Elizabeth II and Lady Diana: story of a fracture
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“Where is our queen?” Where is his flag? » On September 4, 1997, the United Kingdom was in a state of shock and it was towards Elizabeth II that the popular anger expressed by this “one” of the Sun. Five days after the brutal death, at the age of 36, of the “princess of hearts” who had become Lady Diana, her ex-daughter, the country is in tears, but the sovereign remains locked up in her Scottish castle of Balmoral.
In front of Buckingham, the flowers and the candles pile up, but the flag which announces the presence of the queen shines by its absence. For the first time in decades, Elizabeth II is failing her image as a model queen. She who sponsors so many charitable institutions proves incapable of sharing the emotion of her subjects. Her dryness in these tragic moments translates what England has understood for a long time: prisoner of an outdated family morality and also probably of her own jealousy towards Diana, the queen refuses to return to London.
She will only do so on September 5, after six days that will shake the British monarchy. It will take the call to order of the new Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, aware of the political risk triggered for himself by this anger against the Crown, for the Queen to agree to participate in a media staging by breaking with protocol. who wants her to only address the country at Christmas.
“Was the tone contrite enough?” »
After going to meet the crowd massed in front of the Buckingham gates, she gives a live speech – a first – where in a mourning dress and with a frozen air, she praises her ex-daughter. “an exceptional and talented person”. “Was the tone contrite enough?” », she asks the BBC team after this communication exercise where, behind big glasses, she says she speaks “from the bottom of my heart as queen and grandmother”. Tony Blair will find other words. He will greet “ the people’s princess.
Elizabeth II finally concedes a state funeral at Westminster Abbey for the one who, according to her, was no longer part of the family since her divorce from Charles, formalized on August 28, 1996. Three million people will follow the funeral procession which will mark the end of an interminable family and dynastic psychodrama.
Marriage of convenience is doomed to disaster. Charles spends with his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles the night before his union with Diana
When Charles and Diana Spencer married with great pomp on July 29, 1981 at St Paul Cathedral, the bride was considered by the queen to be an ideal daughter-in-law and future queen: from the aristocracy, discreet and a virgin. But the marriage of convenience is doomed to disaster. Charles spends with his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles the night before his union with Diana. “We were three in this marriage, it was a little overcrowded”, the Princess of Wales would later say. From intimate humiliation to public scandal, the shy wife turns into an imprecator of the monarchy. Elizabeth II, anxious to ensure the dynastic succession, will take years to accept the idea of a divorce.
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