The Royal Family At War - Meghan Markle & Duchess Of Cambridge - British Royal Documentary

[Music] they are the most famous family in the world there can be no higher society than the royal family for generations they've symbolized tradition integrity power and privilege how they act in public and private matters it's about beating the drum flying the flag but they're also just like us so behind the perfect image there often lies a very different story they are a normal family so they're going to have squabbles they're going to have tips and royal rouse mean upset at the very heart of the british establishment it would have been far easier we've had two wives it got so mad the queen realized she really had to step forward and do something about it tonight we hear from those at the heart of the rouse insiders who now tell us the truth about the family feuds where they smoke this fire and the fire was burning pretty furiously royal relationships playing out like the ultimate soap operas whether it's a very public marriage breakdown the war of the wales is was the ultimate royal feud diana was engaged in a war with her husband she wanted to hurt him she wanted to punish him speculation of a feud with the future queen the recent idea that megan and kate were at each other's throats is this going to bring down the monarchy or constitutional crisis there was a war against wallace no one wanted her it can get very bitter this was a deep-seated dislike of each other was something that would never heal the secrets behind the royal rifts and their enormous repercussions she went up to canoe and said look you know don't treat me like an idiot i didn't quite know what i was going to do next in a world where keeping up appearances is all important what does it mean for the monarchy and for all of us when cracks start to show they're so different in character the message was quite clear you've overstepped the mark palace just couldn't believe what was going on july 1981 750 million people around the world watched as prince charles married lady diana spencer there was only one way to describe it here is the stuff of which fairy tales are made i remember covering it and i remember from the moment she arrived and she stepped out of that coach she was beautiful and then a 25-foot train it was every little girl's dream that was the dream all it seemed as diana processed down the aisle of saint paul's cathedral she looked from side to side paul burrell served as diana's butler for a decade he also says more importantly he was her confidante years later she said to me did you see me looking from side to side i said yes of course i did she said you know i'm looking for don't you i was looking for camilla camilla shand had been the first true love of charles's life they dated in the 1970s when he went off to the navy camilla had had a long-term on-off relationship with andrew parker-bowles and she married him charles came back and he was heartbroken but even though charles's relationship with camilla was over he maintained a close friendship with her diana seemed to have suspicions about the pair right from the start at the time of the marriage you know i think charles was not seeing camilla but diana was convinced he was and then her worst fears came true just before the wedding diana intercepted a package that arrived at charles's office and she insisted on opening it and it was a gold bracelet with the initials f and g for fred and gladys which is what charles and camilla called each other it was their nicknames for each other diana of course floods of tears went to charles and demanded to know what was going on but charles so insensitive he insisted on still giving it to camilla charles did not show huge emotional intelligence if i'm if i'm brutally honest i've come to the conclusion that really it would have been far easier to have had two wives he wore some cufflinks that camilla had given him with two seas entwined he wore those on the honeymoon years later she made me pick off all the seas of her chanel shoes and the chanel handbags she couldn't bear to see two seas entwined all of this despite prince charles's insistence that things with camilla herself a married woman were well and truly over charles is very black and white in some ways and he had told diana yes camilla had been a girlfriend but the minute he started dating diana it was finished that was that there was a period and i suppose it was after william was born you know they were very happy but it just didn't last very long two years later when william's brother prince harry was born things had become very different by the time that prince harry was born in in 84 you know he was born into an unhappy marriage and i think dana very much hoped that he would be the band-aid to keep the marriage together but it wasn't to be after harry was born the prince of wales came to the room that night to look at the baby in the cot the guy was christened in this [Music] looks remarkably well despite it he commented on its red hair she said but charles that's the spencer gene then he said well at least i've got my air and spare and now i'm off out to the theater diana said to me the night harry was born i cried myself to sleep but was the fairy tale marriage doomed from the very start and i suppose in love of course whatever in love means diana said later that that sort of hurt her feelings because of course you want your fiance to say yes i'm madly in love and have pepe le pew hearts coming off his chest but i think charles he's never been terribly open with his obviously it feelings two very happy people i think the engagement interview tells you how little they knew one another diana's jealousy and paranoia about camilla had continued in the first few years of her marriage to charles she became obsessed with camilla probably a little more than she should have done it's claimed that the moment the simmering tension finally boiled over was at a birthday party in 1989 ken wolfe was diana's royal protection officer for five years he was at the party with her you arrived at this house and it was pure shock that diana was there because camilla was there within an hour i heard my name being called out by diana and i said what's up she said i can't find my husband or camilla and eventually we found the princeton commercial talking and i didn't quite know what i was going to do next but she went up to camilo and said look you know don't treat me like an idiot and you know the prince was shocked at this and clearly embarrassed and i came in and said something really strange i to this day i've never really understood it she said well it's okay for you diana because you've got two wonderful boys that really was the beginning of the end because i i don't think even diana at that point saw any real chance of any reconciliation on the journey back to kensington palace there wasn't a word pass between either of them while the marriage of the prince and princess of wales struggled behind closed doors the image they attempted to portray to the world was still of a happy couple this private life of turmoil was not what the public wanted to see or were being presented by the palace that was effectively lying to the world to cover up the disastrous marriage of charles and diana as far as they were concerned the state of the marriage was between them between two people anybody else looking on was intruding good gossip was what sold newspapers and royal gossip particularly a marriage breakdown was just heaven sent for them it wasn't long before the tabloids were reporting an all-out war the like of which we've never seen before all played out for the world to see it was only a matter of time before the entire marriage fell apart publicly she was absolutely miserable and she felt she was like a prisoner of the palace it was absolute dynamite [Music] at the beginning of the 1990s prince charles and diana's marriage was in free fall how are you enjoying married life highly recommend [Music] as most firstly a lot of people say well there was an age difference it was 12 years older than diana so it wasn't any chance of succeeding at all have you cooked a breakfast yet the fact that she liked bon jovi and michael jackson and things and the prince preferred wagner things like that master more than you think when you get married but far bigger problems were causing the marriage to crumble there was always this ghost of camilla which diana got into her head you know it wouldn't go out of her head she desperately wanted the marriage to work there was no way of it moving forwards of it getting any better in fact it just got a lot worse to royal insiders it became more and more apparent that charles and diana were very unhappy on trips you know we would cover them on around the world it was quite obvious that this relationship was in free fall we'd not be sleeping together they'd be on different floors most of the time you could tell by their relationship and their personal interaction and physical chemistry that there was not a lot of love between the two of them as the cracks began to show more and more publicly some believe diana was doing it deliberately to send a message i think diana was very clever she didn't have a true voice but she was able to convey her feelings in pictures i remember her coming back from a film studios where she smashed a glass bottle over the prince of wales head she took great pleasure in that [Applause] i remember her sat in front of the taj mahal the temple of love all alone that picture told a thousand words wistful pensive thinking lonely you name it they had a caption for the picture there was a polo match in which the prince of wells played particularly well i think he's called a hat-trick and diana was presenting the cup he went to give her a kiss and she turned her face away which was all rather embarrassing for him and um she did that on purpose their marriage breakdown played out through the papers i mean the war of the whales is it was like a soap opera or radio play every single day punters were tuning in to see what's happened next but the biggest revelations were yet to come and when they did it felt like a declaration of war there was the andrew morton book in 1992 which was explosive eleven years after their wedding for the first time the public was made explicitly aware of the extent of diana's unhappiness and her feelings about camilla diana her true story shocked the world its author andrew morton was just as shocked with the truth behind the royal marriage she was absolutely miserable and she felt she was like a prisoner of the palace she felt she needed to speak out well she chose me thankfully because i was independent and was sympathetic to her cause but nothing prepared me for the cascade of information and the controversy that the book aroused andrew morton wrote the book based on tape recordings made by diana and handed to him by an intermediary boy was i surprised put my headphones on he switched on the tape recorder and out came this cascade of of emotion she was speaking like a prisoner in a cell who just had a few minutes to get the story out there was talk of her misery her unhappiness it was totally utterly shocking and i felt that like i'd entered a parallel universe diana wanted to convey to the world that she was a victim trapped in a loveless marriage and that she was suffering and that she found her husband odious [Applause] not only did the book reveal diana's belief that charles was seeing camilla it also divulged that the princess suffered from an eating disorder andrew morton faced a huge backlash but diana also learned some harsh truths there were meetings between vince charles princess diana the queen and prince philip not particularly pleasant ones as far as dino was concerned and she realized that blood was thicker than water that the royal family would stick together diana had initially denied cooperating on the book even to palace insiders but once the book was released it was clear she had you could see that the the story came straight out of the horse's mouth the horse's mouth being diner and around about five o'clock sunday morning she phoned me and said what do i do i said ma'am what you've already done it my best advice to you is just to sit tight don't answer the telephone don't answer the door to anybody and pour yourself a stiff drink diana her true story officially lifted the lid on what up until this point had widely been speculation it opened the floodgates it was absolute dynamite it was manner from heaven for the media and they feasted on it and they got more and more and more intrusive and i think at that point in the early 1990s i think the media totally lost its moral compass and it it feasted on the misery of this family [Music] i remember being on a visit to korea and it was very very clear then that the marriage was over one look away from charles in the car would tell the world's media we're not speaking she was doing her best to upstage prince at every opportunity where he would be arriving at an event and would shake hands with everybody in the right correct procedure she would steam ahead and ignore the dignities and embarrass him and it was pretty awful by the time we got to south korea you could see the state of their marriage because the body language left much to be desired over the jet lag man the press had a field day headline after headline called them the glums tortured and said they faced a crisis by this point there was only one solution it is announced from buckingham palace that with regret the prince and princess of wales have decided to separate their royal highnesses have no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected when charles and diana separated in december 1992 the war of the wales has continued there was a real sense that she was under siege certainly in the first months after the separation she was always second guessing what was prince charles doing what were he and his team getting up to there was a lot of suspicion there when i started my public life 12 years ago i understood the media might be interested in what i did but i was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become [Music] i think it's worth saying that diana never wanted a divorce quite categorically a separation yes not a divorce diana saw the damage a divorce can bring on the family she didn't want it to bring that to william and harry's door the war of the whales wales's mattered to the monarchy and shattered a vital public image as the battles went on there was more collateral damage including details of a recorded phone conversation between prince charles and camilla which became known as camilla gate it seemingly confirmed diana's worst fears prince charles and camilla were speaking very intimately about what they like to do together and how much they miss each other and i can't imagine how humiliating it was when that transcript was printed in the papers where there smoke this fire and the fire was burning pretty furiously earlier diana had also been a victim of a secretly recorded telephone conversation the squeegee gate tapes those were telephone conversations that were recorded between diana and her longtime good friend james gilby he referred to her squidgy it was a nickname but she was saying to him how unhappy she was and how difficult it was to talk to the family she was just sharing all of her problems with rumors and revelations the royal war went public this is the story of the prince of wales today prince of wales did a documentary with jonathan dimbleby did you try to be faithful and honorable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage yes absolutely and you were yes until it became irretrievably broken down he openly admitted that he had had an extramarital relationship while still married to dinah well it turned out to be a disaster if he was going to say it he should have done what dana did and leak it through friendly journalists and friendly writers and it also gave her or a level of justification that had not existed before the following year diana hit back with perhaps the most brutal and explosive interview any member of the royal family has ever given it was compulsive viewing for more than 22 million captivated royal subjects do you think mrs parker-bowles was a factor in the breakdown of your marriage well there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded she quite obviously told nobody because she'd done her own makeup which was pretty heavily put on and there was probably something slightly vengeful at that stage and i guess everyone would understand that what evidence did you have