Princess Diana’s Butler Claims She Felt ‘Stifled’ by a Brutal Royal Tradition: ‘She Was Living in...'
The royal family has a fondness for stag hunting, a cherished holiday hobby. A royal’s first hunt is a big celebration, and their Scottish retreat, the Balmoral estate, has always been their favorite destination for stag hunting. While King Charles, Prince William, and several other royals enjoy their time at Balmoral, it was not the case with the late Princess Diana, who allegedly felt suffocated by it.
Charles and Diana, who had had a complicated marriage, had different approaches to family vacations. While Diana enjoyed her time working for different charities, Charles was fond of hunting in Scotland. During an interaction with Marie Claire, the late Princess’s former butler, Paul Burrell, detailed how she ‘found it very hard’ to fit in Balmoral. The butler, who had also worked for the late Queen Elizabeth, revealed how Diana 'tried to please’ her husband and would spend time doing so in the retreat, hoping to fit in, be loved, and accepted during that vacation.
But doing so was reportedly not an easy task, because the royals, as per the butler, were 'very difficult'. He said, "They're all individual personalities, all huge egos, all bouncing around in the same place.” It did not take time for the Princess to realize that she, being a modern woman, would not be able to adapt to the lifestyle at Balmoral. The butler said, “I think from day one, she realized that that place was so full of ghosts from the past that she could never fit in as a modern woman. She could never fit into that archaic world.”
Commenting also on the tradition of hunting, Burrell added, “I mean, going onto the hillside and killing a majestic beast, for instance, stalking, and then being smeared with its blood and having to come back to the castle blooded for the first time. She thought that was like something from a Victorian novel.” Diana was not the only Princess of Wales who didn't support the tradition of blooding. Kate Middleton had previously put her foot down and insisted no blooding for her children, as per the Daily Mail.
Coming back to Diana, all the Princess could allegedly think of Balmoral was that life in the castle was far from the real world. It was not a relaxed experience, as every member had to follow a set of protocols. The butler explained, “Breakfast is at nine o’clock. If you're down at 10, you've missed it. Lunch is at 1 o’clock, you've got to be there. Tea is at five o'clock. You had to be there for a cup of tea. Dinner is at 8:15. Woe betide if you come downstairs dressed in the wrong thing, at the wrong time, for the wrong event; it's very, very formal.”