King Charles III Allegedly Told Princess Diana He Was 'Not Actually In Love' With Her Before Their 1981 Wedding
The Wedding Where Romance Apparently Forgot to RSVP
LONDON — New claims surrounding Princess Diana have once again placed King Charles III in the uncomfortable position of discovering that sentences allegedly uttered decades ago can survive longer than most governments, marriages and household appliances.
In his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Earl Spencer alleges Diana confided that Charles told her shortly before their July 1981 wedding that although he was happy to marry her, he was "not actually in love with her." Spencer says Diana believed Charles entered the marriage with his heart elsewhere. Reuters has reported on the strong sales and widespread attention surrounding Spencer's memoir as its publication date approaches.
There are many ways to begin married life.
Flowers.
Champagne.
A handwritten note.
"I am not actually in love with you" is technically another option, although Hallmark has so far declined to print it on anything involving doves.
According to the allegation, Charles apparently treated emotional disclosure with the efficiency of somebody informing a passenger that the aircraft has no left wing immediately after boarding has closed.
"Good news, darling. The cathedral is booked."
"And the bad news?"
"I regard romantic love primarily as an optional extra."
This would explain why the 1981 royal wedding required 3,500 guests.
Someone had to provide enthusiasm.
Thinking About Charles and Diana
- Telling your fiancée shortly before the wedding that you are "not actually in love" is generally considered information best disclosed before 750 million people are invited to watch.
- Most men get cold feet before marriage. According to Charles Spencer's account, Charles apparently arrived with cold feet, cold hands and a heart being stored elsewhere.
- Buckingham Palace spent decades selling the 1981 wedding as a fairy tale, proving fairy tales become much easier to market once you remove the conversations between the characters.
- "I'm happy to marry you, but I'm not actually in love with you" may be the least successful romantic sentence since "My mother thinks you're adequate."
- Charles reportedly believed Diana would eventually be forgotten, demonstrating why the monarchy traditionally hires advisers rather than clairvoyants.
The Fairy Tale Apparently Came With Extremely Complicated Footnotes
The wedding of Charles and Diana was watched around the world and marketed as the grandest romantic spectacle Britain had produced since somebody first put Colin Firth in a wet shirt.
But if Spencer's account is accurate, the central romance had one minor production problem.
The groom.
The British monarchy had apparently staged a fairy-tale wedding in which Cinderella arrived at the palace only to discover Prince Charming had retained emotional season tickets somewhere else.
It is an extraordinary approach to matrimony.
Normal couples discover incompatibilities gradually.
"He snores."
"She squeezes toothpaste from the middle."
"He spends too much money."
Royal couples apparently start slightly higher up the difficulty scale.
"He is heir to the throne and reportedly just informed me that this entire wedding has less romance than a municipal drainage contract."
Social scientists have long observed that successful relationships tend to benefit from affection, trust and communication.
Royal researchers have now identified a fourth factor: do not begin the marriage by announcing that affection has been outsourced.
Then Came Perhaps the Worst Forecast in Modern Royal History
The latest revelations become even more remarkable because Spencer has also alleged that, during an argument after Diana's death in 1997, Charles told him: "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough."
Buckingham Palace has disputed Spencer's account indirectly, with royal commentators noting that grief can affect reason, judgment and memory. Spencer has publicly stood by his recollection, a dispute chronicled at length by outlets including the BBC and the Guardian.
Nearly 29 years later, we can at least examine the prediction.
How did forgetting Diana go?
Badly.
Spectacularly badly.
Forgetfulness has rarely worked this hard and achieved this little.
Diana has been the subject of biographies, documentaries, television dramas, exhibitions, interviews, anniversary specials, magazine covers, newspaper investigations, podcasts, auctions and enough royal commentary to pave the M25 with hardcover books.
Apparently Britain forgot Diana in the same way Americans forgot Elvis. Completely, except for the films, books, impersonators, memorabilia, anniversaries and continued inability to stop discussing the person.
Britain Politely Asks Whether Charles Has Ever Met Britain
If Charles truly expected the British public to forget Diana, he appears to have misunderstood one essential characteristic of Britain: Britain remembers everything.
This is a country where somebody can still become emotionally aggravated by something the French did in 1415.
Britons maintain grudges against parking meters.
There are villages where residents remain suspicious because another village moved a fence during the reign of Edward III.
And someone expected them to forget Princess Diana?
The woman whose death produced mountains of flowers outside Kensington Palace?
The woman whose funeral was watched by enormous audiences around the world?
The mother of the future king?
That Diana?
Perhaps Charles thought Britain worked like a hotel lost-property department.
"Yes, we had a Princess of Wales here somewhere."
"When?"
"1997."
"Sorry, sir, after thirty days we dispose of everything."
