April 26, 2026

2. The War Of The Waleses

Show Notes
Transcript

The fairy tale curdles into public warfare. The Morton book reveals Diana's bulimia and suicide attempts. Camillagate tapes expose Charles's intimate conversations with his mistress. Squidgygate reveals Diana's own affair. Both sides brief the press relentlessly. The Queen watches helplessly as her heir's marriage becomes a global spectacle. The institution is powerless to contain the damage.

While no one truly knows what happens behind closed palace doors, this series uses news sources, on-the-record quotes, and some artistic license to craft this entertainment series. Some moments have been dramatized for storytelling effect. AI narration was used in creation of this series.

Unlock an ad-free podcast experience with Caloroga Shark Media! Get all our shows on any player you love, hassle free! For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. No plug-ins needed!

Subscribe now for exclusive shows like 'Palace Intrigue,' and get bonus content from Deep Crown (our exclusive Palace Insider!) Or get 'Daily Comedy News,' and '5 Good News Stories’ with no commercials! Plans start at $4.99 per month, or save 20% with a yearly plan at $49.99. Join today and help support the show!

We now have Merch! FREE SHIPPING! Check out all the products like T-shirts, mugs, bags, jackets and more with logos and slogans from your favorite shows! Did we mention there’s free shipping? Get 10% off with code NewMerch10 Go to Caloroga.com

Get more info from

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:15.919
Calarogu shark media. There is a particular kind of war

2
00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:19.280
that is fought not on battlefields, but in newspaper columns,

3
00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:22.640
not with weapons, but with whispers. It is the kind

4
00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:26.719
of war where both sides smile for the cameras and

5
00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.600
then brief their allies the moment the shutters stop clicking.

6
00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:33.719
It is a war of image and narrative, of carefully

7
00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:38.000
placed stories and calculated leaks. And in the late nineteen

8
00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:41.759
eighties and early nineteen nineties, this is exactly the war

9
00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.079
that Charles and Diana waged against each other, with the

10
00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:49.320
British press as their battlefield and the watching world as

11
00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:52.920
their audience. It would come to be known as the

12
00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:56.079
War of the Waleses, and it would leave the monarchy

13
00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:06.040
shaken to its foundations. To understand how they got there,

14
00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:08.480
you have to understand what the marriage looked like from

15
00:01:08.519 --> 00:01:12.040
the inside. By the middle of the nineteen eighties, from

16
00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:17.040
the outside, the fairy tale held. Two children had arrived.

17
00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:22.439
William born in June of nineteen eighty two, robust and

18
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:27.319
cherubic and adored by the nation. Harry born in September

19
00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:31.560
of nineteen eighty four, red haired and spirited. The family

20
00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:35.359
was photographed at polo matches, on ski slopes, on the

21
00:01:35.359 --> 00:01:38.200
steps of hospitals. They looked like what the Palace needed

22
00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:42.400
them to look like. But behind the doors of Kensington Palace,

23
00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:47.480
the marriage had become a cold and miserable arrangement. Charles

24
00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:52.239
and Diana occupied separate emotional worlds. They spent increasing amounts

25
00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:57.159
of time apart. Charles retreated to High Grove, his country

26
00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:01.560
estate in Gloucestershire, where he could garden and and entertain

27
00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:06.120
the circle of friends he preferred. Diana stayed in London,

28
00:02:06.599 --> 00:02:10.280
adrift and isolated, struggling with an eating disorder that had

29
00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:14.080
become severe. Bolimia had taken hold of Diana in the

30
00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:17.759
early years of the marriage. She would later describe throwing

31
00:02:17.879 --> 00:02:20.319
up four or five times a day a way of

32
00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:24.199
managing the anxiety and loneliness and sense of powerlessness that

33
00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:27.759
had come to define her life. The Palace did not

34
00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:30.639
know how to respond to this. Mental health was not

35
00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:35.159
a subject the institution understood or discussed. The approach was

36
00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:39.120
the one it always used. Carry on, be seen, perform

