MY LADY IN RED, LOVE MEANS HAVING TO SAY YOU ARE SORRY!

My very own Lady Miriam, My loveliest Irish Princess, my dearest Mrs Miriam O’Callaghan, as you yourself know your very own Maurice James of Saint James, your very own Troubadour, a poet and a fair brave and gallant knight, born at London, the capital City of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I have never been either slow, or hesitated or reluctant in any way to confess and indeed to admit that you are my favourite and loveliest First Lady among all of the very many very fine and simply loveliest First Ladies of RTE, my dearest friend, my loveliest First Lady, I set down and scribble this Note in a hurry to you even as I prepare, dear Miriam, as I ready myself to head out this sunny autumn morning of Sunday 20 September 2020 for a much-needed lunch at the Connaught Inn on Spencer Street at the Castle of the barber in the County Mayo in dear Old Ireland. My dearest Lady of the Daffodils, I trust that all is well with you and all my other friends at RTE. I trust that you received my Matins, or Morning Prayers, which I wrote very early this Sunday 30 August 2020, and asked that they be copied to you as always. I then turned back to RTE in the fullest expectation that I would get to listen to Sunday Mass, as it is normally broadcast every Sunday morning at or about 10 am, surprisingly, and very reluctantly, having taken Pat Kenny’s advice “to try switching the dial” the best that I could manage was to get the George Hamilton scores on RTE Lyric, so therefore devoid as I am of the spiritual guidance which I can usually avail of on a Sunday morning or lunch-time that I write to you this 30 August 2020, officially the last Day of Summer, tomorrow 1 September 2020, Autumn officially begins. It was therefore that a little at loss for something to do this Sunday 30 August 2020, that I played around on the RTE Website, something which my own beautiful darling wife Georgina, and my two darling children Sophia and Jason will confirm, I am absolutely useless at, in fact to quote Jason “Daddy, you are not cool at all!”. An opinion, which coming from the mouths of my children, I am compelled for strictly Scriptural reasons about the Truth flowing out of the mouths of innocent children, I cannot disagree with at all, but anyway to get back to this morning, Sunday 30 August 2020, I sat down to watch your wonderful collection of videos and podcasts (I shall leave it to you to sort out the precise technical language) and I came upon a classic piece of “investigative” journalism, by our British colleagues from the BBC, not my darling friends at RTE, which I wish to comment upon, both from a lawyerly and a theological point of view.

First, the lawyer’s perspective, it was difficult to form a precise or definitive opinion on this, because the evidence in Chief was offered by a chap called Wilson, who claimed to be a Royal biographer, but wore a very doubtful tie shade of pink, which is a colour which you as an exceedingly beautiful and very tasteful authority on all things pertaining to fashion is NOT I hope you will agree with me an appropriate, colour to be worn by a “gentleman” of the Press purporting to comment on the state or happiness, past present or future, or indeed otherwise of the marriage of the Heir to the Throne, His Royal Highness, Prince Charles, the Prince of wales, and on his union with his late, much beloved wife, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales. I suppose as we lawyerly types, learned solicitors, barristers and counsels say, I should declare an interest before I begin or even ever start. This interest is I believe fully shared by my own beautiful wife and Princess Georgina, although I have no doubt, dearest Miriam, that you will agree with me, that Georgina is perfectly well able and capable of agreeing or disagreeing with me on this point, if she so wishes! In saying that my own Georgina thinks that the Late Princess Diana was “absolutely stunning and absolutely beautiful”, I am saying this purely to avoid you and all my dear friends at RTE from wasting any of their valuable and precious time in seeking to confirm this, because George has told me so herself on many occasions, in fact a very great number of occasions, that the late Princess Diana was, and remains her our own personal favourite and most beautiful Princess. That is also the case with me, although Princess Diana died very tragically before I ever met Georgina. I was in Brussels at the time, as Deputy Head of Mission at the Irish Embassy, when returning from a function late at night, I routinely turned on the radio to listen to the news. I simply could NOT believe it when I heard that Princess Diana had been very severely injured in a car crash in Paris and was Not expected to live. I am not in the least bit ashamed to say that tears began to pour out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks immediately, she was my favourite Princess too, and I would hazard a guess that if you asked almost any Irish person living either then or now, they would all reply that Princess Diana was their favourite Princess, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was not speaking just for the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when he said that she was that Princess Diana, was “the Princess who had stolen all our hearts!”. Watching your video this morning brought back some very emotional and emotive memories, even though the tragic accident and the death of the beautiful late Princess happened, I believe, more than a quarter of a century ago. I was greatly distressed to have to see and witness once more the terrible grief, especially that of the two children of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, it is never enjoyable to watch two young children of such a tender age have to cope so stoically with the death of their truly beautiful and beloved mother. At a distance, I would say that perhaps it was not the best idea to have the still very young Prince William and Prince Harry walk behind their mothers’ coffin, but who am I to say, I am not their father, nor am I their grandmother or their grandfather, and I am sure that as always in my experience Her Majesty the Queen, Prince Phillip and Prince Charles acted and did as they thought best; and I would add only in passing that I also thought that the two young Princes rose to the occasion in the most stoical, bravest and most courageous fashion, Britain had every reason to be proud of Prince William and Prince Harry then, and again, in my opinion, Britain still has every reason to be very proud of both the two Princes now! It is my opinion and point of view that if a great country is to be headed and led by a Sovereign Queen and a Royal family that is admired and respected with great affection throughout pretty well the whole world, then in my opinion, it ill becomes their own newspapers and tabloid Press to try to do them down in any way. On one fairly similar occasion within my own family, when my ever courteous Uncle Moss, Monsignor Maurice Browne the late curate of bray and the parish Priest of Ballymore was contacted by the British tabloid press and asked to comment on the marriage of my own Uncle Conor and my aunt Maura, Father Maurice said as politely and courteously as he could MYOB (which stands for Mind Your Own Business!). I could Not agree with him more fully. A couple’s marriage, any couple’s marriage, whether they be Royalty or commoners is their own business and strictly their own business! The quality of the investigative journalism was matchless, not to say unparalleled. At one stage, one of the royal experts and inquisitors remarked “Princess Diana was very attractive and this opinion was shared by many men!” Fancy that, you don’t mean to say, I would never have guessed! But the issue seems to have been did Prince Charles love his then wife, the Late princess Diana, the mother of his two children. Well, I have no real way of knowing, I am not a member of the family, but seeing as you will undoubtedly wink at me and ask me in your own inimitable fashion, dear Miriam, “Well now, dear Maurice, what did you “Genuinely think”, I would reply that it seemed to me from all of the televised footage that both Prince William and Prince Harry very and truly love their father and, if they thought that their Daddy had been absolutely horrible to their Mammy, I thought if they would ever have thought or would ever think that. And what about the Divorce then? Well it’s a sad fact of recorded History that people do and have divorced for a number of reasons, best known only to God and to them. Does it follow from that the couple in question never ever loved each other! Absolutely not, there is plenty of very compelling and sound historical, and romantic social History, which supports the proposition that husbands and wives who have divorced, still very often love each other very much, and care very deeply about the well-being and the welfare of their own children. I would cite in support of that particular proposition only just one case, the case of the dissolution of the marriage of His Royal Highness, the Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, and Her Royal Highness, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and the mother of the princely marriage’s two children, Their Royal Highnesses the Princess Eugenie and the Princess Beatrice. The British (and indeed, the American tabloid, or perhaps, that should read “gutter press”, have already tried to besmirch the honour and impugn the integrity of the Prince Andrew, who is a hero of the Falklands War and a serving Vice-Admiral in her Majesty’s Royal navy! I don’t feel any need to defend that particular proposition in public right now, because I already did so many weeks ago in an opinion published on LinkedIn which I copied to British Attorney-general Geoffrey Cox, out of politeness and as a mere courtesy. My concluding evidence on that occasion, was to quote the words so sweetly kindly and romantically expressed by Her Royal Highness, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who tweeted briefly and quite delightfully “I have always found Prince Andrew to be a perfect gentleman and a great father to our children!” and that my friends, in my opinion should have been that! But what of the very “damaging, but not very legally damning or compelling evidence”, that Prince Charles actually likes women! Well, in that case, the Prince finds himself in the same boat as myself, “we both like the beautiful ladies” and I hope dear Miriam that, as you personally very definitely and for a great many years now, have been one of the truest stars, my dear Lady of the Daffodils, I very much hope that you will be willing and not blush too much were I to ask you publicly to confirm that”. However, that remains, as yet, a matter for another day. Right now we are considering the proposition “Was it a mortal sin or a crime for Prince Charles to have more than just one girlfriend throughout his entire life? And, if so was it the right thing to do for him to stay in touch or remain in contact with his former girlfriend?” Well, you would have to put the question to the Prince himself, because after all, it concerns his private life, which I have already stated above is “absolutely none of my business”; but then was he entitled to marry the former Mrs Camilla Parker-Bowles, now Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, well that is a much easier question to answer because the Law in both Ireland and England is absolutely identical, not a whit or iota of difference on this point, a widower, that is to say a husband whose first wife has predeceased him is absolutely entitled to remarry whom he wishes, and I would merely add that in Ireland at least he would not be subjected to a string, nay a torrent, of very meretricious, cheap, crude and vulgar comments for doing so. It is the custom here for a fiancé to buy a beautiful engagement ring for his dearly beloved betrothed future spouse, without his gift being priced by the press as if they were cattle-merchants getting ready to bid for a “Heifer” at a cattle-mart. Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, and again, I have never met her personally, but judging from all I have seen on television, especially the function which she attended to launch “her osteoporosis foundation”, osteoporosis being a very painful medical condition which greatly affected Her Royal Highness’ late mother, this seemed to me in any case to be absolutely the right and the most gracious thing that Her royal highness could possibly do! Well, that should be the end of that because if Christian charity begins at home, then Christian charity dies not vary from country to neighbouring country! Everything that Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, has ever done seems to me to be in absolute accordance with historical precedents and accepted moral standards. But, I am not the best judge of that, if you will excuse me a little familiarity at this stage, if Charles deems that Camilla is good enough for him, and Camilla agrees to that, then that should be good enough for all the rest of us!

