Friday 12 July 1996, when the formal announcement of the Prince of Wales's divorce was made, will rank as a day of ill omen when the history of the House of Windsor comes to be written. By an odd coincidence, I spent the day at Fort Belvedere, the castellated folly which was Edward VIII's favourite retreat and where, on 10 December 1936, another day of ill omen for the Windsors, he signed the Instrument of Abdication.
