A new biography of the Queen reveals for the first time her despair over the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and claims that the Queen’s state funeral will be from St Paul’s not Westminster Abbey.
The Daily Mail reports: “In Elizabeth The Queen”, by Sally Bedell Smith, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, recalls the moment that the Queen finally confronted the problems in her son’s marriage.
The Archbishop reveals she was terrified that history was about to repeat itself – that Prince Charles would give up his place in the line of succession for Camilla, just as King Edward VIII gave up the throne in 1936 to marry his mistress, Wallis Simpson.
Lord Carey says: ‘There was a moment when we were talking very candidly about divorce. I remember her sighing and saying, “History is repeating itself.” I saw despair. What she was talking about was the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
‘She was concerned that if they divorced, Charles would marry Camilla. She thought Charles was in danger of throwing everything out of the window by rejecting Diana and forging another relationship.’
But Lord Carey advised the Queen that Prince Charles’s relationship with his wife was beyond repair.
He says: ‘The personalities were so different. The Queen understood that. She could offer support and put them into her prayers.’
The intimate biography is based on 200 interviews with relatives, friends, courtiers and politicians. Although it is unauthorised, Buckingham Palace aides gave their full co-operation to the American author, a former New York Times reporter. Ms Bedell Smith also wrote a controversial bestseller, Diana: In Search Of Herself, in which she speculated the Princess may have suffered from borderline personality disorder.
Although her health remains largely robust, the Queen’s former comptroller, Sir Malcolm Ross, reveals that she has approved plans for her State funeral, which she wants to take place in Westminster Abbey rather than St Paul’s Cathedral because she regards it ‘as the central church to her and to the Church of England’.
The last Monarch to have a funeral there was George II in 1760.