Diana and James Hewitt

[Ana Von Cleves]

The Unhappy Truth as I see it

What I am about to say is double standard, sexist & snotty in the extreme.
You may want to avert your gaze.

First please know that I do not doubt Prince Harry's paternity for one minute and I never did. When he was young, I thought he looked exactly like photos of a very young princess May of Teck (Queen Mary). Now I have to agree with those who think he looks like a red headed Charles. A much handsomer Prince Charles, but the resemblance is obvious, especially some expressions he has that are exactly his father's.

Having said that, maybe I won't be chased off the board for saying the following: Doubts of paternity are simply the legacy an adulteress leaves to her children. Unfair, I know, but true. It doesn't matter if hundreds of DNA tests are done in labs all over the world, all with the same result. There will always be those who delight in this nonsense, who would rather believe a ridiculous story than the truth.

And the really sad thing is that when someone writes a biography of him in a hundred years or so, this will still at least be a foot note. He will never, ever shake this because neither of his parents could behave themselves during their marriage.

Don't believe that it will never go away, what is the first thing always raked up in connection with the unfortunate Duke of Clarence and Avondale....just google him and see.

Cheers

Ana

 

[Ana Von Cleves]

I thought I got those photos out!!
I was going for a younger Harry.

 

[Ana Von Cleves]

And I still think if you put Harry in Queen Mary drag, the resemblance would be astonishing.

 

[Skippyboo]

If Diana was duped before the marriage, where was her family? Her sister even dated Charles. Why not tell her to get to know Charles better before getting engaged. Once the engagement is announced, you cant go back.


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[MARG]

I have to admit I get irked by sweeping statements about both Charles and Diana and their love or duty marriage.

I saw them when they toured NZ, I met both and believe me, regardless of what was to happen in the marriage later, at that time she was a little sweet and giggly and he was absolutely besotted. They were what is called "cute" when they were together and, I believe they were very much in love but in the end their personalities were too diametrically opposed.

That allegation that Diana started an affair with another man before her second child was born is a shocker and, in the face of earlier evidence, much of it referenced in links posted on this board, just plain impossibe.

Hewitt only gets a re-run because he, like Harry, has red hair and the media are either too lazy or too malicious to acknowledge that Diana came from a family of redheads, not least of which was her brother Charles, the current Earl Spencer.

 

[Osipi]

I think to really look at all of this objectively, it might be wise to remove the connotations of "sexual" and "affair" and "cheating" from the time frame. We do not know and will never know just when either of the Wales jumped into bed with someone other than their spouse and to be honest, I don't think its any of our business.

One thing is a given. Charles and Camilla had always had a close intimate friendship that continued after Camilla married Andrew. They were all close. Charles is even godfather to their oldest son Tom. It is my understanding that the Parker-Bowles had what was an open, yet discreet, marriage.

I don't think either Charles or Diana went cruising for a hook up. With Hewitt, I think Diana found someone she could relate to on an intimate level such as a best friend and confidant and perhaps over time, it evolved into a physical relationship. With Charles, after his marriage, to appease Diana, he cut contact with many of the friends in his circle and the Parker-Bowles were among them. I think Charles' friendship and trust in his female confidants was a sore point with Diana as she realized that is what she craved in the marriage and over time, they both realized that they really didn't "click" in that respect so when it presented itself with Hewitt, she was drawn like a moth to a flame to it. This intimacy also had presented itself between Diana and Mannakee (sp) and would be something she was seeking for the rest of her life. When the marriage reached the point of no return, Charles began to move back into his circle of friends and Camilla.

This illustrates that although Diana and Charles did have a very happy marriage at the outset and enjoyed each other and were "in love", in the long run, the close bonds of an intimate friendship, trust and a mutual love of sharing life together never were formed. They both did "click" together on their ideas of parenting and their love for their boys and that remained strong no matter what happened in their private lives.

This happens. People marry and discover that as they really get to know each other on a day to day basis, that they're just too different, too opposite in ways to fully form a close relationship that can withstand anything the world throws at them. Sometimes you have to travel the road to find all the potholes and hope to hell the car makes it to its destination.

 

[Zonk]

Let's get back on topic.

This thread isn't about Camilla.

 

[Frelinghighness]

I can't believe anyone listens to what that Hewitt guys says, prints it or repeats it. He is a loser and a user and is selling out anyone to try to make a gain for himself. Yuk!

