My Duty Is to Love

 Through the years of reading biographies and books focused on Princess Diana—in my studies of women’s history and royal archetypes—I always held royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith as a fair and trustworthy voice. So I was surprised and disappointed recently when she appeared to join misogynistic and patriarchal-leaning writers by referring to strong women as “domineering” and deeply feeling men as “weak.”

On a promotional tour for her new book, another about the British royal family, Bedell Smith compared King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Calling Harry “weak” like the Duke of Windsor—because, if I’m understanding her reasoning, both men fell in love with strong women—and saying that “in some respects Meghan and the Duchess of Windsor have similar qualities: very narcissistic, very controlling, very dominating”—because, again, if I’m understanding her premise, that they were/are strong women. (Et tu…even you, Sally?)

However, people who know Meghan Markle—and those more inclined to take the high road— would describe her qualities as “confident, assured, and being a leader.” And she was vilified for that—like other women who dared to step outside the narrow Windsor box. As I see it, Meghan, this accomplished, heart-guided woman, fell in love with a man of great heart—compassionate, caring, sensitive, courageous—a man who was a fellow activist motivated by creating a kinder world, all in the name of love. (And a man who inherited his mother’s “exquisite sensitivity of feeling,” in the words of Jungian analyst Jim Fitzgerald, and is committed to continuing her humanitarian vision.)

[Click here to read the entire article posted on MEDIUM]

{The Woman I Love} -part three-

We're completing the final part of “The Woman I Love” (excerpt from my book in progress)...and featuring a bit of Prince Harry's family legacy. 

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 The Woman I Love

{part three of three*}

Was Diana’s real “duty” as princess—the underlying essence of her life mission—to show how there is always a place for love and that being heart-centered can only strengthen and give pleasure to one’s sense of “duty”? Was part of her monarchic purpose to bring the shadowy emotional inheritance from King Edward into the light, even revealing an intriguing connection to her and the conspiratorial theories about how he was maneuvered from the throne? “In the abdication crisis of Edward VIII,” Jungian analyst Ian Alister asserts in When a Princess Dies, “there was a conflict between the steady, reliable—what I call ‘thinking’—qualities required by the collective institution of monarchy and the more unpredictable personal qualities—which I characterize as ‘feeling qualities’—represented by the individual. Edward favoured feeling (Wallis Simpson) ahead of thought (his kingly duty). I suggest that Diana re-awoke this conflict in the House of Windsor.”

Indeed, Diana awoke a ‘relationship of the heart’ revolution in the House of Windsor! Diana’s was a revolution that was to reveal how one does not have to sacrifice personal happiness for the privilege of doing one’s duty.

Ironically Charles and Camilla’s marriage called on this “feeling,” heart-centered energy that King Edward stirred up and then which Diana broke open in British culture—in the monarchy on down. Several years after Charles and Camilla married, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond commented about the Duchess of Cornwall in the Telegraph: “She’s trodden carefully and turned the public around with her charm and sense of humour. I like her an awful lot.”

Bond also recalled a conversation she’d had with Princess Diana: “Diana once told me that Camilla had always been the love of Charles’ life and that she’d been ‘very loyal and very discreet.’” I was happy to read that for several reasons and, if accurate, it was the first I read of Diana acknowledging to someone—in what seemed a mature, thoughtful way—what she truly felt in her heart about Camilla, and without rancor toward her husband. Here was a moment when Diana’s strong “feeling” nature came into balance with a more thoughtful “thinking” nature. (Is this, a reoccurring task we all have, perhaps the essential “life lesson” of the ages?)

Diana indeed carried the mantle for “bringing your heart” along into all situations of life. And perhaps we’re still learning for ourselves what she was only beginning to realize at the end of her life: To trust the intelligence of our heart more than the emotions of our mind and that our body is wiser than our head. So in that sense, “bring your heart” is to bring both love and wisdom.

