps the world's most photogenic woman. Thirteen years his junior and barely out of her teens when they married in 1981, Diana quickly discovered her extraordinary hold on the public. Her residences are London and the limelight. Especially in the past few years, as her two sons have been in school, she has defined her own life and goals with scant reference to his.

More and more Charles prefers the country and working behind the scenes. And, his many supporters say, work he does. He has adopted environmental issues as his principal focus and prides himself on his unique ability to bring together at a quiet conference experts who would not ordinarily meet or sit down for a serious session. Last week the prince flew to Strasbourg, France, to learn more about the workings of the European Community, then to Brussels to address a joint British and European environmental group.

Charles' second front is architecture, and in this field he has won his most popular success. He inherited many of his father's gadfly, curmudgeonly qualities, and when he started railing against the ugliness of London's skyline and new buildings that looked like carbuncles, he struck a chord in the common man. This month he opened his own Institute for Architecture near London's Regent's Park, which will offer courses toward a degree in the field and will serve as a gathering point for conferences.

The prince is often pictured sketching in Scotland or communing with plants at his country house, Highgrove. It is true that he enjoys the pastimes typical of the English upper class: polo, hunting, shooting. But his schedule, much of it off camera, is busy. Last week he also took time to talk at some length with 22 recipients of loans or grants from the Prince's Youth Business Trust, which launches young would-be entrepreneurs, many of them unemployed, in realistic businesses. In this crowd he is perfectly at home, welcoming them by saying that the whole event is blatant advertising for himself and listening to both their problems and their boasts. Some of the photographers who cover his wife diligently sympathize with Charles, but as one of them says, "editors won't print pictures of a man in a suit unless he's a head of state."

In a way that sums up the hard side of Charles' predicament. Without a domain of his own, he tends to be defined by his botched marriage. Says his biographer Anthony Holden: "All the speeches on the rain forests and the buildings pale when you're two-timing the most popular woman in England."

For her part, Diana appears to have expected "a meaningful relationship," to use her generation's argot. Not royal at all. Like his father and many noble males, Charles is mulishly set in his ways, loath to show any feelings, not to speak of the emotional give-and-take involved in an ordinary marriage.

The transcript of Diana's conversation with Gilbey makes embarrassing yet poignant reading. Gilbey burbles "darling" repeatedly. He wants to talk about "us." She, however, is very cautious, diverting any intimacy by changing the subject. What she wants is praise, appreciation for her sufferings and a chance to complain (she feels -- with some justification -- that her in-laws are against her and that the Queen Mother is giving her funny looks).

The palace has not denied the authenticity of the tapes, but others do, including veteran royal biographer Brian Hoey. His chief point is that the conversation is supposed to have taken place around 11 p.m. on New Year's Eve, when the Queen Mother's annual party, from which no one is excused, is in full swing.

Gossips thrive on a kind of conspiracy theory that has Charles and Diana each surrounded by cadres of supporters who leak material damaging to the other. In the case of Charles, even palace professionals and police have been < rumored to be fueling the family feud. In Diana's, it is friends like Gilbey and her brother Charles, the new Earl Spencer. If true, she may not be getting very good advice. Last year Spencer decided to head off a rumor about an affair that continued after his marriage by announcing himself that it was true. Perhaps not the sagest fellow to counsel the future Queen.

In a chapter written for the newly released paperback of his book on Diana, Andrew Morton states that the couple made a friendly agreement between themselves to separate. That pact did not survive stormy sessions with Charles' parents, who supposedly would love to see Diana go but resist any concessions. For instance, if a divorce were to occur, they would want her to give up her public work, which is genuinely dear to her. If she were to remarry, the royal family would want her to leave the country and her boys. It is doubtful that either the mother or the reputation of the monarchy would survive that gambit.

Despite the common impression, a divorce would not interfere with Charles' future position as head of the Church of England -- even if the church's critics accuse it of "moving the goalposts" to keep the monarchy and its own traditions alive. The deterrents, however, are formidable. Philip Ziegler observes that if the couple were to divorce, "it would be damaging, and a great asset to the royal family would be lost or eliminated." For the moment there remains some effort at peacemaking. After her return from South Korea, Diana released a statement aimed at Morton's new chapter, saying that the Queen and Prince Philip had always supported her -- which was read as confirmation that the circumstances of her marriage required some support.

Whatever accommodation the prince and princess reach, their travails have raised concerns that touch the rest of the family, and the image of the monarchy itself. Most serious is the new focus on what is coming to be considered as the royals' free ride. The Queen pays no tax on her personal fortune. The active members of her family receive nearly $15 million annually, which is used to support their public duties. As palace spokesmen point out, most of this goes for employee salaries, as does 75% of the Queen's annual $12 million.