 

[Curryong]

Ken Wharfe, Diana's Royal Protection Officer, had a lot to say about Hewitt, whom he confessed to rather liking, in his book 'Diana, Closely Guarded Secret'.

There was a rather telling episode which Wharfe relates, in which Diana told him that Hewitt could not afford a new car on his army pay, had told her so and that therefore she was going to give him the money to purchase one.

Wharfe states that he was appalled, not least because the Press, who in 1989-90 knew nothing of Hewitt, might get wind of it. Diana apparently told him he was being paranoid. So she withdrew £16,000 in cash, which was delivered to her by a bank official and she put it in a briefcase to hand over to James.

 

[Osipi]

I can't believe anyone listens to what that Hewitt guys says, prints it or repeats it. He is a loser and a user and is selling out anyone to try to make a gain for himself. Yuk!

To me, it doesn't matter one bit whether anything out of Hewitt's mouth is actual fact or made up fantasies, to make anything of this nature public knowledge is a window into a character that lacks any qualities that one would look for in a friend.

 

[Lady Nimue]

I do want to point something out: the timing of these articles around the play, and the strange re-writing of history that is occurring. The below article is a very unusual savage piece on Hewitt. It's very short but it makes it's point very clearly, using twisted facts. (It's very important that Hewitt be seen in a negative light and so these articles fan the flames of ire with a man who actually just got caught in something bigger than he was.)

Diana's ex-lover James Hewitt seen walking with mother as it's revealed he has moved back in with her | Mail Online

TEXT: "He was the dashing Army Major who swept Princess Diana off her feet – before breaking her heart and fleeing to Spain. But now her old flame is back in the UK - looking a mere shadow of his former self - and living with his mother. [...] The cavalry officer was seen looking pale with a greying, receding hairline and had gained a few extra pounds. The Gulf War tank commander had a five-year affair with Diana but broke her heart and then fled to Spain to open a restaurant. He moved to Spain after being dubbed ‘The Cad’ for writing a book about their affair and trying to sell Diana’s love letters for £10million."

Fact is, it was Diana who broke off with Hewitt, in a very cruel way. It was Diana who broke Hewitt's heart. They were in the midst of a very long relationship, probably the longest relationship Diana had maintained with any man, in fact. (People don't often consider that). Five years is the 'official' time sequence (there are reasons to believe it was longer, but definitely five years). That is not a minor connection. Both her sons were very much acquainted with Hewitt, and Harry in particular, it is said, had a great affection for him (understandable since he knew him from infancy).

The story goes that Hewitt went to war and Diana agonized watching the news reports on the war, worrying over his safety, doing so in the presence of her young sons, who knew him and loved him, too. She wrote letters to Hewitt, he to her. What one would expect. Then, when Hewitt came back, fully expecting to come back to her, she suddenly refused to take any of his calls. She froze him out utterly, without an explanation. Imagine what such an experience would be like for a man deeply in love, which I think Hewitt was, and in some way may still be. (My general sense of him, via books and news articles, was that he was a very gentle man, a likable man, and I assume still is). If you read biographies of Diana this proclivity of Diana's, of cutting people off sharply, without explanation, extended into her family, with her own mother, for example.

It is true that Hewitt then collaborated on an (ill-advised) book, that one might reasonably suspect was a kind of therapy for him. Diana then referenced that book (because she had to) in the Panorama interview, expressing such hurt at the 'betrayal' of a man she 'adored'. (She cut off a man without even an explanation that she 'adored'. I believe she adored him, btw. I believe they were genuinely in love, which explains none of how she treated him in the end). In that interview it was the most Hewitt had heard from Diana, that she 'adored' him, since she cut him off. It was after that book and Panorama that Hewitt went to Spain, long after Diana had put an abrupt end to the affair. But it was Diana who had done the cutting and whatever played out from that, well.....

Motivations for actions are complicated, I would think, but in all this it strikes me that Hewitt, outside the book, maintained a kind of loyalty, always firmly maintaining the 1986 timeline that safely put him out of the line of paternity and 'saved' Diana at least that significant faux pas.

However, as the years have passed and it is clear that Harry shares only hair-color and not bone structure with Hewitt, it appears Hewitt is willing to state the truth. For his candor he is rewarded with such DM articles that make him out the cad and a sad, clown figure, when what I see is a man who deeply loved, intimately, across the better part of a decade, and found himself 'set aside' in an instant, no reason given, no good-bye offered. It is something, perhaps, that he never got over. (I have never read his book btw). His story, as all of their stories (how I would like to hear Camilla's story, her truth, but she will never tell it) would be an interesting story to hear imo.