We see the unhappy results in our own lives when we don’t “bring our heart”—only relying on thoughts and reason and wayward emotions. We see the harsh results in today’s society when politicians, business leaders, or even next-door neighbors don’t “bring their heart” with them in making decisions that affect all of us. It’s not easy for anyone—king or commoner—to simply “be ourselves” in a world bent on winning at all costs, that puts profit ahead of people’s well-being, and appearance above happiness. But then why are we still so fascinated with the story of King Edward and Mrs. Simpson or the life of Princess Diana—or her charming sons who both married for love—if we indeed aren’t yearning to be our authentic self, if we aren’t truly yearning to “bring our heart” with us no matter the bent of the world?

Diana didn't get there herself, but it seems her former husband and both of their sons "bring their heart" into a vibrant life of service and devotion to their beloveds. All three "married for love" and the monarchy still stands. ~

{*Final part of "The Woman I Love"....excerpt from my book in progress, tentatively titled, A Memory of Love: The Spiritual Mission of a Princess.}

{The Woman I Love} -part one-

During the month of February—considered the month of love—and in celebration of the upcoming marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, I’ll share an excerpt (in three parts) from my book in progress. The section, called “The Woman I Love," features several members of Prince Harry’s family!

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The Woman I Love

{part one of three*}

The timing of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles’ union, caught in the historical crossfire of a major shift in royal culture, arose in paradox. These were the last stages of an era where marriages were arranged to suit one’s level of dynastic duty and now times were shifting into a more modern world where royals, at last less isolated from the masses, desired to marry for love and supportive companionship. (Can you imagine either Prince William or Prince Harry marrying based solely on their dynastic duty? Or for that matter, can you imagine your children marrying someone that you selected for them based on background, connections, and reproductive capabilities?) The irony for Diana and Charles was that without some sort of outside “arrangement,” they would have never become a couple.

But the timing had not shifted enough for Prince Charles in the 1970s and ‘80s allowing him to act from his true feelings, especially since the marital decisions of this particular heir to the throne were still shadowed by his family’s recent history. The actions of a great-uncle, King Edward VIII (Uncle David), who, with some political pressures, gave up the throne “for the woman he loved” in 1936, were a little too close in historical proximity for Charles to have made a similar decision about marrying someone for love, regardless of “background.” (Of course, to make matters worse, Wallis Simpson, King Edward’s beloved and regular companion, was not only twice married—and only once divorced at the time—but an American to boot!) 

The earthshaking decision of the king to choose love and happiness over duty and abdicate the throne (causing a constitutional crisis) was considered abhorrent by the rest of the Windsor family for many reasons. And to show they meant business, they shunned the former king—their brother, son, in-law, cousin, and uncle—insisting on a near exile from Great Britain; he was only allowed to return by royal invitation for short visits or to attend a funeral, but never to live. This exile-of-sorts lasted the remainder of his life; ending only when his body was brought back home for burial, some 36 years later. So it was under this specter that Charles was trained in the mindset of “duty above feelings” by all the palace powers led by his mother and grandmother.

While editing this section (originally written in 2011 or so), I watched the television drama series from 1978, “Edward and Mrs. Simpson.” The actor who played Edward (as prince then king), responding to his advisor’s instruction about “who” he could bring to the palace to avert any further notoriety in regard to his companion, Mrs. Simpson, asks in almost a whisper: “How can he not bring his heart?” I don’t know if King Edward actually said these words, but it was the most poignantly telling line in the program’s reenactment. And perhaps his great-nephew, Charles, asked the same question years later about his own circumstances.

King Edward also said that he could be a better king with the woman he loved at his side and longed to be able to just “be himself,” asking his subjects to trust that would be enough. (“I am different from my father and determined to be myself.”) But palace officials, steeped in tradition, feared such heart-centered notions—so foreign to them the possibility of heart and head working in powerful alignment! (Queen Mary, David’s uncompromising mother, responded to her son’s dilemma by asking, “What’s love compared to duty?”) Not only were the lives of both men, Edward and Charles, altered because of these attitudes, but a nation also remained in wait.  [To Be Continued]

{*Part one of three of "The Woman I Love"....excerpt from my book in progress, tentatively titled, A Memory of Love: The Spiritual Mission of a Princess.}