Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410170092
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
``How could I have got it all so wrong?'' Charles, 45, lamented in 1986 - five years after his marriage - in one of the letters quoted in the book.
Many observers saw authorization of the book as a huge gamble by the heir to the British throne - an apparent attempt to revive acceptance of him as the future king by being unusually frank.
Buckingham Palace said Charles has no regrets about cooperating for the biography, which describes him as bullied and mocked as a child and trapped in a nightmare marriage with a bored, bulimic, self-absorbed and obsessively jealous young wife.
To the dismay of traditionalists, Charles gave author Jonathan Dimbleby long interviews and unprecedented access to thousands of his private letters and diaries for the book, ``The Prince of Wales.''
``It is a book of very great historical importance,'' said constitutional expert Lord St. John of Fawsley. ``It will have a major effect on the whole current debate about the monarch and the royal family ... The prince has put his cards on the table.''
The biography, which the Sunday Times began serializing, is the latest book about the failed marriages of Queen Elizabeth II's elder sons, Charles and Prince Andrew.
Two weeks ago, Diana's former riding instructor, ex-army Maj. James Hewitt, claimed he had a five-year affair with Diana starting in 1986.
Dimbleby, a broadcaster, did not allow Charles a veto over the contents and refused to make some requested changes, Alan Percival, a Buckingham Palace spokesman, told The Associated Press.
``It would be fair to call it an authorized account, in that Jonathan Dimbleby was given substantial access to archival material, letters and diaries - as you would expect for a serious author,'' said Percival, who is also on Charles' staff.
Charles married the 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer, a nursery school teacher and daughter of an earl, in a 1981 wedding that was watched around the globe.
The couple formally separated in December 1992. They have two children, Prince William, 12, and Prince Harry, 10.
In a television interview with Dimbleby in June, Charles acknowledged for the first time that he had been unfaithful to Diana, but said it was only after their marriage collapsed.
Charles named no names. Questioned by Dimbleby, he said that Camilla Parker Bowles, 47 - an army officer's wife who is widely reputed to be his mistress - was and would remain among his closest friends.
Dimbleby wrote that Charles' father, Prince Philip, had given him an ultimatum to marry Diana, saying she would otherwise be compromised after news got out that she had visited Charles at Balmoral, the queen's Scottish castle.
Philip argued Diana had ``no past'' and was young enough to be molded into the future queen.
``The prince, in a state of emotional confusion, clung to these calculations,'' wrote Dimbleby. ``The pressures on him began to sweep him toward his destiny.''
Dimbleby said the marriage went wrong from the start. Diana had violent mood swings and constant suspicions about Parker Bowles, mutilated herself with small cuts on her wrists and sat sobbing for hours.
Andrew Morton, in a 1992 royal book with which Diana cooperated indirectly by letting friends talk, wrote that early in the marriage Diana found out that Charles was still seeing Parker Bowles.
In the new biography, Charles was writing by 1986 to an unidentified correspondent that he felt ``in a kind of cage ... longing to be free.''
``How awful incompatibility is, and how dreadfully destructive it can be for the players in this extraordinary drama. It has all the ingredients of a Greek tragedy ... I never thought it would end up like this.''
The book will be published Nov. 3 by Little Brown.
by CNB