Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac are set to release a new book The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to Diana and have shared an extract from the work. Charles and Diana were ‘intensely secretive’ and tried to dodge their own security, according to a new book about the Royal Family.
Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac are set to release a new book The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to Diana. It uncovers the relationship between the Royal Family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana.
In an extract from the forthcoming book, the authors detail how life was made difficult for the security forces tasked with protecting Diana and Charles while their marriage was falling apart.
The pair claim that when Charles drove his Aston Martin from Highgrove to visit Camilla Parker Bowles, he was ‘always partnered by his Special Branch officer, Colin Trimming.’ Meanwhile, when Diana visited her lover James Hewitt, her security officer was said to have slept downstairs on the sofa while they were upstairs.
In an extract published by the Mail Online the authors wrote: “Not surprisingly, Charles and Diana became intensely secretive and at times tried to evade their own security. Diana was the worst. Even early in her marriage, she became rather good at giving her own security the slip.”
“As an intelligence operative, she knew how to elude her tail. This caused periodic panics when royal flunkies realized she had slid out to go shopping down the King’s Road protected only by a pair of stylish sunglasses.”
“After the couple separated, she was even more reckless. In the Austrian mountain resort of Lech, she evaded her protection team by making a night-time leap into deep snow off a first-floor balcony at her hotel and then going for a walk.”
“Her protection officer later asked her: ‘Ma’am, what were you thinking?’ He left her service, and thereafter she dispensed with routine police protection — a dangerous strategy indeed.”
The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to Diana is authored by Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac and will be published by Atlantic on October 7.