The spectre at the royal wedding

Thirty years ago I wrote the Daily Mirror leader which appeared on the wedding day of Charles and Diana.
The penultimate paragraph said: "This is the stuff of which fairy tales are made." When the then Archbishop of Canterbury began his sermon, it was with those words. He had clearly got up early that morning, sat down to write the sermon without a thought in his head, then been inspired to plagiarise my leader when he read it over his breakfast tea.
There was a different feel to today's nuptials. It was a pageant but not a fairy tale.  Different times, different couple but those don't completely account for it.
The spectre noticeable by its absence wasn't Blair or Brown, outrageous as their exclusion was, but Diana.
With the passing of time, the anti-Diana brigade has become more vociferous and its sneering at her more acceptable. But she was one of the most significant figures of the 20th century - almost certainly the most significant British woman. Had she lived, I still believe she might have brought down the monarchy.
Strangely enough, I thought Kate today looked rather regal. You can imagine her sitting on the throne in 20 or 30 years.
You never could with Diana. She was something more than that.
I began today by reading the chapter on the beheading of Anne Boleyn in the book The Six Wives of Henry VIII. What a vile woman she was, responsible for the destruction and killing of just about all those she disliked.
But before then and since, the British monarchy has been littered with nasty and inadequate members. They are one of the most dysfunctional families imaginable.
William and Kate seem OK. There is a long way to go, though, before they rule, if they ever do. And their child would be monarch into the next century, which is a long time away.
Diana taught the royals a lot and William appears to have inherited something from her, though not her waywardness and rebellion.
Would that I could be around when it all unravels.