“It’s hard to believe that anyone as intelligent and well-read as the Prince of Wales could be so stupid — so utterly incapable of imagining what a new wife might conclude if her husband carried a photograph of his old girlfriend in his diary,” Junor says of the cufflink incident, according to the new except.
Diana started suffering from bulimia during the engagement and it continued in the early days of the marriage. Charles “was way out of his depth . . . had no idea how to treat a wife, let alone one who was secretly making herself sick several times a day,” Junor says.
A close friend of Charles tells Junor of his marriage to Diana, “He made a huge mistake. You can sympathize with Diana — oh God, yes. Put that way, he was the architect of the disaster . . . also he wouldn’t have had the sensitivity.
“He’s very interested in objective things, but not subjective, so he couldn’t have understood the complexities of her feelings.”
Diana and Charles’ marriage soon broke down after that.
Camilla and Charles renewed their affair in 1986 after friends urged the prince to reconnect with Camilla after they grew worried about his happiness and possibly heading towards a nervous breakdown. According to friends, Camilla was “the only person who might be able to lift his spirits,” Junor claims.
Diana, for her part, had already started her affair with cavalry major James Hewitt, Junor says.
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE.