ONE<br > TilE CRISIS THAT TttREATENED THE BACKBONE OF THE MONAI;<br > chy itself had begun shortly before 6:15 a.m. on Wedne~<br > day， January 13， "black Wednesday，" as the Royal Famil<br > came to call it. A junior currency dealer in the City of Loc<br > don， the UK s financial hub， paid twenty-five pounds to<br > man on the Australian desk for the first unexpurgated trac<br > script of the private bedtime conversation between th<br > Prince of Wales and the forty-five-year-old wife of hi<br > friend Andrew Parker Bowles. By 6:45， people were linin<br > up to fax the transcripts to friends and colleagues aroun<br > the world.<br > "I knew that whether the British press had the will t<br > publish them or not， the transcripts had become the bi~<br > gest samizdat operation outside of Russia，" the junic<br > trader would say later. "I thought， This is the conversatic，<br > that wilt stop Prince Charles becoming King. I knew that a<br > hell was going to break loose."<br > Fellowes heard the news. Fellowes is the Queen s private<br > secretary， her closest adviser， and， as the husband of the<br > former Lady Jane Spencer， also the Princess of Wales s<br >