37
00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:43.039
the duty. The feelings were your own problem. Charles, for

38
00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:47.479
his part, felt overwhelmed and unequipped. He had been raised

39
00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:51.240
by a father who expressed love through expectation and a

40
00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:55.479
mother who expressed it through presence without warmth. He did

41
00:02:55.479 --> 00:02:58.719
not have the tools Diana needed him to have. When

42
00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:04.039
she wept, he withdrew. When she raged, he retreated to

43
00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:09.000
High Grove. And Camilla Parker Bowles was always there, steady

44
00:03:09.159 --> 00:03:14.199
and calm and uncomplicated, the antidote to everything Diana represented.

45
00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:18.120
By many accounts, Charles and Camilla remained in contact throughout

46
00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:22.080
the marriage. They were careful, They were discreet, but not

47
00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:33.960
careful enough. This is Crown and Controversy, King Charles, Episode two,

48
00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:49.800
The War of the Waleses. In nineteen ninety two, everything

49
00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:53.840
broke open at once. The author, Andrew Morton, had been

50
00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:56.639
working in secret for years on a book about Diana.

51
00:03:57.199 --> 00:04:00.960
What made this book different from every previous royal biography

52
00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:05.719
was its source. Diana herself had secretly recorded hours of

53
00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:10.280
deeply personal testimony on audio cassettes, smuggled out of Kensington

54
00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:14.319
Palace and handed to Morton through a trusted intermediary. The

55
00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:18.120
palace had no idea it was coming. Diana Her True

56
00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:22.439
Story was published in June of nineteen ninety two. Its

57
00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:25.920
contents were unlike anything the public had ever read about

58
00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:31.519
the royal family. Diana's bolimia, her suicide attempts, her profound

59
00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:36.120
loneliness inside the marriage, her belief that Charles never loved her,

60
00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:40.879
her sense that the Palace had abandoned her to suffer alone.

61
00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:44.879
The book was a sensation. It sold out immediately, The

62
00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:49.160
tabloids ran excerpts for days, and the public, which had

63
00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:53.360
watched Diana for a decade and sensed something beneath the surface,

64
00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:58.519
now had confirmation of what that something was. The sympathy

65
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:02.879
for Diana was overwhelming, The damage to Charles was severe.

66
00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000
The Palace responded the way it always responded, with silence

67
00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:12.000
and careful deniability. Charles did not confirm the book. He

68
00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:16.399
did not deny it. He continued his public schedule. By

69
00:05:16.439 --> 00:05:23.839
most accounts, he was privately furious and wounded. He felt exposed, ambushed, betrayed.

70
00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:26.800
The woman he had married had gone to a journalist

71
00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:29.519
and told the world the most private details of their

72
00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:33.680
life together. Whatever his failures as a husband, this felt

73
00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:37.759
like a declaration of war. Diana denied initially that she

74
00:05:37.800 --> 00:05:42.560
had cooperated with Morton. The denial did not hold too

75
00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:47.160
many details were too specific, too intimate, only she could

76
00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:50.639
have known them. The Palace knew it, the press knew it,

77
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:54.360
the public strongly suspected it. And then came the tapes.

78
00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:58.120
In November of nineteen ninety two, a transcript of a

79
00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:02.439
recorded phone conversation between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles was published.

80
00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:06.240
The recording had been made several years earlier, leaked through

81
00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:10.439
channels that were never fully explained. The content was explicit,

82
00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:14.399
it was intimate. It was, by any measure, the most

83
00:06:14.439 --> 00:06:17.120
embarrassing thing to happen to a member of the British

84
00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:21.040
royal family in living memory. Charles and Camilla were caught

85
00:06:21.079 --> 00:06:23.959
on tapes speaking to each other with the ease and

86
00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:26.720
tenderness of two people who had loved each other for

87
00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:30.319
a very long time. The intimacy of the conversation went

88
00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:35.199
far beyond a casual friendship. This was widely interpreted as

89
00:06:35.480 --> 00:06:39.680
evidence of a continuing relationship conducted while Charles was married

90
00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:43.120
to the most famous woman in the world. The transcript

91
00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.759
was nicknamed Camilla Gate by the press, and it ran

92
00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:50.040
on front pages around the world. It was read aloud

93
00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:54.759
on radio programs. It was dissected in Parliament, It was

94
00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:58.199
discussed in living rooms and pubs and offices across Britain.

