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5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching--and a vindication, November 15, 2003
Immediately after the tragic death of the much-loved Princess of Wales, there came a plethora of books claiming to be offering the real story of the woman behind the glamourous facade. For the most part, those books seemed to be mean-spirited attempts to bash the Princess' memory while at the same time lining their authors' pockets.
Virtually all of these authors appeared to hew to the theory that, since the law does not recognize slander as a legal action when the topic at hand is a deceased party, they then could engage in character assassination, so long as the same re-hashed old tales sold yet more books.
In contrast, A ROYAL DUTY is the rare book which attempts to defend and explain the way in which the Princess of Wales lived her life. Thus, simply for going against the tide, it is valuable.
Perhaps author Paul Burrell is slightly overwrought in his devotion to the late Princess. He's entitled to be. He dedicated his career to her. Reading between the lines, he has not yet gotten over his first glimpse of her corpse, presumably after its autopsy, a sight for which he was emotionally unprepared, and a sight from which her ex-husband and her family must have been shielded.
Was Burrell in love with Diana? Probably, a little bit, in a way that defines the concept of perfect and platonic love. As such, he is her protector. He says that he wrote this book to defend Diana, to explain her side of the story to her sons, and to justify his complete lack of guilt in the witch hunt which Scotland Yard and the royal courtiers mounted against him. On all counts, he makes a compelling case and, reading this book, I came to believe him.
Burrell is affronted by the way in which Prince Charles treated his young bride and Burrell makes it his business to make certain that the world (and, therefore, the couple's sons) know the truth. He also wants to be sure that there is no question but that Diana had not wanted the divorce from Charles, that she had loved Charles when she married him, and that she loved him until the day she died.
Burrell explains the harshness with which Diana consistently was treated by her in-laws' advisors and counselors. He speaks highly of the Queen, his original boss, and also of the Queen's husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. He credits both of them with trying to save the Wales' marriage. He writes that Diana was grateful to each of them for the rest of her short life, remaining in frequent communication with the couple. Burrell is less tolerant, reasonably so, with the indecisive and arrogant Prince of Wales.
Burrell may be even more offended by the Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess, and by other members of the Spencer family, than he is by the Windsors. In fairness, the Spencers treated both Diana and Burrell far more shabbily than the Royals did.
He cannot understand how the Earl could have offered the Princess use of a house on the family estate, to her obvious elation, and then withdrawn the offer. He cannot understand how, after the Princess made her wishes clear that her wedding dress be placed in a London museum, it has ended up on the Earl's property, in the Earl's private museum, to which he charges admission.
The Spencer family, in concert with Scotland Yard, contrived to charge Burrell with stealing hundreds of the Princess' personal effects, a case that did not hold up in court. Certain truths speak for themselves... and the fact that it was the Queen herself who acknowledged Burrell's right to hold these items in safekeeping was what kept this case from being brought to a jury. She also corroborated some of his evidence, which not only was disputed by the prosecution but also was refuted and leaked to the press, those leaks presumably coming from the prosecution as well.
The book is beautifully written, probably with the assistance of reporter Steve Dennis, thanked in the acknowledgments. And Paul Burrell's wife, Maria, must be a saint to have been only the second lady is his life for all of those years.
Diana was not perfect, but she was a fascinating woman, kind and funny and elegant. Paul Burrell, quite literally, was Diana's loyal servant. By the end of her life, he obviously knew more about the way in which she lived than did her own mother or sisters.
A ROYAL DUTY will prove to be the definitive contemporaneous record of Diana's years as the Princess of Wales.
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