In 1980 the Royal family was upset because the then Prince Charles was not married and tried to force him into marriage. Charles had a string of girlfriends -- the one he preferred was Camilla Shand - who was unacceptable to the Queen and UK Government. That was a major mistake because Camilla was a type of person that would back up Charles as his wife. They broke up and she ended up marrying Andrew Parker Bowles. Before marrying Camilla he dated Princess Anne.
After dating an elder sister of Diana - who at the time was 18 years old and hardly beginning life as an adult. Diana had virtually zero real experience as an adult and as such could not back up Charles and was unaccustomed to the firm - the Royals call the system - practices she did not understand and never learned. The marriage was described as a fairy tale - but it turned into a nightmare, and they separated in the main because Diana caused major probl. One thing cardinal to the issue is loyalty to the King or Queen = which is essential to the system. She tried to promote herself at the expense of the firm - a cardinal fault in the eyes of the ruling monarch and the Privy Council.
Diana also promoted the marriage of Fergie to Prince Andrew. That one took 2 years to turn into a disaster. Where Charles suffered from shyness and was a real weakling Andrew was boisterous and that marriage lasted six years.
In the case of Prince Edward he met his girlfriend Sophie Rhys-Jones - a commoner and started dating her. She was very attractive - but was already 29 years old and built up a career in Public Relations. Over time Queen became extremely fond of Sophie and allowed her to stay in Buckingham palace and came and went as she pleased. Diana and Fergie started attacking her - whenever they met with Sophie, - because they believed that she was getting preferential treatment not accorded to them. Edward and Sophie married in 1999 and the queen liked and helped Sophie because in her own words was helping "Our Ed" They are still married after 27 years and are the only child of Queen Elizabeth that was not divorced.
As an example it was decided that the children of Edward and Sophie would have no royal titles, and the two children can choose to accept title anytime they are over 18 years of age. They were out of the public eye totally and the media know nothing about what they are involved in other than Louise went to the same University that Prince William went to and she completed her studies this year. All the public really knows about her is that she worked at a gardening shop to earn pocket money where she was paid the normal hourly rate ordinary workers get and that she was fond of carriage driving and inherited Prince Philip's outfit from him. Their son James completed his studies at Radley College this year and then went to work at Sandringham estate as a farm hand and tractor driver. He is starting with his University Studies at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester in Gloucestershire.
Now back to the book Charles Spencer wrote about Diana. He wrote that Diana told him that Charles was in love with his valet. That is another angle never mentioned by anyone before. It is highly unlikely that that was the case - so Charles Spencer will now be really ostracized by the Royal family
Now back to Charles Spencer himself. He is now in his fourth marriage. In the 1990's he bought a house in Constantia where he lived with his three daughters and his son. Charles had a string of girlfriends in the Cape - one was a lady by the name of Boreign. Ms Boreign's brother had a small farm in Vermaaklikheid where people went to be out of the Public Eye.
In Vermaaklikheid there was a sea food restaurant and every year I came on holiday and on one occasion I went there was Charles Spencer and his Boreign mistress was eating. The only problem was Charles was facing divorce from his second wife and decided to sue for divorce in Cape Town. Unfortunately two things happened that cost him dearly. Ms Boreign decided to support his wife and gave evidence proving that he cheated on her. The second thing that went wrong was that the case went before a female Judge Van der Merwe.
The end result was that his assets and his bank accounts was frozen and the ex-wife got everything. Somebody helped him to get a plane ticket back to England. At the airport he told the media that South Africa is the worst place in the world and he will never come back. That noise never lasted long and he bought another house in Constantia.
The children was put in the care of his wife. One of the daughters married a SA millionaire - the owner of Foschini - but live more or less permanently in London. The other two sisters are occasionally going back to England but one is in a relationship with a son of Nick Mallett.
So next move of Charles Spencer will be to flee to South Africa again.