Anyway, my point is that Hewitt is not anyone to rage against imo, or cast aspersions upon. He was possibly a pawn, used while it suited someone in a higher social position. A good, gentle man who loved unwisely and has never recovered from it. Consider if the roles were reversed, if a young woman were in the position of Hewitt. The outrage would be unambiguous, I think, against the man of higher social rank.

 

[sthreats]

Since the play and statements imply Things about P.Harry's parentage. Can't he sue on behalf of himself.
We all get this wasn't a good marriage in the end. But I don't believe P. Diana was giving it away with a dollar coupon though out her marriage.


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[Queen Camilla]

The reason the Hewitt story won't die is because Diana was not truthful.

In the Morton book she should have come 'clean'.

The story that Hewitt was hired to teach William and Harry to ride is also hollow. Diana married into a horse family why did she need to go outside of the family to find someone to teach W&H to ride.

She collaborated with Morton but ignored a large part of her life and that life was Hewitt.

Hewitt may have been upset/hurt that he was completely written out of her life and so he collaborated on his own book.

The Morton book was Diana's downfall.

 

[Osipi]

The story that Hewitt was hired to teach William and Harry to ride is also hollow. Diana married into a horse family why did she need to go outside of the family to find someone to teach W&H to ride.

Interesting point to bring up as IIRC, Highgrove is practically right down the road from Aunt Anne's Gatcombe Park which was very much centered around horses.

 

[Lady Nimue]

Since the play and statements imply Things about P.Harry's parentage, can't he sue on behalf of himself? We all get this wasn't a good marriage in the end. But I don't believe P. Diana was giving it away with a dollar coupon though out her marriage.

I come to all this as someone who did not live it but who has read about it. Growing up I was not involved with Diana. My attention was elsewhere. The result is that I have a more cerebral approach informed by my reading, and conversations I had with my mother when I was grown.

I don't think there is a need to judge Diana. What she did is her business, and in point of fact, she was behaving by the 'unwritten rules' of her class. They were her choices. Her own parents modeled infidelity. There is no reason to think that Diana perceived her actions as 'unacceptable', though she was skating a very fine edge with Hewitt (i.e. how soon into the marriage she engaged a dalliance).

I 'know' Diana and Charles only via what I have read about them and it appears that of the two of them Diana was the impulsive one, quick to act and react. Charles appears more deliberate, earnest and fastidious about duty and such. Others have mentioned that Diana required Charles to give up his circle of friends. Quite so. It went as far as Diana requiring him to give up his dog. This all points to considerable work expended on making the marriage work so I somehow doubt Charles was straying until he said he did. This is relevant to my point.

Diana's downfall was her appalling lack of discretion. Charles maintained absolute discretion regarding his personal business, and never spoke ill of Diana at any time. In fact, we actually do not really know when Charles reconnected with Camilla. It's all supposition, a kind of riffing on a theme. We know he 'went off the reservation' in 1986, but we actually don't know with whom he did so. We do know that by the late 80's he was with Camilla, but we know that only because of Diana, and then the tapes. All the rest is supposition and tabloid rumor that was rife at the time (fueled by Diana's accusations). I have not found anything regarding Camiliia being with Charles before the late 80's verified in anything I have read. This appears to be a wild rumor (actually a smear directed at Camilla) that has achieved a kind of 'reality' through the sheer volume of repetitions.

All the above is relevant in regards a lawsuit. All of this would get re-hashed, very likely not to the benefit of Diana's memory. There's the matter of truth-telling, who was and who wasn't.

As best as I can make out in my reading, Diana collaborated on the Morton book because by the late 80's rumors were flying, and there were her own (Squidgy) tapes. Pretty scandalous stuff, even for the time (my impression). Harry would have very little in the way of a legal case given all the information tumbled before the general public by his mother, if a legal case were even considered wise and allowed by the BRF, which I'm sure it wouldn't be. In the end Harry might be faced with taking a DNA test, the ultimate humiliation, I would think.

In the end, Hewitt has a right to his truth, his life story not sublimated to the needs of the BRF. A lawsuit initiated by Harry would be a perilous undertaking, the outcome of which might not be happy. JMO.

