Diana, 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 15 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 throughout the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent, worldwide. 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.
[edit] Early life
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).
During her parents 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 Lord Althorp's rank, aided by 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 being named as the "other party" in the Earl and Viscountess Althorp's 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 of royal Stuart descent.[1] On her mother's side, Diana had Irish, Scottish, English, and American ancestry. Her great-grandmother was the New York heiress Frances Work. On her father's side, she was a descendant of King Charles II of England through four 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
Charles Beauclerk, son by Nell Gwyn
James Crofts- Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, leader of a famous rebellion, son by Lucy Walter
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 favourite actresses, Audrey Hepburn. Her other notable cousins include Humphrey Bogart and Rainier III.
In August 2007, the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, Massachusetts,[2] published Richard K. Evans's The Ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales, for Twelve Generations, a comprehensive account of the Princess's forebears in all lines, including:
James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn, an ancestor of Sarah, Duchess of York and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who secured the passage of the Reform Act of 1832
Maria Walpole, wife of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh
Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, an ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill
William Anne Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, an ancestor of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, an ancestor of Charles, Prince of Wales
Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth, an ancestor of Sophie, Countess of Wessex
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, the first British prime minister
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, the Restoration poet
and
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth I
A notable American kinsman was Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale, a first cousin six times removed.
[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 but did not study ballet seriously and at 5'10" was too tall for such a career.
Once it was clear that she would not earn any formal educational qualifications, Diana begged her parents to allow her to move to London, a request granted before she was seventeen. An apartment was purchased for her at Coleherne Court in the Earls Court area, and she lived there until 1981 with three flatmates.