That is not all the crown costs. The government maintains royal buildings and grounds, the yacht Britannia with its crew of 256, the train and the various planes and helicopters that the family use. It all adds up to more than $100 million a year. Commentators like to bring up Scandinavian monarchies, which cost a fraction of that, but Britons revel in pageantry, elaborate parades and huge royal weddings -- and no one in the world puts on a better show.

Such explanations, however, have failed to quiet the protests over the costs of the whole enterprise. As recently as 1990, Parliament voted against taxing the Queen, though polls now show that about 80% of the population think the Queen should pay something. She is listening, and some sort of plans are on the drawing board. It is more likely that the next monarch will be faced with paying the bill. Even such pro-monarchy stalwarts as constitutional scholar Lord St. John (pronounced Sin-gin) of Fawlsey say that "in this day and age, the income-tax exemption is pretty hard to defend." But he deplores any further changes. "The monarchy is the symbol of our national unity."

Does Britain need a monarch at all, or could the nation do just as well without? There are a few obvious advantages. The country profits from an enormous tourist trade, an $11.5 billion industry in 1990. London is one of the top destinations for traveling Americans, and the quaint ceremonies that surround royal life are a major part of its appeal. Then there is the less easily measured factor of the tradition and continuity that the crown represents, something to be proud of in the post-World War II decades when Britain has had to settle for considerably less wealth and power. Finally, many Britons regard a threat to the monarchy as an abrogation of their constitution, the spine of their country. It is not just a matter of conservatism or liberalism. Says Peter Hennessy, professor of contemporary history at the University of London: "I am a man of the center left, but I know a blue-ribbon institution when I see one."

There is a hardy opposition, however, and its best-known mouthpiece is fire- breathing Labour M.P. Tony Benn. "We are still a feudal society, trying to live off whiskey, tweed and the royal family," he sputters. "The fact is that a Prime Minister's powers are derived from crown powers, and they are greater than a President's. A Prime Minister, on his or her own, can create judges, bishops, lords, send troops to the Falklands. Beside this, Di and Fergie are absolute froth."

The reason why even the most enthusiastic republicans do not see the end of the crown is the Queen herself. The most common comment about her is that < "she has not put a foot wrong" in four decades. When she succeeded her father in 1952, she found that he had left the institution in very strong condition, largely because of the family's performance in World War II. Elizabeth's parents stayed in London while the bombs dropped. As her mother famously declared when asked whether she or her children would flee the country, "The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the King will not leave the country in any circumstances whatever." After the bombing sorties the King and Queen were out in the fields of rubble, consoling and encouraging the wounded and the homeless. The monarchy still draws on those reserves of love and loyalty. When the Queen Mother dies, the nation will come together as it may not for any occasion thereafter.

The Queen inherited little of her mother's charm or her publicity smarts (to this day when the old lady travels in the ceremonial horse-drawn coach, tiny, hidden bulbs highlight her face). The present Queen's props have become national jokes -- the pack of corgis, the kerchief, the ever present purse with nothing in it, least of all cash. Like her father, she is shy. A recent TV show detailing her routines, Elizabeth R, has a painful vignette of the Queen visiting an old people's home. She asks one elderly soul, who is obviously not dressed for the street, whether she lives there. Then, does she have a room of her own? When the woman says yes, the mistress of a thousand rooms replies, "That must be rather nice."

One might in the current climate question whether a nation needs to underwrite a performance like that. Sue Townsend, author of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, has just published a novel called The Queen and I, which imagines that the royal family has been consigned to a public housing development by a stern republican government that has overthrown the monarchy. The book is both funny and impudent, but it contains a portrait of Elizabeth that is admiring in spite of itself. Townsend plays up Her Majesty's awkwardness, but of all her clan she adjusts best to her alien circumstances, simply by applying common sense and pluck.

Homely values, so simple and yet, it seems, so elusive, are apparently the secret of her exemplary reign. In Elizabeth R, the Queen becomes eloquent when reflecting on her own outlook. She recalls the moment when she gave a young soldier an award for gallantry: "I said, 'That was a very brave thing to do.' He said, 'Och, it was just the training.' I have a feeling that, in the end, probably that is the answer to a great many things."

And in the end, that may be the answer to what went wrong. The training that Her Majesty received from her parents did not prove easy to pass along to the next generation. She and Prince Philip, both austere and chilly as parents, were able to instill a concept of duty in their children, but not the warmth that still radiates from their grandmother.

Ironically enough, the family member most blessed with these qualities is Diana, the outsider now determined to follow her own path. Last month she opened a drug-rehab center in Brixton, a London slum that was the scene of grim riots in 1981. In a sense she was updating her grandmother-in-law's forays into blitz-ravaged areas. Despite the best efforts of the staff, not all the planned events came off, and the visit looked to come up short. Diana read the situation at once, and asked to hear more from the lusty gospel choir that had sung for her earlier. Who could blame her? Their selection had been Everything's Gonna Be All Right.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: NO CREDIT

CAPTION: THE TROUBLED GENERATION OF WINDSORS

With reporting by Helen Gibson/London