The Queen Did What to Princess Diana's Ghost?
Royal reporter Kenneth Rose covered the royal family from 1979-2014, so he's privy to a lot of the things that happened behind the gates at Buckingham Palace. The Daily Mail, where much his work was published, collected some of his greatest hits in a new book, Who Loses, Who Wins: The Journals of Kenneth Rose, Vol II 1979-2014, which reveals that there was plenty of stuff nobody expected, including an impromptu exorcism that happened after Princess Diana's death.
In the book, Rose describes an event that occurred in 2001, four years after Diana's untimely death. He explains that royal employees refused to work in a room at Sandringham, the queen's country home, because they believed that it was haunted. Queen Elizabeth got down to business, enlisting the Queen Mother, family friend Prue Penn, and a local parson to investigate. It was less Ghost Adventures and more Sarah Winchester, it turns out, because they gathered in George VI's old bedroom and performed a ceremony that wasn't exactly a seance or a cleansing.
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"The parson walked from room to room and did indeed feel some sort of restlessness in one of them," Rose wrote. The parson noted that there were plenty of reasons that the room could have residual spirits. George VI passed away in the bedroom and Diana had passed away in 1997, making the space a hotbed for would-be paranormal activity.
"The parson said that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere may have been because of Princess Diana," Rose continued. "He had known such things before when someone died a violent death."
Rose stated explicitly that it wasn't an exorcism. Instead, it was just a ceremony to bring tranquility to the bedroom. Sorry, ghostbusters, stories of the queen contacting Princess Diana on the other side are just an urban legend.
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"So the parson held a service there, not exactly of exorcism, which is the driving out of an evil spirit, but of bringing tranquillity," Rose continued. "The congregation of three took Holy Communion and special prayers were said, I think for the repose of the king's soul in the room in which he died."
Who Loses, Who Wins: The Journals of Kenneth Rose, Vol II 1979-2014 doesn't just cover the spooky stuff. Rose's works include tidbits about Diana and Prince Charles's wedding and its respective guest list (let's just say Diana was pretty harsh about who got an invite) and more about the queen, her corgis, and her belief that people who came to the castle were more concerned about the gold plates the food was served on and not the actual food.