that their relationship was continuing even though you were married a woman's instinct is a very good one you know diana was engaged in a war with her husband she wanted to hurt him she wanted to punish him the panorama interview i think was at the time it was brilliant and compelling television but it's complete one-sided nonsense in many ways a month later diana received unprecedented news i was standing beside diana one day and she opened a letter for the royal crest with the queen's handwriting she pulled out the letter she said look at this i have discussed your marriage with the archbishop of the canterbury and the prime minister and we think it's best for the country that you divorce signed elizabeth r that wasn't a friendly letter from your mother-in-law it was a royal command diana's response was one of shock she felt that the interview had been honest but the royal family didn't see it that way and she duly obliged their request prince charles and diana's divorce was finalized on the 28th of august 1996. one revelation that's never previously come to light points to some peace after years of hostility diana did tell me something quite interesting she said on the day of the divorce she and charles sat down together on the sofa and they both cried it was this crazy separation but by the time the divorce was actually finalized they were on much better terms the royal family have had rows fallouts and fights for centuries some of them are fairly trivial others can plunge the crown into chaos and the country into crisis prince charles was not the first prince of wales at the center of a marriage storm in the 1930s prince edward fell in love with what many perceived to be the wrong woman it caused one of the longest and most bitter royal feuds britain has ever known and caused the foundations of one of our most important institutions to crumble the first world war had seen the harvest of monarchies britain was as much in turmoil as the rest of europe edward or david as he was known was playing with fire by alienating the church parliament and other royals david the future edward viii didn't settle down had mistresses who were married he was sort of everything that a i suppose a king would be in a fairy tale that's a bad king so drinking too much cavorting too much partying too much really just not taking the welfare of the nation as seriously as as one in his position should he didn't like a lot of a formality of stuff and was brought up in a very formal way edward met and fell in love with an american woman named wallace simpson wallace simpson arrived into the royal circle and she certainly turned heads and there was scandal attached to her she had been divorced twice she was glamorous she was sleek and sophisticated and prince edward was in love with her and she is nothing like cozy sweet royal family she's bruce and she tells jokes and they're drinking cocktails i mean cocktails were new and exciting and wild royal biographer lady colin campbell met wallace simpson in the late 1960s she was divine she was great and she was great fun game old bird very american in many ways but not everyone was such a fan there was a war against wallace no one wanted her one person in particular did not welcome wallace elizabeth beau's lion later the queen mother it is with a very sad heart that i bid you farewell and god bless you all everything she stood for was the complete antithesis of what the queen mother believed in elizabeth was prince edward's sister-in-law she had the look of a queen a queen of her time she always looked as if she was sugar coated like a fairy off the christmas tree nothing could touch her in her world everything still cost sixpence it was all building up to war in more ways than one she felt that wallace wasn't right for him and it would end in disaster which is exactly what happened things were quite rotten in the house of windsor the royal family feared for the survival of the crown [Music] in january 1936 prince edward became king edward viii london acclaims the new king and clouds gather for the proclamation [Music] but his relationship with an american divorcee wallis simpson was more than scandalous the church believed edward could not marry a divorced woman and many others viewed wallace as unacceptable as a potential queen chief among them elizabeth bose lyon later the queen mother edward was faced with a choice give up the throne and marry wallace or give up wallace in the globe of a dull december afternoon mr baldwin leaves downing street tell parliament the fateful news of the king's decision to be placed in the position of having to choose between love and the throne is one of life's most tragic dilemmas even if the dilemma is of the king's own making on the 11th of december 1936 the king spoke to the nation in turmoil i have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility without the help and support of the woman i love after just 326 days king edward viii gave up his throne and became the duke of windsor when edward decided to abdicate in december 1936 the royal family feared for the survival of the crown edward had wanted to modernize the royal family by marrying wallace but british society wasn't ready for it his abdication was the biggest issue the house of windsor had ever faced forever changing the course of british history the crown was passed to edward's brother bertie who became king george vi [Music] three years before the second world war there was little sign of peace at the palace suddenly because of edward's selfishness as the queen