Early on we encounter what Brown calls “the deep voice and anything goes smile” of Camilla who once said,“Nobody went to university unless you were a real brainbox. Instead,we went to Paris and Florence and learned about life and culture and how to behave with people.” As for sex,Camilla did it whereas Diana always knew she had “to keep myself very tidy” for a future husband. But Diana had her deadly side. Brown says there was never a more dangerous person to enter a loveless marriage.
The story goes that Prince Charles never stopped having sex with Camilla though he said in a famous interview with Jonathan Dimbleby that he had tried to be faithful. The Queen was frozen with disgust and Prince Philip,the Prince of Wales’ formidable father who had forced him to go to that tough school Gordonstoun,speculated that his son was “not King material.”
A year earlier there had been the Camillagate tape in which the world heard Charles say to his married mistress that he wanted to be her “Tampax”. Diana,of course,had her revenge with the Martin Bashir interview,in which she declared there were always three people in the marriage.
At some point late in the book,Brown,when she is delineating Prince Andrew’s follies,says he suffers from a syndrome where he imagines he is far more intelligent than he is. It’s hard not to be grateful to Brown for reminding us that the Queen got on like a house on fire with Lucian Freud when he painted her portrait because they could rave about racehorses together. And who would not feel awe at the news that the Queen Mother –who Hitler described as the most dangerous woman in Europe– used to do Ali G impersonations?
She’s brilliant,too,on the prosecution of Paul Burrell,Diana’s butler,who was accused but ultimately acquitted of stealing all sorts of precious possessions of the dead Princess. Charles is terrified at what could be revealed but then the Queen puts a stop to it.
Brown is wonderful when she tells us that the Queen said,when asked by Charles as a boy if she could come and play with him,“If only I could.” Just as she is wonderful at relaying Princess Margaret’s question to her sister,“Are you reigning today,Lilibet?” When Margaret died,the eyes of the almost always expressionless Queen glistened with tears.