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on the HRH question:
The Queen has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 21st August 1996 to
declare that a former wife (other than a widow until she shall remarry) of a son of a Sovereign of these
Realms, of a son of a son of a Sovereign and of the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales
shall not be entitled to hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness.
It was both an acknowledgement of the trail of past broken royal marriages and a
guideline for the future. As the sovereign, Elizabeth had the right to decide who should
and who should not hold the title of Royal Highness. In her view the title had been
acquired by marriage and, therefore, when the marriage was dissolved, the title should
be withdrawn. Yet to many people Diana, as the mother of the future King, should have
been considered a special case. Elizabeth’s problem was that there was no precedent for
a divorced Princess of Wales who was the mother of the future heir to the throne. Hence
the fudge that, despite the withdrawal of the title, Diana would continue to be ‘regarded
as a member of the royal family’. However, her name was also dropped from the official
prayers of the Established Church. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, to the
wider public, who still adored Diana, these attitudes appeared as petty and vindictive.
The Duchess of York, whose divorce from Andrew had been made final on 30 May of
that year and who also had been stripped of her title of HRH, received no such
sympathy, nor such a generous settlement. As the wife of a relatively poor man
dependent on his mother for the bulk of his income and, indeed, his home, she could not
expect to receive anything like the sums bestowed on Diana. She had been pilloried in
the press for her debts, her extravagance and the continuing revelations about her
private life, and was publicly regarded as the guilty party. The year 1996 was to prove
even worse for her, when her self-exculpatory autobiography, My Story, was preceded by
scandalous revelations by her fortune-teller, Vasso Kortesis, and John Bryan’s former
business partner, Allan Starkie.
Elizabeth and Andrew were almost the only people to emerge unscathed from these
revelations. All three authors described Andrew as ‘a gentleman’, although it was not
altogether certain that they knew what that meant. Sarah went out of her way to
emphasize how generously her mother-in-law had treated her and her own affection and
respect for her. While the rest of the royal family refused to have Sarah stay with them
at Sandringham at Christmas, Elizabeth would make sure that she visited her at nearby
Wood Farm and continued to have her to tea at Windsor on Sundays with the two York
daughters. For Elizabeth, the welfare of her grandchildren was and is of paramount
importance. She continued to see Diana privately and a good deal of Prince William, by
now attending Eton College, within sight of Windsor Castle. William showed his
affection for his grandparents by preferring to spend with them at Sandringham the
Christmas following his parents’ divorce, rather than skiing with his father.
For Elizabeth, the continuing antics of the younger generation were receding into the
background, although still much highlighted by the media. The press was focusing on the