mother saw it in marrying this woman and abdicating the throne for her that her life and her husband's life and their children had been totally disrupted the queen mother hated wallace simpson quite simply for what she had done to her bertie to to her marriage the huge pressure that she put her family under and i don't think she ever ever forgave wallace there have been claims that the queen mother's dislike of wallace stemmed from other areas including jealousy one must remember that the queen mother was considered as elizabeth postline as a potential bride to the king edward the eighth as he became the duke of windsor she'd married bertie but she was actually very fond of david his older brother the duke of women's assault she had wanted to marry him she didn't want to marry his brother bertie she was insanely jealous but it seems the bad blood was shared by wallace as well together edward and wallace i think really just brought out the worst in each other they did have cruel nicknames for for lots of people wallace used to call the queen mother cookie because she thought she looked like a scottish cook wallace's name was never mentioned in the war family the queen mother would never refer to her as wallace she referred to her as that woman she dropped in at fort belvedere one afternoon while wallis was doing an imitation of her and she never forgave her for it couldn't stick the queen mother she hated her clothes she loved the fact that every year she was either number one or number two in the world's best dressed list queen mother never made the list [Music] wallace envied one thing the queen mother had though her title in june 1937 wallace and edward married in france where they then lived together wallace became the duchess of windsor great title but he didn't have the prefix hrh which she desperately wanted that is the ultimate to be called her royal highness despite marrying a royal wallace was denied the title by george vi but apparently assumed it wasn't down to the king alone she always blamed the queen mother for preventing her from taking the title her royal highness it was as the duke of windsor said an act of petty malice and he never forgave it with the outbreak of war in europe the duke and duchess of windsor were sent to the bahamas not that the queen mother was happy with the decision [Music] that wasn't even good enough for the queen mother she called wallace the lowest of the low and felt that it was an insult to the british citizens living in the bahamas the duke of windsor saw out the second world war as governor of the bahamas before he and wallace returned to france returning to england was never a viable option the original agreement was he would go away for a year and when the dust had settled they'd come back and he would be this most junior ranking member of the royal family it never worked out because elizabeth orchestrated that it would not work out and so they remained in france edward made occasional visits to england all of which had to be approved by the palace wallace's visits were even rarer i think if you felt that your husband might have lived another 10 years had he not become king you find that very hard to forgive [Music] not only did the queen mother blame wallace for her husband's reluctant reign she also blamed her for its premature end in 1952 after reigning for just over 15 years george vi died many believe the stress of his role took a toll on his health he died at 56 and if you think about it the queen mother spent longer as a widow than she did as a wife the queen mother did blame wallace for almost half a century for having to live out most of her life without the man she loved her husband it was wallace's fault there are claims the queen mother softened her stance and expressed compassion when the duke of windsor died in 1972 but wallace didn't respond in kind the day he died she started to be nice to alice every week she'd send wally's flowers every week she'd write worries and wallis would drop the notes in the bin and see that they're going where elizabeth belongs and elizabeth's excuse was now that they are both widows well i'm sorry until the woman was a widow she was calling her the lowest of the low and not fit for human consumption and it's wildly inconsistent it wasn't just a passing feud this was a deep-seated dislike of each other and it was something that would never heal [Music] the damage done by edward viii left the monarchy on shaky ground george vi returned some stability and by the time the current queen elizabeth took to the throne the kingdom was in safe hands scandals and upsets amongst the queen's children threatened that once again but in the 21st century a new image for the house of windsor was found this time by looking to the future [Music] [Music] do [Music] the whole interest in the british royal family now centers around william and kate and harry and megan probably equally for all the right reasons so any hint of a rift between the fab four means a rift at the very heart of the future of the monarchy when harry and megan announced they would be moving to windsor away from william and kate the question was asked has the breakup of the fab four happened sooner than expected when it was revealed that they were leaving kensington palace and moving to frogmore well you know that was pandora's box well and truly opened these were not duchesses at war this was the fab four falling out in an absolutely spectacular way as far as the newspapers were concerned megan and harry clearly see their life elsewhere at least