Instead, Diana became permanently lodged in British cultural memory, somewhere between Churchill, tea and complaining that summers used to be better.
The Royal Department of Cultural Forecasting
Following these revelations, imaginary officials at the newly created Royal Institute for Predicting Things Badly have reportedly begun reviewing other forecasts.
Among them:
"The Beatles are probably a passing craze."
"People will soon tire of James Bond."
"Nobody will ever build television programmes about Henry VIII."
"And surely the public won't remain interested in Princess Diana."
The institute has now adopted a new methodology. Whenever Buckingham Palace thinks something will disappear, Britain immediately orders commemorative mugs.
One imaginary royal analyst estimated that the phrase "we'll forget her soon enough" has achieved a forecasting accuracy somewhere between astrology conducted by chickens and asking a Labrador about interest rates.
The palace traditionally possesses enormous institutional advantages: archives, historians, advisers, diplomats, private secretaries. Apparently what it needed was one bloke in a pub saying, "Mate, people are never going to stop talking about Diana."
Every Attempt to Close the Diana Story Opens Another Chapter
The deepest irony is that every effort to settle Diana's place in history seems to generate more interest.
A book appears. Then comes a palace statement. The statement creates headlines. The headlines create interviews. The interviews generate television documentaries. The documentaries produce anniversary retrospectives.
And somewhere in Stoke-on-Trent, another decorative plate emerges from its protective bubble wrap.
It is the world's most efficient perpetual-motion machine. Diana goes in. Content comes out.
Even Hollywood remains interested, with trade press including Variety already discussing the adaptation potential of Spencer's memoir.
This is an unusual definition of forgotten. Most forgotten people do not require casting directors.
A Nation Apparently Suffering From Diana Amnesia
Our completely unscientific Bohiney Royal Memory Survey asked 1,000 imaginary British respondents whether they had forgotten Princess Diana.
Four percent said yes.
Ninety-six percent immediately began telling us exactly where they were when they heard she had died.
Three respondents then recommended documentaries. Seven argued about The Crown. One woman produced a commemorative biscuit tin.
A man named Nigel claimed he had "never been particularly interested in the royals" before speaking uninterrupted about them for 47 minutes.
Researchers concluded that British indifference to the monarchy remains one of the nation's most labor-intensive hobbies.
The Princess Britain Was Supposed to Forget
Perhaps that is the strangest part.
Diana's public image endured not because everybody agreed about her. They didn't. She was admired, criticized, romanticized, scrutinized and turned into an international symbol onto which millions projected their own ideas about marriage, celebrity, motherhood, class and monarchy.
That complexity helped make her unforgettable.
Charles Spencer says he wrote Swan Song to present his own memories of his sister as the 30th anniversary of her death approaches. Whatever readers make of his disputed claims, the publication has demonstrated something beyond serious dispute: Diana remains news. She remains argument. She remains commerce. She remains television. She remains history.
And nearly three decades after somebody allegedly predicted that Britain would "forget her soon enough," the country continues forgetting her with breathtaking enthusiasm.
Another book is selling. Another documentary is being discussed. Another palace statement has been issued. Another generation is learning the story. And somewhere, almost certainly, another commemorative plate is entering production.
Ten Observations From the Royal Department of Spectacularly Unfortunate Remarks
- Diana died in 1997. Nearly three decades later, books about her still become international news. If this is forgetting, Britain has a very aggressive form of amnesia.
- Charles allegedly underestimated Diana's staying power by roughly the same margin as a restaurant owner predicting nobody will remember pizza.
- Britain has produced thousands of commemorative objects honoring Diana, because nothing says "forgotten" quite like possessing six porcelain plates with her face on them.
- The public has forgotten Diana so thoroughly that every new claim about her immediately becomes news on several continents.
- Charles allegedly told Earl Spencer, "We'll forget her soon enough." Humanity responded by building an entire media ecosystem devoted to proving him wrong every eighteen months.
- Diana remains one of the rare people whose cultural influence apparently becomes stronger whenever somebody predicts it is finished.
- Charles Spencer's new memoir is called Swan Song, which seems optimistic because Britain has been performing Diana encores since 1997.
- The monarchy's Diana problem resembles trying to push a beach ball underwater. The harder everybody presses, the more enthusiastically it reappears.
- Palace communications concerning Diana increasingly resemble a family WhatsApp argument conducted by people wearing medals.
- The strongest evidence that Britain has not forgotten Diana may be that the country is still arguing about whether Britain has forgotten Diana.
Disclaimer: This story is satire built around publicly reported allegations in Charles Spencer's memoir and the Palace's response. The absurd surveys, imaginary institutes, invented experts and porcelain-plate economics are deliberately comic devices. It is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. Apparently neither of them has forgotten Diana either. https://prat.uk/49507-2/
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