Lady Diana Spencer, former Princess of Wales, (Diana Frances;[2] née Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Their sons, Princes William and Henry (Harry), are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonwealth Realms.
A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana remained the focus of near-constant media scrutiny in the United Kingdom and around the world up to and during her marriage, and after her subsequent divorce. Her sudden death in a car accident was followed by a spontaneous and prolonged show of public mourning. Contemporary responses to Diana's life and legacy have been mixed but a popular fascination with the Princess endures, and conspiracy theories about her death are currently the subject of an inquest.
Diana Frances Spencer was the youngest daughter of Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, later John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, and his first wife, Frances Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (formerly the Honourable Frances Burke Roche). She was born at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England and baptised there at St. Mary Magdalene Church by the Rt. Rev. Percy Herbert (rector of the church and former Bishop of Norwich and Blackburn); her godparents included John Floyd (the chairman of Christie's). She was the third child to the couple, her four siblings being The Lady Sarah Spencer (born 19 March 1955), The Lady Jane Spencer (born 11 February 1957), The Honourable John Spencer (born and died 12 January 1960), and Charles Spencer (born 20 May 1964). Her parents' reasonably acrimonious divorce in 1969 (over Lady Althorp's affair with wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd), Diana's mother took her and her younger brother to live in an apartment in London's Knightsbridge, where Diana attended a local day school. That Christmas the Spencer children went to celebrate with their father and he subsequently refused to allow them to return to London and their mother. Lady Althorp sued for custody of her children, but Lady Althorp's mother's testimony against her daughter during the trial contributed to the court's decision to award custody of Diana and her brother to their father. On the death of her paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer in 1975, Diana's father became the 8th Earl Spencer, at which time she became Lady Diana Spencer and moved from her childhood home at Park House to her family's sixteenth-century ancestral home of Althorp.
In 1976 Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, after he was named as the "other party" in the Dartmouths' divorce. During this time Diana travelled up and down the country, living between her parents' homes—with her father at the Spencer seat in Northamptonshire, and with her mother, who had moved to the Island of Seil off the west coast of Scotland. Diana, like her siblings, did not get along with her new stepmother.
[edit] Royal descent
Diana was born into an aristocratic family.[1] On her mother's side, Diana had Irish, Scottish, English, and American ancestry. One of her great-grandmothers was the New York heiress Frances Work. On her father's side, she was a descendant of King Charles II of England through two illegitimate sons:
Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton, son by Barbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland
Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond and Lennox, son by Louise de Kérouaille, 1st Duchess of Portsmouth
She was also a descendant of King James II of England through an illegitimate daughter, Henrietta FitzJames. Henrietta's mother was Arabella Churchill, the sister of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Her other notable ancestors included Robert I (the Bruce) and Mary, Queen of Scots (an aspect of family history in which Diana expressed great interest); Mary Boleyn; Lady Catherine Grey; Maria de Salinas; John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater; and James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby.
The Spencers had been close to the British Royal Family for centuries, rising in royal favour during the 1600s. Diana's maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a long-time friend and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
Actor Oliver Platt is a second cousin, as he is also a great-grandchild of Frances Work. Diana was also a cousin of one of her favorite actresses, Audrey Hepburn. Her other notable cousins include Humphrey Bogart and Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.
In August 2007, the New England Historic Genealogical Society published Richard K. Evans's The Ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales, for Twelve Generations.[2]
[edit] Education
Diana was first educated at Silfield School in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, then at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls' School (later reorganised as the New School at West Heath, a special school for boys and girls) in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as a poor student, having attempted and failed all of her O-levels twice.[3] In 1977, at the age of 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. At about that time, she first met her future husband, who was dating her sister, Lady Sarah. Diana reportedly excelled in swimming and diving and is said to have longed to be a ballerina. She studied ballet for a time, but at 5'10" was too tall.
Diana moved to London before she became seventeen. An apartment was purchased for her at Coleherne Court in the Earls Court area, and she lived there until 1981 with three flatmates.
[edit] Marriage
Prince Charles' love life had always been the subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous glamorous and aristocratic women. In his early thirties, he was under increasing pressure to marry. Legally, the only requirement was that he could not marry a Roman Catholic; a member of the Church of England was preferred. In order to gain the approval of his family and their advisers, any potential bride was expected to have a royal or aristocratic background, be a virgin, as well as be Protestant. Diana met these qualifications.
[edit] Engagement and wedding
Their engagement became official February 24, 1981[4] with the heir to the throne presenting the princess with a walnut-sized £30,000 ring consisting of 14 diamonds and a sapphire. [5]
The 20-year-old princess married at St Paul's Cathedral, which offered more seating than Westminster Abbey which was previously used for royal nuptials, on 29 July 1981 in what was widely billed as a "fairytale wedding" watched by a global television audience of 750 million.[6] [7] Bride and groom both scrambled their vows a bit, [8], the 11:20 A.M. BST wedding was flawless and as opulent as one would expect for a royal couple. The princess wore a gown valued at £9000 with 25 foot train and the finest lace.[9]
[edit] Problems and separation
In the late 1980s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first suppressed, then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise. Charles resumed his old, pre-marital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. Asked what part Camilla Parker-Bowles had played in the break-up of her marriage, Diana commented during the BBC programme Panorama, "Well there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." [10] Diana had an affair with her riding instructor, James Hewitt. She confirmed this during the Panorama television interview. [11] Charles had confirmed his own affair over a year earlier in a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.[12] The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated on 9 December 1992. [13] While she blamed Camilla Parker-Bowles for her marital troubles, as early as October 1993, Diana was writing to a friend that she believed her husband was now in love with Tiggy Legge-Bourke and wanted to marry her.[14] On 3 December 1993, Diana announced her withdrawal from public life.[15]
[edit] Divorce
In December 1995, the Queen asked Charles and Diana for "an early divorce".[16] This followed shortly after Diana's accusation that Tiggy Legge-Bourke had aborted Charles's child, causing Tiggy to instruct Peter Carter-Ruck to demand an apology.[16] Two days before this story broke, Diana's secretary Patrick Jephson resigned, later claiming that Diana had "exulted in accusing Legge-Bourke of having had an abortion".[17]
The divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.[15]
Diana received a lump sum settlement of around £17,000,000 along with a legal order preventing her from discussing the details.[18]
Days before the decree absolute of divorce, Letters Patent were issued by Queen Elizabeth II containing general rules to regulate the titles of people who married into the Royal Family after divorce. In accordance with those rules, as she was no longer married to the Prince of Wales, and so had ceased to be a Royal by-marriage, Diana lost the style, Her Royal Highness and instead was styled, Diana, Princess of Wales. Prince William has stated that, when he becomes king, he will issue a royal warrant bestowing the style of Her Royal Highness on his deceased mother.
Buckingham Palace stated that Diana was still officially a member of the Royal Family, since she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne. This was confirmed by the Deputy Coroner of the Queen’s Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, who after a pre-hearing on 8 January 2007 ruled that: "I am satisfied that at her death, Diana, Princess of Wales continued to be considered as a member of the Royal Household."[19] This appears to have been confirmed in the