for now harry has wanted to strike out on his own and i'm sure that megan has encouraged that i also know that they want to raise this child away from the spotlight you know the staff will also be separated you will have courtiers that work for william and kate and you'll have courtiers who work for megan and harry and that makes sense their careers their roles are moving in different directions i think it is the end of the fab four do you ever have disagreements about things oh yes okay the last thing you disagreed on how do you resolve it uh i kind of become so freaking freaky is it resolved we don't know oh we don't know well you're putting on a great show if it's not but was it ever really right to make it seem life at kensington palace was a big royal flat chair there's no weekly shindig on a friday night they didn't team up or go for a curry or get the pizza man to cycle up the kensington palace it's so unlike that this all follows sustained rumors of rouse between kate and megan i think for the first six months after the royal wedding megan had a dreamy time in the papers she was our new favorite royal she could do no wrong and then the tide turned the honeymoon period was well literally over and the negative headlines started the speculation continued there was a debacle about which tiara she would wear she was given a choice of four she liked a particular one the queen didn't think that was appropriate the queen's decision it's her gift understand that her majesty rules the press had been quite keen to pit megan and kate against each other there was a multitude of stories building up about how difficult megan was so eventually there comes a moment when they all come out at once kate who is a english grown rose and megan who is this ultra sophisticated ultra glamorous american coming in and captivating prince harry it's william and kate then it's harry and megan and i thought that must have been quite difficult actually for megan to sort of understand when she first married in because she was a successful actress used to being on the red carpet and used to being just as important as the last person who walked up the red carpet but suddenly you find that your position on the balcony is dictated by how important you are you're constantly being reminded of the pecking order one of the other stories that really was a bit of a bombshell was that megan had reduced the duchess of cambridge to tears during a dress fitting princess charlotte yes it was alleged but you know the suggestion was pretty clear people felt sorry for the duchess of cambridge and they thought oh well you know who is megan to be acting like this you know bridezilla despite shows of public unity in some quarters the backlash has continued for megan from the tabloids and the trolls the media that we are experiencing now can be very very nasty but it's not the actual newspaper people it's the greater public some of the comments were abusive it was sexist that were racist that were frankly [Applause] unacceptable by the end of 2018 the honeymoon period for the royal family's new addition was well and truly over reports of an alleged rift between meghan markle and the duchess of cambridge created a string of headlines the media that we are experiencing now is very can be very very nasty but it's not the actual newspaper people it it's the greater public it also led to a torrent of abuse online kensington palace officials were forced to spend hours removing abuse aimed at kate and in particular megan and then bring in rules to remind people of what was acceptable some of the comments were abusive that were sexist that were racist that were frankly unacceptable before she married harry megan had already expressed disappointment at negative comments said about her it's a shame that that is the climate in this world to focus that much on that or that would be discriminatory in that sense but i think you know at the end of the day i'm really just proud of who i am and where i come from and we have never put any focus on that we've just focused on who we are as a couple the british people love to put you on a pedestal only to knock you down again so all this very high profile stuff ends up in you know a lot of unpleasantness usually which is of course what poor megan is experiencing now the royal family's mantra in terms of the public when it comes to internal crisis is never complain never explain it's the queen mother's old mantra and it serves them pretty well but some in camp megan have fought back in february 2019 five friends gave an anonymous interview to people magazine playing down the alleged rift people magazine published a pretty spectacular color the truth about meg the women who had spoken to people magazine clearly did not recognize the women that they had been reading about in the newspaper as their friend it was claimed kensington palace knew nothing about the interview i don't even believe courtiers were aware of that story until it had been published certainly they'd not been involved in in setting the whole thing up this is very crucial really now to the likes of megan and harry that and harry certainly would have picked it up from his mother that you have to involve all these people that you work for because you know they are crucial to your success then a heavily pregnant megan took a solo trip to new york for a baby shower an act of independence or a pr nightmare are you sending out the right message by being the center of attention at a half million dollar baby shower i think that throws up questions for