Has It Really Been 15 Years?

It's hard to believe it's been 15 years since the night Princess Diana died in a Paris tunnel. Prince William is now 30 so it's been half his lifetime, and as I reflect on the Diana era, including both the 16 years of her life as a royal and the 15 years since her death, I find that my thoughts are all over the place. It's impossible to summarize her life, her death and her impact in one clever, pithy phrase. Here's how things look to me right now.

What were they thinking? Going back to the very beginning, I want to slap my forehead and say who on earth thought it was a good idea for these two people to get married?  Seriously. I have the wisdom of hindsight, of course, but still. Did anyone really think that a prematurely middle-aged man and an undereducated, unsophisticated, inexperienced teenage girl could make a marriage work? As one wag put it, at the time of their engagement, Charles was 32 going on 45; Diana was 19 going on 12, which isn't exactly the formula for a sustainable partnership. After a short and superficial courtship they certainly didn't know each other very well, and Camilla was always hovering in the background. Common sense says they didn't have a chance.

What if there was no Camilla? I play this one out in my head sometimes. Imagine that Camilla didn't exist. Charles didn't fall in love at the age of 24, but rather spent his 20s serving in the Navy, growing into his role as Prince of Wales and dating as many aristocratic and attractive young women as he could find. At age 30, he's emotionally available and searching for his soulmate and the nation's next Queen. In this frame of mind my guess is that Charles wouldn't have looked at Diana as anything other than a pretty teenager. The idea that she could be his life partner would have been laughable.

What would Diana have done with the rest of her life? Truth be told, I don't think she would have aged well. I don't mean physically - today Diana would be 51 and I'm sure she'd still look spectacular. I'm wondering how she would spend her time. What would she do all day long? She didn't have the intellect or the temperament to pull a Jackie O and settle into an office job. "Being famous" isn't really a vocation and as we've seen with Fergie, it's not easy to be an ex-royal. At the time of the divorce there was a perception that Diana "won" the PR battle with her husband, being seen as the wronged party and enjoying more affection and popularity from the public. That may have been true in the short term, but 15 years later, with the exception of the Queen Mum, the royal family is still there, they're still doing the things that royal families do, and as I wrote in Annus Wonderfilis, they're more popular than ever. Compared to all that, as the years went on I think Diana would have become less and less important and more about simply being famous, and unfortunately, even being famous isn't what it used to be. As People magazine's favorite cover girl, Diana would now be competing with the Kardashians, the Bachelorettes and Brangelina. She probably wouldn't cope well with the dimming spotlight and strutting around the Mediterranean in a leopard print bathing suit, as Diana was known to do when she wanted to upstage the royal family, is less charming when you're fifty-something.

So what does it all mean? I'm still thinking about that. The royal family isn't as interesting without Diana around, although we've still got Prince Harry, naked or otherwise, to spice things up. There are milestones to come, as Will and Kate have kids and Harry gets married. One of these days Charles will be King and Camilla will be Queen, or not. Regardless of how it all plays out, I'll be watching.