 

[sm1939]

I think Hewit should crawl back under the stone he came from , so sad dragging this all up again .

 

[Mbruno]

In the end, Hewitt has a right to his truth, his life story not sublimated to the needs of the BRF. A lawsuit initiated by Harry would be a perilous undertaking, the outcome of which might not be happy. JMO.

Why do you say it would be a "perilous undertaking" ? Do you still think that Harry might be Hewitt's son ? I don't think he is, but, if he were, the public deserved to know it as Harry is currently third in line to the throne.

 

[rominet09]

My God, time has been cruel to him !

 

[Skippyboo]

I don't know anything about the British legal system but I think the fact that is a play which is a work of fiction would rule out a lawsuit.

Oh by the way, Harry isn't 3rd in line. He is 4th and moving to 5th in April.


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[Mbruno]

I don't know anything about the British legal system but I think the fact that is a play which is a work of fiction would rule out a lawsuit.

Oh by the way, Harry isn't 3rd in line. He is 4th and moving to 5th in April.


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Yes, that is right. Harry became 4th line after Prince George's birth and will move to 5th when the DoC gives birth again. He will move back to 4th though when Prince Charles ascends the throne, or even to 3rd if Prince William succeeds his grandmother directly.

 

[Osipi]

I would think that a lawsuit would be quite laughable and would, in fact, give the play even more attention than it deserves. If left alone and considering the subject matter of it, I would tend to believe this will be a production that will close its door very soon after opening night.

Face it. Stories and plays and movies centered around a divorced Princess of Wales that has been dead for going on 18 years has passed its sell by date.

 

[Lee27]

Diana may have grown up in a horse riding family, but she was not on good terms with her in-laws or all the close with her sisters. William and Harry may be different, but the rest of the family do not drop-in and generally communicate through 3rd parties. So the possibility that Diana would turn to Princess Anne or some other family member to teach her sons how to ride is very far fetched. But to turn to an army officer to teach the boys how to ride also means that Charles was out of the family picture, otherwise he would have been the one to each his son how to ride.
I really don't think a timeline will support Hewitt or this play's allegations as to Harry

 

[Dman]

He's a terrible man, who should be ashamed of himself. We're about to go into 2015, he should crawl back under the 90's rock from which he came. All his actions were to try to make himself relevant and to gain a name for himself.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

[Fact is, it was Diana who broke off with Hewitt, in a very cruel way. It was Diana who broke Hewitt's heart]//quote

LadyNimue,

I completely agree with you. One of Diana's biographers has stated her rationale for dumping Hewitt is that she saw his going off to war as "abandonment" of her...as incredible as it sounds. But it completely fits in with everything we know now about her emotional/psychological makeup.


Incredibly insightful remarks from you...frankly the best I have read here so far. Including my own!

 

[Hilda Thomas]

I truly believe that a DNA was tested since Prince Harry is a close member to the throne of England. The Royal family does not have to disclose this to the public and since PC seems to dislike Diana he would have sanctioned it.

 

[Rudolph]

I agree he should crawl back under his rock

Will Diana’s love rat ever let her rest in peace? | Theatre | Entertainment | Daily Express

HE kissed and told about their love affair then attempted to sell his letters from the Princess. Now James Hewitt has hit a new low by backing a play which questions Prince Harry’s paternity.

 

[Dman]

I agree he should crawl back under his rock

Will Diana’s love rat ever let her rest in peace? | Theatre | Entertainment | Daily Express

He's completely horrid.

 

[Hilda Thomas]

Princes William and Harry are young men now and should speak up to those who are impinging against their mother's character. Enough is Enough!!.

 

[Mirabel]

Since the play and statements imply Things about P.Harry's parentage. Can't he sue on behalf of himself.
We all get this wasn't a good marriage in the end. But I don't believe P. Diana was giving it away with a dollar coupon though out her marriage.


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Why would he sue, when he has already stated that he is sure the play is accurate?

Sorry, but I don't believe Hewitt was a good and decent man who was deeply in love.
A man like that would never have sold his love letters. (What kind of man does that, anyway?)

 

[Dman]

Why would he sue, when he has already stated that he is sure the play is accurate?

Sorry, but I don't believe Hewitt was a good and decent man who was deeply in love.
A man like that would never have sold his love letters. (What kind of man does that, anyway?)

He's sleazy and sleazy people do things like that.