some people the duchess of cambridge um had a baby shower before prince george's birth but it was a very low-key affair well megan's baby shower couldn't have been more different it just felt like a showbiz do it didn't feel royal in any sense at all i do wonder if perhaps it was her way of saying yes i am the duchess of sussex but i'm also still me but for many megan can't be both megan will understand in time that her role is one of supporting harry it will never be a starring role if megan ever thought that she become the star of the royal family i don't think that's going to happen some have claimed the pressure on megan particularly from the papers harks back to the days of harry's mother princess diana you're bearing up with it quite well though because it must be quite a strain with all of us well it is naturally and megan also isn't the first woman to marry into the royal family and find the media desperate to pit her against another royal wife princess diana and sarah ferguson the duchess of york formed a close bond after marrying two of the queen's sons just five years apart sarah and diana had a really lovely friendship the early 80s they both married into the royal family they both had children they grew up very much as a foursome you know we speak in the press of the fab four now as william and harry and megan and kate but actually we had another fab four back in the 80s wonderfully sarah and diana really did get on they went shopping together they enjoyed lunches together they holiday together [Applause] diana even helped matchmake sarah and her husband prince andrew they became supportive of each other as they got used to royal life diana and fergie were both outsiders um interlopers if you like they they cheered up the royal family in the 80s and they had a sense of fun there was this sort of um strength in numbers i suppose they both married in they'd both gone through the same difficulties they both dealt with their fashion being on the front pages of paper being skewered for this that and the other reason diana was far shyer um she was more introvert than fergie and i think diana sort of depended on fergie to bring her out of her shell she was able to show her the fun side to the royal family which diana desperately needed to see the two sisters-in-law rubbed along quite well usually there were rumors that some members of the royal family seem to take to fergie more than they did to diana i mean fergie was the daughter of prince philip's polo manager she was very comfortable in royal circles and she was very at home marrying into into the family the royal family is about dogs and horses and country sports and diana just was an urban girl there were some rumors of rivalry but i think actually those send more from within the royal family there were examples of of charles apparently saying to diana why can't you be more like fergie you know this this fun figure who just embraced country pursuits threw herself into royal life and seemed to love it but sometimes friends can become rivals diana looked at fergie and thought how on earth does she do it you know she's carrie's driving with prince philip she's out shooting with prince charles she's just a bundle of energy and um she got quite jealous of her the royals may have warmed to fergie but the press seemed to prefer diana the press were fascinated by them the press played their game of good princess bad princess you know um which was cruel to sarah really and cruel to diana unfortunately the tabloid media does tend to want to pitch women against women what shoes are they wearing what dresses to she look fat in this and the other one looked thin and poor fergie would always seem to come off the worst sarah is not wiley diana was very wild and darling knew how to set things up so that she would come out of any situation smelling of roses to many people while sarah would just blunder but there are claims that at least some of sarah ferguson's negative coverage came from diana allegedly she spoke to the press to stop a tale about herself diana was incandescent how do we get this off the front pages and i said to her well look the only way you're going to do it is to have another fact so she said to me well sarah and andrew have just been sandringham to see the queen to talk about separation i said well that's a fact so i wrote a story about it uh the story julie appeared on the front pages of the daily mail pretty ruthless stuff diana was quite calculating when it came to ferguson occasions i mean i remember diana was going to be offered a new car a german car and she said oh i'll let sarah try that out first and then i can see what the reaction would be so she almost used sarah as a bit of a yellow canary and if things went wrong she would step away from the situation and poor sarah would get all the bad publicity donna felt fergie was a bad influence she just didn't really trust fergie if diner opened up to her how long would it be before it got out into the marketplace in 1996 sarah ferguson published her book my story sarah made clear that she was going to write a book and diana was supportive of that but she said i don't want you to mention me at all but sarah ferguson did mention diana and in such a way that made their fallout spectacularly bizarre in sarah's autobiography she said that diana had given her verucas and on that for that reason alone dana dumped her in the book sarah ferguson claimed diana helped me by giving me all her shoes and less happily her planter warts the falling out may have been over something