was naive enough to be flattered by this revelation. It was one of my boss’s less endearing habits that she encouraged her current favourite toy to take satisfaction from the misfortunes of his or her predecessor. It was one of my less endearing habits that I fell for it, at least initially.
If nothing else, however, it validated my theory about the advantages of being a toymaker rather than a mere toy. From then on I made a special point of controlling as much as I could of the hiring and firing process – which, when I became her private secretary, was practically all of it. I would like to think my involvement tempered some of the Princess’s more arbitrary attempts at personnel management. In the end, though, I could not escape the reality of royal service, which is that professional performance is less important than ‘chemistry’ in determining the progress of your career (or lack of it).
From my observations of the royal family, I gradually came to the conclusion that inherited power values survival above responsibility. You might say that such considerations are irrelevant, since royalty has been shorn of all real power anyway, thanks to generations of people’s representatives ready to risk their necks in the shearing. Yet it is perhaps because of this loss that some of today’s royalty seems all the more anxious to exercise its power over the smaller domains now left to it, and these begin and end at home. To a dresser, a valet, a housemaid, a cook, a chauffeur, a butler, a lady-in-waiting or even a private secretary, the royal master or mistress still holds the power of professional life or death. At least that would be the case, but for safeguards offered by post-feudal employment legislation and the spasmodic interest of the press.
This was even more true of the power acquired on marriage by the Princess. It was not that she was unfeeling, or lacking many of the qualities associated with effective leadership. Often the reverse was true. Rather, she had an iron resolve – understandable to a certain extent – to put her own interests above everything else in every situation. She subjected most decisions to a simple test: ‘How will this action affect my reputation, power base or convenience?’ It was further evidence of her subconscious need to assert her exclusive authority over as much and as many as lay within her reach.
She applied this test to people just as much as she did to decisions affecting her public profile. Cannily, she knew that the two areas sometimes overlapped. No Queen of Hearts – even in the making – could afford to spoil the public image with revelations about unsaintly behaviour towards her own staff. Characteristically she would pre-empt such revelations with a simple denial. At the time of Anne Beckwith-Smith’s ‘retirement’, the Princess had herself quoted as saying, ‘I don’t sack anybody.’ Equally characteristically, this breathtaking piece of wishful thinking was swallowed by most people, even as the P45s accumulated.
Perhaps only the Queen herself, famously loyal to her staff, could make such a claim. It was certainly not true of the Princess. The real significance of the remark is this: she actually convinced herself it was true. Put another way, she actually thought that having an old toy – sorry, long-serving cook – declared redundant (the usual way round the law) was not the same as having him sacked.
It was one of those remarks which she knew sounded good and which she would like to believe was true. Most of the time she conveniently forgot that it was not. After all, nobody was going to remind her. The curious thing was that so many people accepted such pronouncements about herself as if they were true. Thus her reputation was seen to be invincible, her domestic power base was strengthened and her convenience was unaffected, as cooks were easily replaced.
Such wishful thinking seemed to become more unabashed as the years passed. There are many other examples which come to mind: ‘I will never complain again’ (Nepal 1993); ‘I want to be Queen of people’s hearts’ (Panorama 1995); ‘I don’t need to take advice from anyone’ (Le Monde 1997). Wide-eyed innocence became one of her favourite defensive ploys, acquired, I supposed, in childhood to protect her fragile self-confidence, especially when she knew she was in the wrong. The trouble was, she unblinkingly employed it in defiance of any unwelcome facts – and usually got away with it.
Megalomania is no more attractive for being played out on a small scale, at least from the viewpoint of those in the firing line, and they come no smaller than the pieces on the nursery floor whose time is up. Their sin might be no more than Richard’s – a perceived allegiance to the ‘other side’. Like his, it need have no bearing on professional competence. It could be merely that they knew too much (whatever their proven discretion), or that they laughed too little (however quietly dedicated), or that they spoke too much sense (however loyally expressed), or that they shared too little in her misery (whatever the cause of their happiness). Or – the worst crime of all – they had just become boring. An exaggeration? Hardly. As her chosen instrument I officiated at too many of these playroom executions to doubt her intentions.
I remember the first. In 1990, a secretary convicted in absentia of most of the high crimes listed above stood at my desk awaiting judgement. She knew the sack was hovering over her. As Wodehouse would say, she could practically hear the beating of its wings. This was part of the process. Very few victims were given their P45 out of the blue. Usually there was a softening-up period in which the transgressor would be frozen out of the Princess’s affections. The warning signs were obvious.
‘Is Charlotte on holiday again?’ she would say to me.
‘Yes she is, Ma’am. In fact I sent you a note about it. You said you were quite happy. Is there a problem?’
‘Oh no,’ – innocently – ‘but she does seem to be having rather a lot of holidays … and we’re so busy. It just seems so unfair on everybody else …’ Her voice would trail off, leaving me to pick up a fairly typical clutch of veiled barbs:
- Charlotte is lazy. She may be taking no more than her holiday entitlement – or even less, it was not uncommon – but this inconvenient fact can be overlooked. Now, by royal command, she is lazy.
- I am incompetent. Why have I allowed a secretary to go on holiday when the diary is so busy? The fact that there is actually a lull in activity – hence the conscientious Charlotte’s decision to take leave this week – can also be overlooked. This is a pincer movement, designed to intimidate me from taking the victim’s side. Too often, I confess, I allowed it to silence me.
- The Princess, by contrast, is working very hard. You could dispute this, but only if you were ready to lose your job. In royal circles it is accepted as a matter of sacred truth that, by definition, all members of our modern royal family work terribly hard all the time – even if a cursory analysis of their daily existence might call this into question.
- She cares about the extra workload now shouldered by the other staff. Here was a classic example of ‘caring Di’ behaviour that was not quite what it seemed. By expressing concern for her remaining hard-working staff, she was actually isolating the absentee and preparing the ground for the execution to follow.
For added emphasis, the rest of the staff – even those notoriously less dedicated than Charlotte – would receive redoubled praise and interest from the Princess, now advancing on them with a careless laugh and a prepared ration of girly gossip.
It took a curious form of toadying to enjoy favours thus received, but some managed it. For most, though, it was enough just to keep your head down and hope that it was not going to be your turn as victim just yet. Perhaps it would not come at all. Such comforting thoughts came easily when the big blue eyes looked on you favourably. The gaze seemed full of trust and expectation then; quite incapable of measuring you for your professional coffin.
Being frozen out was a lingering death in which messages would be unacknowledged, memos ignored or even destroyed, and mere physical existence ‘blanked’. This was especially easy when chances to ignore a desperate bow or curtsy were so abundant. For people chosen for their sense of loyalty, it was a torture few could bear for long. Many saved the Princess the trouble of sacking them and quietly took their leave, usually with great dignity.
I looked at the unhappy secretary standing by my desk, and she looked back at me. We both knew she had done nothing to warrant her dismissal.