Sorry, Wrong Number

By Martha Duffy

The royal farce continues. Last week the Queen of England's corgis, gathered at London's Heathrow Airport to welcome her home after a glum royal tour of Canada, passed the time by terrorizing a German shepherd employed by the police. The cop dog was rescued. Meanwhile, the ravening tabloids were already squaring off for the November confrontation between two royal tell-all books: Jonathan Dimbleby's on Prince Charles, based on his recent TV program; and the sequel by Andrew Morton to his 1992 super-best seller on the Princess of Wales, called Diana: Her New Life.

But the juiciest news last week appeared in the tabloid News of the World, which claimed Diana had made some 300 hang-up calls to a well-connected London art dealer, Oliver Hoare, 48. Hoare feared the calls were the work of terrorists who knew his business is in Middle Eastern art. But according to the tabloid, a police investigation showed they were made from phones in Kensington Palace, where Diana lives, from pay phones near the palace, from Diana's car phone and from the home of her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale.

Just as with the Squidgy tapes and Camillagate -- already part of the language -- the Waleses were undone by the telephone. To deny the charges, mysteriously leaked to the paper, Diana took the unusual step of contacting a rival royals reporter, the Daily Mail's handsome Richard Kay. Well, she almost denied them. Kay reported she had been in phone contact with the dashing Hoare at the time the calls began in September 1992, just before the Waleses separated. Hoare was an old friend of the couple and, hoping to save the marriage, tried to negotiate between them. When Hoare's wife answered, Kay wrote, Diana may have replaced the receiver -- but 300 times? Diana said she was not a nuisance caller and produced her diary, which shows that she was sometimes out on appointments when she was supposedly at home conducting phone war.

"I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box," she cried, noting quite shrewdly that "whoever is trying to destroy me is inevitably damaging the institution of the monarchy." Diana is in an increasingly vulnerable position. Since her separation from Charles in December 1992, she has searched for a private life. The media frenzy has continued unabated, however, and last December she announced her semiretirement from public activities. None of it has made much difference. She is still the most photographed woman in the world.

Diana, who has a strong will but a fragile temperament, may really have buckled under the strains that followed her decision to leave her old, privileged life as Charles' rejected wife. No new life is open to her, and any attempts to get to know another man would be met with a furor. Observers of the British Establishment -- a powerful force comprising senior Conservative politicians, civil servants, heads of financial institutions, certain members of the intelligentsia and the aristocracy -- have noted how it is closing ranks behind Charles. In '92 Diana was the wronged woman; now she is portrayed as selfish, a spendthrift and maybe crazy.

The royals can be vindictive; their campaign against Wallis Simpson in the '30s and '40s was all-out war. But it may be time to bury the halberd. For one thing, Diana is the mother of Charles' heir. For another, both Waleses will probably suffer from Morton's forthcoming revelations -- cooperation will mitigate the damage. As William Rees-Mogg, a wise columnist for the London Times, has pointed out, "Both the Prince and the Princess have some of those lethal friends who believe one can show loyalty to one partner in a broken marriage by denigrating the other." He added, "Every time she is put down, that also puts down not only the immediate heir to the throne but also the ultimate heirs."

Rees-Mogg is right: the Crown depends on orderly succession, and it is threatened more by the media than by any other encroachments of modern society. Some critics, such as Richard Tomlinson, author of the tart, knowledgeable Divine Right: The Inglorious Survival of British Royalty, blame the Windsors for their plight because the family has used TV skillfully to portray themselves as a happy superclan. Tomlinson reasons that the royals, having courted the press, must live with the consequences when journalists seize on gaffes and topless photos. But the Windsors cannot be held responsible for all their woes. The media lay waste to any ground they conquer. It is Charles' bad luck that he chose a wife who represents the popular ideal for a 21st century queen: beautiful and outgoing, with a common touch only the Queen Mother can equal. But as the old rhyme goes, he couldn't keep her. And the cameras can't let her go.

With reporting by Helen Gibson/ London