particularly trivial but it had a tragic ending the pair did not speak for a year before diana's death in 1997. [Music] i think sarah made many attempts to try and make it up but you know if diana bore a grudge she could really bear a grudge they probably would have repaired that relationship but it didn't happen and so it's quite a sad ending really when fallouts happen and offense is caused in a normal family it's usually forgotten about not long after but the royals are no normal family when one member upsets another it can draw the nation's attention and distract us from the perfect image they work so hard to maintain perhaps the royal behind more than her fair share of squabbles and controversies is princess michael of kent princess michael of kent is married to prince michael of kent he's one of the queen's cousins she's incredibly outspoken she comes from royal blood in her own right in fact the royals joke that princess michael considers herself to be more royal than the house of windsor her mother was accounted zappari she's said to be a little bit grand her father was a german baron she's perhaps a little hoity-toity her grandmother was an austrian princess michael is a princess in every sense of the word and she wants to be treated like one and i think really that makes her quite hard to identify with for the rest of the royal family princess michael has managed to ruffle enough royal feathers over the years to be given a rather unflattering nickname princess michael kent is very assertive so princess and sort of nicknamed her princess pushy now if you ask people who princess michael kent is they might not always know mention princess and they're like ah that one i didn't think a relationship with the world family is particularly friendly there was this sort of air of snobbery always found about her [Music] hairstyle she has a good sense of humor that old-fashioned slightly provocative sense of humor where she'll say the naughty thing and it's not meant to wound it's meant to be funny and everybody knows it's funny and people laugh but somebody can take it and then twist it and stab her with it in 1985 details about princess michael's family's background emerged she comes from very aristocratic background unfortunately that background included her father being linked to the the the ss when that story broke of course that was a massive scandal immediately telephoned my mother when when i was told that that this report was coming out in the mirror yesterday and i said more or less the effect guess what they're trying to pin on me now and she said but i'm afraid it's true and what was your reaction well it was a total shock to everything that i've been taught to believe you know but um my shoulders are broad and i shall have to carry it royal neighbours apparently use the story as ammunition in their own personal attacks on princess michael diana used to refer to as the yubo commander and it was fairly common knowledge whenever diana left her apartment at kensington palace and you know princess mike was next door on the rare occasions they would meet you know they were very pally with each other of course they were you know but it was what a bit of a facade and princess michael's feelings about diana became known when she fell victim to an undercover reporter princess michael was a little bit sort of free with her tongue in sort of complaining about the royals princess michael of kent described diana as nasty and bitter she alleged that charles was jealous of his wife's fame princess michael of kent's latest fallout was arguably more significant than gossiping about her relatives and unkind nicknames and it put a dampener on what had been seen as a progressive period for the windsors in 2017 um the queen held her annual christmas lunch for extended members of the royal family she does this every year so it's really for the family that doesn't go to sandringham for christmas and princess michael is wearing a black amore brooch which has a terrible history associated to it and of course megan is there as the first biracial person marrying into the modern royal family it was highly inappropriate piece of jewelry given um meghan markle's mixed heritage and there are those who felt it was perhaps an insult it felt like and it was interpreted as a racist statement at the time a spokesperson said the princess was very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence could it be a coincidence of course anything is possible but it seemed a particularly odd choice given megan's attendance no matter how many controversies princess michael has been involved in over the years some say it may never change she's at a stage in her life um where she probably says well i'll say what i'm going to say and i'll do what i'm going to do and that's probably how the rest of the royal families see her they probably just accept that every now and again princess is going to step over the mark the royal family is an institution for more than a century it's tried to maintain the perfect image it's important for britain and for us all but the pressure and scrutiny also means any issues are magnified and just like any other family it's not always easy to get along the royal family are unique they are extraordinary but they are just a family so as long as you have a royal family you're going to have royal rifts [Music] you

Channel: British Documentary

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Id: jHA_2CxqXHM

Length: 56min 58sec (3418 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021