95
00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:02.600
The to the throne had been caught in what the

96
00:07:02.639 --> 00:07:06.560
world interpreted as an affair, and the evidence was right

97
00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:11.120
there in his own words. By most accounts, Charles was

98
00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:16.759
deeply humiliated, not just embarrassed, but genuinely and profoundly exposed

99
00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.160
in a way that a man of his particular pride

100
00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:23.759
and reserve found almost unbearable. He'd spent his life in

101
00:07:23.879 --> 00:07:28.040
service to an institution that demanded dignity above all else,

102
00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:32.480
and now his most private moments had been broadcast to

103
00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:36.160
the world. The Queen watched all of this with a

104
00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:41.079
composure that those around her described as almost unnerving. Elizabeth

105
00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:46.240
had survived crises before, she would survive this one. But

106
00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:50.160
she was also, according to those close to her, genuinely alarmed.

107
00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.279
The monarchy's relationship with the public depended on a degree

108
00:07:54.279 --> 00:07:58.319
of mystique, a separation between the institution and the mess

109
00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:04.399
of ordinary human feeling. That mystique was evaporating in real time.

110
00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:19.399
Diana was not finished. If Charles had Camilla as his ally,

111
00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:23.920
Diana had something more powerful, the press, and through the press,

112
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:28.160
the public. She understood instinctively what Charles had never quite

113
00:08:28.279 --> 00:08:31.560
grasped that in the modern world, public love was its

114
00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:35.240
own form of protection. The more the people adored her,

115
00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:37.960
the harder it was for the Palace to simply manage

116
00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:42.240
her into silence. Diana was widely believed to be working,

117
00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:45.360
through allies in the press, to shape her side of

118
00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:50.639
the story. Sympathetic accounts appeared in newspapers and magazines, painting

119
00:08:50.679 --> 00:08:54.559
her as a woman wronged, a mother devoted, a princess

120
00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:58.840
abandoned by an institution that did not deserve her. Some

121
00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:02.600
of these stories were accurate, some were shaped. All of

122
00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:07.279
them served a purpose. In nineteen ninety two, a second

123
00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:11.320
set of tapes emerged. These were recordings of Diana in

124
00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:14.879
intimate telephone conversations with a man named James Gilby, a

125
00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:20.080
family friend. The tapes were nicknamed Squidgygait, after an endearment

126
00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:24.399
Gilby used for Diana in the recordings. In them, Diana

127
00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:28.519
spoke candidly about her unhappiness inside the royal family, her

128
00:09:28.559 --> 00:09:33.360
frustration with the institution, her fears about the future. The

129
00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:36.799
revelation that Diana had also been conducting an intimate friendship

130
00:09:36.840 --> 00:09:42.000
outside her marriage complicated the public narrative somewhat, but only somewhat.

131
00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:48.000
Diana's approval ratings remained extraordinary. She was not seen as

132
00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:51.120
the villain of this story. She was seen as a

133
00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:53.559
woman who had sought comfort in the ruins of a

134
00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:57.639
marriage that had never truly begun. The public extended her

135
00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:01.840
the grace it was not yet ready to extend to Charles.

136
00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:05.799
Both sides were seen as using the press to shape

137
00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:09.919
the narrative, briefing and counterbriefing, each acutely aware that the

138
00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:13.039
other was doing the same. The Palace tried to stay

139
00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:17.799
above it, and mostly failed. The Queen's advisers urged restraint.

