Diana Said Crown 'Should Not Go to Prince Charles'

Jan 16, 09:55 AM

Diana, Princess of Wales, believed the Queen would abdicate in 1996, and that the crown should skip a generation and go straight to her son William, her former divorce lawyer has claimed.

According to evidence from Maggie Rae, the Princess told her legal team in October 1995 that she expected the Queen to leave the throne by April the following year.

Diana was said to have told Ms Rae "several times" that she thought the crown should skip Charles and be passed straight to Prince William, the inquest into her death heard.

Sandra Davis, a former colleague of Ms Rae, who also testified at the High Court yesterday, said Diana thought the Duke of York would act as Regent until William was old enough to take the throne. "I do recall her saying that on a number of occasions," she said.

Diana also spoke often of her fears of being killed, Ms Rae and Ms Davis said. Ms Davis said Diana had been "deadly serious" about these fears, and that police had been informed about them despite her lawyers' scepticism. Her former leading lawyer, the late Lord Mishcon was so shocked by Diana's fears for her life when they met in October 1995 that he kept a memo of it all - now known as the "Mishcon note".

The note was presented to police by Lord Mishcon a few weeks after the Princess died in August 1997, at a meeting attended by senior police officers. However, it was not brought to the attention of Michael Burgess, the coroner originally expected to hear the inquest, until 2003, when another note expressing similar concerns of an "accident in my car" was made public.

Sir David Veness, a former assistant commissioner with the Metropolitan Police, and one of the officers present when the note was first handed over, denied yesterday that he had deliberately "sat on" the information for six years.

Mohamed al-Fayed's lawyer, Michael Mansfield, asked Sir David: "I want to suggest that you quite improperly sat on information that you should have handed over because you were aware that something improper had happened in Paris." Sir David responded: "I unequivocally reject that ... Lord Mishcon explained that he wished the note he had made some two years before to be lodged for safekeeping and kept under review at Scotland Yard. He was concerned the note and its contents might cause pain and harm and was anxious there should be consultation should these factors develop which require disclosure."

The court heard how the question of the monarchy was raised at a dinner at Ms Rae's home in January 1997 at which Diana met Tony Blair, then leader of the Opposition. An extract from the diaries of Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's former head of communications, was read to the court recounting how Diana spoke to the press secretary in the kitchen, where she made him tea.

"She didn't quite say they should go straight from the Queen to William, but it is what she was getting at," he wrote. "She felt there had to be a cutting down of the monarchy once the Queen Mum died."

Asked if she recollected that conversation, Ms Rae said: "I don't particularly on that occasion, but it was, again, a common theme ... She said it often, yes."

Mr Campbell also recalls telling Diana something along the lines of: "You probably have the power to save or destroy the monarchy."

"That rings a bell," she said. "It does ring a bell."

The inquest threatened to descend into farce later in the afternoon, as Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, returned empty- handed after a 382-mile round trip to his Cheshire home. He had been ordered on Monday to "hot-foot" it to his house in Farndon to retrieve a letter which he said had the Princess's last "secrets".

Mr Burrell now claims he left the letter in America, and the importance of the so-called secrets were greeted with scepticism by the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker.

After being told in a note from Mr Burrell what the "secret" had been, Lord Justice Scott Baker was scathing. Addressing Mr Burrell, he said: "[There is] not in fact one secret but two secrets and you describe them to me in the letter. But having examined the matter it doesn't seem to me that they are secrets at all. Both pieces of information are fairly and squarely in the public domain in way or another, one of them indeed appears in your book, The Way We Were."

(c) 2008 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Diana Said Crown 'Should Not Go to Prince Charles'
Back to Current Headlines