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epresenting the Queen, and Charles Doughty of Withers & Co., representing the
Duchess of York, at which Bryan was present. According to Ronald Ferguson, Bryan was
holding out for a house for Sarah in England, plus £5,000 a week income for herself for
life. However, although under English law Sarah was entitled to half the marital home,
Sunninghill belonged to Elizabeth, while Andrew himself was not a rich man. He had his
naval pay and his Civil List income, which, being provided by the taxpayer for the
performance of his royal duties, could hardly be used to support his ex-wife, and in any
case was soon to be abolished. Sarah, however, had her daughters, Beatrice and
Eugenie, to whom Elizabeth was devoted and whom Sarah had been heard to describe as
‘my security’ – and her silence. For Elizabeth it was an exercise in damage limitation.
(‘Those girls [by which he meant Sarah and Diana]’, a courtier was to opine two years
later, ‘are going to cost the Queen a fortune.’)
The first public breach between the Duchess and the Palace came as a result of further
manipulation of the media when the Daily Mail leaked the fact that the Duchess of York
had consulted lawyers about a separation from her husband. On 19 March Charles
Anson, the Queen’s Press Secretary, summoned six court correspondents, including the
BBC’s Paul Reynolds, and issued a statement announcing the Yorks’ separation and told
them to come to his office if they wanted further guidance. Reynolds accepted the
invitation and, after five minutes’ conversation with Anson, broadcast on the BBC’s
World at One to the effect that, ‘The knives are out for Fergie at the Palace.’ According
to Reynolds, Anson told him that the rift between the Yorks had begun the previous year
and that the Duchess was being advised by Sir Tim Bell’s firm. The Daily Mail leak was
followed up by a story in the Sunday Telegraph, one of the few newspapers actively
supporting the royal family, that Sir Robert Fellowes was thought to have confided that
the Duchess was not in control of herself, that both the Queen and the Queen Mother
had tried to ‘calm her’ but the entire family now thought it was ‘time to wash their
hands of her’. Both Fergusons were paranoid about their cousin Robert at the Palace but,
while they demanded and got a public apology from Anson, the York camp felt that
whatever the Palace might have said in its subsequent statement, the leak to the Mail
had come from Diana, who was close to its editor-in-chief, Sir David English, and
subsequently became even closer to its royal correspondent, Richard Kay. Anson did not,
as was widely reported, offer his resignation to Elizabeth, but he did apologize to the
Queen and the Duchess of York for the embarrassment caused. The episode was a
disagreeable foretaste of what was to come as the monarchy was to become embroiled
in the Waleses’ marital troubles.
Diana, idolized by the public, had been increasingly calling the shots in the media war
between herself and her husband. Charles found himself cast not only as an uncaring
husband (which was the truth), but as a bad father (which was not). Incidents such as
Prince William’s accident in June the previous year – when he was hit on the head by a
golf club – were highlighted in the press as evidence of Charles’s selfishness. While
Diana kept vigil at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children as their son
underwent a minor operation and spent the night there, Charles attended the opera