140
00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:22.159
Restraint was not something either Charles or Diana was capable

141
00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:26.759
of anymore. In December of nineteen ninety two, Prime Minister

142
00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:29.919
John Major stood up in the House of Commons and

143
00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:32.720
announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales had agreed

144
00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:36.879
to separate. He was careful to note that the separation

145
00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:41.320
had no constitutional implications. He was careful not to use

146
00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:46.080
the word divorce. The Palace was still hoping somehow that

147
00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:50.480
this could be managed, contained resolved without the finality of

148
00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:55.759
a legal ending. It could not. The years between nineteen

149
00:10:55.879 --> 00:10:59.879
ninety two and the eventual divorce in nineteen ninety six

150
00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:06.440
were a continuation of the same grinding, public mutually destructive conflict.

151
00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:10.600
Charles gave a television interview in which he acknowledged his

152
00:11:10.679 --> 00:11:15.279
relationship with Camilla, describing it as having resumed after the

153
00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:20.799
marriage had irretrievably broken down. He was asked directly whether

154
00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:23.960
he had tried to be faithful to his marriage vows.

155
00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:27.559
He said that he had until the marriage had broken down.

156
00:11:27.919 --> 00:11:32.720
It was at best a partial defense. Diana watched that interview,

157
00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:36.679
and then in November of nineteen ninety five, sat down

158
00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:40.679
for one of her own. She told the BBC's Martin

159
00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:44.559
Basher things she had never said publicly before. She spoke

160
00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:47.879
of her bolimia, she spoke of her self harm, She

161
00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:51.159
confirmed her affair with the cavalry officer James Hewitt, and

162
00:11:51.240 --> 00:11:54.240
she said, in words that rang out across the world,

163
00:11:54.679 --> 00:11:56.399
there were three of us in this marriage, so it

164
00:11:56.440 --> 00:12:00.159
was a bit crowded. Twenty three million people in the

165
00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:05.159
United Kingdom alone watched that interview. The Queen, who had

166
00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:08.679
not been told it was happening, was by every account furious,

167
00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:12.519
not with Charles specifically, not with Diana specifically, but with

168
00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:16.440
the situation itself. With the impossibility of it, with the

169
00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.080
way the two of them had turned the most private

170
00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:23.720
of failures into the most public of spectacles. She wrote

171
00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:26.559
to both of them shortly afterward and told them in

172
00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.480
terms that brooked no argument, that a divorce must now

173
00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:35.360
proceed as quickly as possible. The War of the Whaless

174
00:12:35.720 --> 00:12:40.200
had consumed nearly a decade. It had damaged Charles's reputation

175
00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:43.679
in ways that would take years to repair. It had

176
00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:46.480
made Diana one of the most beloved figures on the planet.

177
00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:49.720
It had shaken public faith in the monarchy at a

178
00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:53.399
time when the institution could least afford it, and it

179
00:12:53.440 --> 00:13:03.559
had not yet reached its most devastating chapter. Next time,

180
00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:07.080
on Crown and Controversy, King Charles, the divorce is finalized

181
00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:12.200
and Diana loses her royal title. Charles feels relief, shadowed

182
00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:16.759
by guilt, and Diana, freed from the Institution, but stripped

183
00:13:16.759 --> 00:13:20.360
of its protection, steps out alone into a world that

184
00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:23.120
is about to become far more dangerous than she knows.

185
00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:30.039
Crown and Controversy is a production of Calaroga Shark Media

186
00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:35.799
executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermot. While no one

187
00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:39.759
truly knows what happens behind closed palace doors. This series

188
00:13:39.879 --> 00:13:43.840
uses news sources, on the record, quotes, and some artistic

189
00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:48.399
license to craft this entertainment series. Some moments have been

190
00:13:48.480 --> 00:13:54.759
dramatized for storytelling effect, where appropriate character perspectives and motivations

191
00:13:55.120 --> 00:14:01.480
are drawn from reported accounts, interviews, and biographical sources. AI

192
00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:06.480
narration was used in the creation of this series. To

193
00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:09.519
keep up with the modern day Royal family, follow our

194
00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:13.440
podcast Palace Intrigue, a seven day a week, ten minute

195
00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:35.000
update on the Royals.