Royal courtship has happy ending

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 9

Royal courtship has happy ending

NZPA . London The most publicised courtship ever conducted by a future British monarch was confirmed when Buckingham Palace announced that Prince Charles will marry Lady Diana Spencer later this year. The wedding will be some time late in July, Prince Charles said. No precise date or place has been chosen, but previous weddings 6f future monarchs have usually been at Westminster Abbey. Prince Charles, who is 32, gave Lady Diana, aged 19, a sapphire and diamond engagement ring. The announcement made front-page fact out of what fof many months had been front-page speculation. “The Tifnes” broke the news be? fore i the formal announcement was made. ??&?

Lady Diana, the strawberry blonde kindergarten teacher with the blue blood, has been dogged for months by-the news medial in spite of strenuous efforts by the Royal Family, courtiers, officials, and friends' to shield her from the public gaze. , [' ■ . 1 Speculation about the royal 1., romance intensified when Lady. ; Diana returned to London

last week after visiting her mother in Australia. An announcement seemed imminent on Monday evening when, amid a flurry of activity, Lady Diana drove her red Mini Metro to Buckingham Palace and spent 2| hours with Prince Charles and the Queen.

It was just before Lady Dianae went to Australia that Prince Charles proposed, over a private dinner in the sitting room of his quarters at Buckingham Pah ace.

“I asked Diana just before she went to Australia three weeks ago,” the Prince said in an interview. “I wanted to give her a chance to thing about it — to think if it was: all going to be too awful. ‘

His radiant bride-to-be sitting at his side, - chipped in: “Oh,? I never had. any doubt aboutit.” ’■•<-■

From-, that point, Prince Charles said, the difficult part was ; for the .couple to keep? the • excitement t.o themselves... I v -' ..-

?, They: may ; have- met dur-? ingVychiTdhood,y?butjy meither can really; remember meeting before- November, 1977;Cthe year of., the. .Queen’s Silver Jubilee. - Their-roniance began when Lady Diana; went to Balmoral, last July to help her elder sister, Lady Jane, with her first baby.-t ; “We began to realise then that there was something in it,” Prince Charles said. Lady Diana Frances Spencer has impeccable/ qualificatidtis as a Royal bride. She . and Prince Charles share? common ancestry and are already related through several Royal'links, 7 -' ■ They are.’ , sixteenth cousins, once removed,through their ? mutual: ancestor, the judor king, Henry VII. -There are also links from the brothers, Charles II and James 11. ~ ___

As a young man, Lady Diana’s father, the eighth Earl Spencer, was equerry to the Queen. He accompanied the Queen and Prince Philip, who is sitll a great shooting friend, on their first Commonwealth tour.

Lady Diana will leave her kindergarten job immediately and will move out of the Kensington flat she shares with three friends.

At this stage, Prince Charles still plans to go on a five-week tour of New Zealand, Australia, Venezuela, and the United States. “But there is no present intention that Lady Diana should accompany him,” said the Queen’s press secretary.

After .the wedding, Lady Diana will become “Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.” . , / . ••• :•

Among the first members of the public to hear of the engagement were hundreds gathered at Buckingham Palace, where.. the Queen was conducting an investiture. ■ Asa hush fell on the great. ballroom after . the Queen’s arrival,; the 1 Lord Chamberlain, Lbrd Maclean, stepped to a microphone'and said: “The Queen has asked me to let' you know that an announcement is being made at this moment in .the foling terms , . .” . He then .read the an-nouncement-'that had been made minutes before by the Queen’s press secretary. The Queen smiled broadly as the news was greeted first with gasps, and then with prolonged and enthusiastic applause. . .Lady Diana is one of four children of Earl Spencer’s first marriage, which was dissolved in 1969 after 15 years. ■ Her mother Frances, d a u g h t e r of the fourth baron Fermoy, is now married to a wallpaper company heir, Peter ShandKydd.- .