Was Diana the original Duchess Difficult? Long before Meghan, the Princess of Wales was known for firing staff – including a ‘totally devoted’ secretary who left for the strangest reason…

When it comes to staffing crises in the Royal Family, the past few years have been dominated by the Duchess of Sussex‘s constant churn of personnel.

Meghan has been labelled ‘Duchess Difficult’ after media reports claimed the ‘dictator in high heels’ reduced grown men to tears due to her ‘barking’ of orders, although she denies the allegations.

But long before the American actress married into The Firm, Princess Diana, who is usually remembered for her gentle nature, also had her fair share of turmoil in that department.

Towards her later years, the then Princess of Wales, who also had the title the Duchess of Rothesay in Scotland when married to Charles, repeatedly fired staff from her household for a seemingly endless list of arbitrary reasons.

Due to employment law, each time the princess dismissed people without warning or good reason, her husband Prince Charles would have to pay them what they would have been awarded by a tribunal plus twenty per cent, according to author Penny Junor.

As the succession of cooks, housemaids, dressers, secretaries and butlers left, each cost between £12,000 and £14,000 to get rid of (about £27,000 in today’s money). 

The constant changing of staff included her long-serving secretary Victoria Mendham after they fell out on a Caribbean holiday in Easter 1996.

In her 1998 book Charles Victim or Villain?, Junor wrote that the ‘totally devoted’ 27-year-old servant, who had been working with Diana for seven years, had become so close to her boss that they became personal friends.

Princess Diana and Victoria Mendham (on her left) laugh together while watching a performance of The Indiana Jones Adventure at MGM Studios in Walt Disney World

Victoria Mendham, who was 27 when she was sacked, was ‘totally devoted’ to Diana and had been working for her for seven years, claims author Penny Junor

Meghan, pictured in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, has been labelled ‘Duchess Difficult’ after media reports claimed the ‘dictator in high heels’ reduced grown men to tears due to her ‘barking’ of orders, leading to a slew of resignations – although she denies the allegations

Diana repeatedly fired staff from her household for a seemingly endless list of arbitrary reasons, according to a book

They grew so affectionate that Diana asked Victoria to go on holiday with her four years running. 

For the first two, Diana paid the full cost. So when they went to the Caribbean in Easter 1996, Victoria assumed she was there as the wealthy princess’s guest once again. 

But halfway through the trip, Diana suddenly said ‘Oh, Victoria, I’ve written a note… to make sure you get your share of the bill. I think it’s about £5,000’, according to Junor.

‘But, Ma’am,’ spluttered Victoria, ‘you asked me to come’.

‘Yes’ replied the Princess, ‘but you always knew you would have to pay your way.’ 

According to Junor, following the conversation Victoria phoned the London office in floods of tears saying she didn’t have £5,000 and worried about what on earth she would do.

The Prince of Wales eventually came forward and quietly paid the bill.

Nine months later, on another Caribbean holiday, it happened again. 

This time Victoria told Diana she could pay the airfare, which had been economy class, but they had stayed at the K Club where beach-side villas cost £1,700 a night which would have been impossible for a secretary to afford.

Diana grew so close with her long-serving secretary Victoria Mendham that she invited her to go on holiday with her four years running. The pair, above, in 1995 leaving for Antigua

Princess Diana and Victoria Mendham walking in a garden in July 1996

Victoria on an engagement with Princess Diana at Saint Benedict’s Hospice in Newcastle in 1993

Diana and Victoria on holiday on the Caribbean island of Barbuda in 1996

When the Princess learnt that her husband had footed the previous bill, she ‘went through the roof’ and Victoria was frozen out as others had been before her, according to Junor.

Then on her anti-landmines campaign to Angola, Diana ditched Victoria and took her butler Paul Burrell instead.

When Diana returned, she had a confrontation with a very upset Victoria, which resulted in her tending her resignation. She was told to clear her desk and leave at once, without serving her four weeks’ notice.

At the time, Diana was not regarded as mentally fragile and would see conspiracies everywhere.

She left disturbing messages on a number of people’s pagers and answering machines.

Junor writes that in the late 1980s Camilla had also received a number of threatening and unnerving telephone calls in the middle of the night. 

Diana would never say who she was but would say things like: ‘I’ve sent someone to kill you. They’re outside in the garden. Look out of the window, can you see them?’  

And she even suspected those staff members who did a good job of secretly undermining her.

Diana and Victoria in Mayfair in 1995

She fired William and Harry’s dutiful nanny Barbara Barnes in 1986 after she felt she was getting too possessive with ‘her’ boys.

Surrogate mother to Prince William for over four years and to Prince Harry for more than two, Ms Barnes had not been allowed to say a word of farewell to her charges, according to royal author Robert Lacey.

But despite how she had been treated by Diana, Victoria Mendham remained loyal until the end.

When Diana died in 1997 she volunteered to go into her old office and help arrange the funeral, according to royal author Tim Clayton.

And in the years since, she never succumbed to the temptation to sell stories about the princess to the Press, which would have fetched a high price due to their many years together.

Over the years, William and Harry became furious at how their mother’s former aides ‘exploited’ her name by selling stories – most famously Paul Burrell.

The princes have expressed disgust at the way they ‘cashed in’ on their mother’s memory by revealing secrets about her during the most troubled years of her life.

Charles, Harry and William arrive at a memorial to mark the tenth anniversary of Diana’s death at the Guards’ Chapel in London on August 31, 2007

Many would go on to forge lucrative careers as royal pundits as fascination about her life continues to grip the world years after her death.

In 2007, a memorial marking the tenth anniversary of Diana’s death was held and the princes did not invite servants who had sold stories or written books about their mother.

Mendham was originally not on the guest list, but courtiers eventually made a U-turn to invite her, claiming it was a ‘regrettable oversight’. Burrell was not invited.

And now more than 27 years since Diana’s death, Mendham has stayed out of the Press, never uttering a single word about her royal service – including her dismissal after that trip to the Caribbean.