In the year of our Lord 1981, upon the twenty-ninth day of July, there was held a most grand and glorious wedding — hailed by the multitudes as the marriage of the century. Lady Diana Spencer, but newly come of age, was wed unto Charles, Prince of Wales, in the mighty and sacred halls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, before lords and ladies, sovereigns and subjects, and countless eyes from the far corners of the earth.
Yet beneath the veil of splendour and silken train that stretched five-and-twenty feet, there did stir a heart heavy with sorrow and trembling with foreboding. For the fair Diana, adorned in the raiment of a princess, did liken herself to a lamb led to the slaughter.
The eve before her vows, in the quiet chambers of Clarence House, the maiden suffered grievously. Stricken with bulimia, a sickness borne of anguish, she found no rest nor solace. “I was as sick as a parrot,” she did later confess, “a sign of what lay ahead.” Though her sisters sat with her in merriment, and the Queen Mother watched Dad’s Army beside the fire, Diana wandered alone — to sip orange juice from the steward’s hand and ring a bell atop a bicycle, jesting, “I marry the Prince of Wales on the morrow!”
On the day itself, as the great bells tolled and choirs raised their voices to heaven, the bride walked calmly yet mournfully down the aisle, her hand in her father’s, her gaze fixed forward — not in joy, but in resignation. She later spake unto trusted chroniclers: “I knew not what I entered. I was calm, deathly calm. A lamb to the slaughter.”
Though the world did rejoice, though a sapphire ring graced her hand, and though Charles whispered beside her, all was not well within the walls of the palace. The prince, it is said, had gifted a bracelet to another — the Lady Camilla — and bore cufflinks with her cipher upon the honeymoon itself. Worse still, on the night before the wedding, he confessed unto Diana that he did not love her.
And so, though trumpets sounded and the world rejoiced, the union was born of shadows. In time, both bride and groom strayed from their vows. By the year 1992, their parting was proclaimed. Two years hence, the prince admitted his fault. And though Diana wore a dress of vengeance and pride, the end drew near.
In the year 1996, the marriage was no more. And but a year later, in Paris, the light of Diana was cruelly extinguished, her carriage broken in a darkened tunnel. The people wept; the world mourned.
The prince, in time, took Camilla to wife — but in humble ceremony, far from the gaze of the world.
Thus endeth the chronicle of a most sorrowful union — where love was professed, yet never found; where crowns and duties weighed heavier than hearts; and where a young maiden, so full of grace, walked not toward joy, but toward legend.
