Defending The Prince

By ELIZABETH GLEICK/LONDON

Surely a man on the verge of turning 50, not to mention one who is busy waiting to become the King of England, deserves a bit of peace and quiet. A chance to ride to the hounds--the hunting season is about to go into full-blooded swing in Gloucestershire--or relax, at long last, into an increasingly public, adult relationship with his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles. Now that it appears as if history and the media are finally beginning to cast a kind eye upon him, he might even be able to rest a bit on his laurels.

Instead, just when it looked like it was safe to be Prince Charles again comes another newsprint explosion, this time caused by a book whose allegations are being splashed across the front pages of British newspapers. A week ago, the Mail on Sunday ran its first of six excerpts from Penny Junor's Charles: Villain or Victim?, due out later this month from HarperCollins Publishers. The irony is that Junor, author of an earlier pro-Charles biography, is once again trying to put the Prince squarely in the victim camp, but somehow the royal carfuffle has done precisely the opposite. HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO DIANA? thundered the Sunday Express.

The juiciest bits published so far go some way toward toppling the image created by Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story, which depicted a young Princess distraught over her husband's infidelity. Junor claims that Diana, not Charles, was the first to break the marriage vows--by having an affair with her personal security officer, Barry Mannakee, who was killed in a 1987 motorcycle accident. When Diana learned of Mannakee's death, Junor writes, "in her despair she slashed herself, and the dress she wore in Cannes had to be adjusted to hide the damage." While Morton maintained that Diana was right to be jealous of Camilla, Junor insists that for years after the wedding, Camilla was just one of Charles' many good friends. Junor also asserts that the infamous bracelet Charles gave Camilla before his wedding had a more benign significance: the initials "GF" on it stood for the platonic "Girl Friday," Junor claims, not pet nicknames Gladys and Fred, as Diana believed. Junor also alleges that Diana made late-night anonymous phone calls to Camilla, saying things like "I've sent someone to kill you. They're outside in the garden."

Immediately, Diana supporters came roaring back. THE SMEARING OF A PRINCESS, read one headline; Diana's friend Rosa Monckton, her brother Charles Spencer and the Duchess of York all made statements bemoaning that anyone would accuse the Princess of wrongdoing now that she's dead. "Has Charles no shame?" wonders another royal biographer, Anthony Holden. Charles and Camilla were driven to the unprecedented move of issuing a joint statement insisting that they had not cooperated with Junor nor asked their friends to do so.

Though undoubtedly palace sources did help Junor out, many of the book's specifics are unverifiable. She describes rancor between Charles and the Queen and Charles and Earl Spencer over Diana's funeral arrangements. "Would you rather, Ma'am, that she came back in a Harrods van?" someone snapped when the Queen balked at sending a royal plane to fetch the corpse. While much of the family tension has been reported elsewhere, Junor's actual quotations sometimes strain credulity. "It's going to be very difficult for your mother, Sir," Charles' secretary supposedly predicted on the night of Diana's death. "She's going to have to do things she may not want to do, or feel comfortable doing, but if she doesn't do them, then that's the end of [the monarchy]."

The real story, though, may be that the tabloids are trying to keep a slowly dying fire aflame. Several of the TV documentaries produced for the anniversary of Diana's death drew an underwhelming audience; a BBC spokesperson says the network is unlikely to do more on Diana in the future. But, asks a tabloid editor, "what else would we write about? The person who predicts [the Diana story] is over will be missing something." And the Junor excerpt did spike the Mail on Sunday's circulation 10%. As for Prince Charles, he must be asking himself: With friends like Junor, who needs enemies?

--Reported by Barry Hillenbrand/London

With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand/London