The BBC has issued an apology for the dishonest tactics used by prominent British journalist Martin Bashir to secure an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, as her marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales, crumbled, CNN reports.

The British population, in fawning loyalty to the family that essentially owns the nation, have their chins wagging that Bashir appears to have had a set of financial documents forged to show Buckingham Palace staff being bribed to spy on the Princess, who allegedly was not a favorite of the titular ruler of Britain, Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II.  The Queen’s issue, Charles, married then-The Honorable Diana Spencer in 1981, making her Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales.

The couple divorced in 1996 as His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales was shagging Camilla Parker Bowles, a woman who strangely was not related to Charles in a direct lineage, an oddity for many in Britain’s titled class.  (Diana and Charles were seventh cousins, likely making the relationship at least palatable to the Queen, who married the recently dead-as-a-parrot Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, her second cousin.)

“While the BBC cannot turn back the clock after a quarter of a century, we can make a full and unconditional apology. The BBC offers that today,” BBC Director-General Tim Davie said, in deference to the bejeweled royalty.

Ever anxious for gossip on the lives of a family who has no official political power but who commoners must show deference to, the British plebeians salivated at the airing of The Palace’s dirty laundry, with more than 39% of the country–about 23 million people–watching the interview when it aired on the BBC in 1995.