But, dear Miriam, before I head out the door for lunch, I wish to ask you just two more things, firstly if you could through your many contacts at the BBC, wish Her Majesty and the entire Royal Family all of God’s blessings in the many years to come!

Secondly, dear Miriam, on a more personal note, you will be aware that tomorrow the first of September marks the beginning of autumn here in Ireland, the traditional month where the Festival of the Roses is celebrated at Tralee here at home. I do not need to remind any of the beautiful O’Callaghan Princesses of the words of the song.

“Though lovely and fair as the Rose of the Summer,

It was not her beauty alone that won me!

It was the truth in her eyes ever dawning,

That made us all love Mary the Rose of Tralee!”

And dearest Miriam, my loveliest Lady of the Daffodils, you must surely know that in Israel, in God’s Holy Land of Israel, in God’s Promised Land of the Israel, in the Land of the First Patriarchs, in the Ancient Land of Abraham, the Land of Isaac, the Land of Jacob, the Land of Joseph, the Land of Moses, the Land of the Priests, the Land of the Prophets, the Land of Samuel, the Land of the Judges, in the Kingdom of David of God’s the names Miriam and Mary are one and the same! So take care my very best and dearest friend, be sure to keep up the good work, I have no doubt whatever but that you will! God bless you, for now, I’ll talk to you again soon, but I really must run now, because my lunch will be getting cold!

As ever, with all my love,

Your old friend, Maurice

Maurice James, Barrister at Law, United Nations (1373) Counsel