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Diana Frances Spencer was born into the British aristocracy, as the youngest
daughter of Earl John Spencer and his first wife, Frances Ruth Burke-Roche.
Diana was born at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England and
baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham. Her four older
siblings were Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia, Cynthia Jane, John and Charles
Edward Maurice Spencer.
The Spencers were an established landed family who descended from John Churchill, Duke of
Marlborough and from King Charles II. A previous Lady Diana Spencer was close to becoming
Princess of Wales, when her grandmother, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough had
planned to marry her favourite grand daughter to Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of King
George II. The extremely wealthy Sarah had offered a large dowry to whet the Prince's appetite
and he declared himself amenable to the match. However Sarah's plans were against the
Prince's parents, who disapproved and Lady Diana was instead married off to the Duke of
Bedford.
During her parents' acrimonious divorce over her mother's adultery with Peter Shand Kydd, the
mother took her two youngest children 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. Her mother sued for custody of her children, but the father's rank, aided by the
grandmother, Ruth Burke-Roche's testimony against her own daughter during the trial, contri-
buted to the court's decision to award custody of Diana and her brother to their father. Frances
was never to forgive this betrayal by her mother. Diana, deeply affected by her parents split, was
to carry it's emotional scars into adulthood. She was never to forget the scrunching sound of the
gravel and the slam of a car door as her mother left the family home for good.
On the death of her paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer, 7th Earl
Spencer in 1975, Diana's father inherited the family title and
estates and became the 8th Earl Spencer. The family left Park
House and moved into Althrop, the Spencer family seat in
Northamptonshire. The rambling 450 year old stately home, with
it's collection of old masters, was a vast and creepy place to the
Spencer children, but the family eventually settled into their new
home.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.
A year later, Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of novelist
Barbara Cartland, after being named as the "other party" in the Earl and Countess of
Dartmouth'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 northwest of Glasgow in Scotland. The Spencer children continued to
see their mother regularly and often spent school holidays at Frances' new home.
Diana was firstly educated at Silfield School in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, then
at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls' School in
Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as a poor student, having
attempted and failed all of her O-levels twice. In 1977, at the age of 16,
she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a
finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. Diana was then a chubby
teenager who seems to have acquired the reputation of something of a
glutton. 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 was too tall for such a career at 5'10".
Diana, like her siblings, did not get along with her new stepmother. When Earl Spencer suffered
a near fatal brain haemorrhage in 1978, Raine refused to let the children have access to his
bedside. A situation which did little to heal the breach between the two opposing sides of Earl
Spencer's family. The Earl recovered largely due to the tireless efforts of his wife, but the bitter
rift between her and his children had widened.
She was unhappy there and terribly homesick, bombarding her parents with a constant stream
of letters pleading to be allowed 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. During that period, she studied for a Cordon
Bleu cooking diploma, although she apparently hated cooking. Diana had long cherished
childhood dreams of being a ballet dancer, but had to relinquish them when she grew too tall, so
she worked at Madame Vacani's Dance Academy in Kensington, but resigned because she didn't
like the pushy stage school parents. Lady Diana filled time as a cleaner and a cocktail waitress,
before finding a job as at the Young England Kindergarten nursery school in Pimlico, London.
The Marriage
The young Diana Spencer had first met her future husband, Prince Charles, in a ploughed field
at Althrop. He was present at a house party as the guest of her older sister, Sarah, with whom he
was conducting a romance at the time. 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. After the murder of his great uncle,
Lord Mountbatten by the IRA in 1980, which deeply affected him, the young Diana's offers of
comfort touched a chord. Diana herself was very much in awe of her future spouse and
throughout their courtship had to address him as 'Sir'.
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, as well as be
Protestant. Diana seemed to fit all the specifications for a royal bride
and future Queen, aristocratic, Protestant, young and without a 'past'
and Charles, under pressure from his father, the Duke of Edinburgh
and the mounting media speculation about a possible engagement,
duly proposed and was accepted in early 1981. Diana moved into
Clarence House, the London home of the Queen Mother. She was to be
perturbed and distressed when during their engagement, her fiancee
sent a present of a bracelet to his old flame, Camilla Parker-Bowles.
There were plentiful tears and scenes when she overheard him telling
Camilla on the telephone, "Whatever happens, I will always love you."
They married at St Paul's Cathedral, London on 29 July 1981. It was performed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury who described it as "the stuff of fairy tales". The ceremony was
watched by a worldwide television audience of an estimated one billion people.
The early part of their honeymoon was spent at Broadlands,
the stately home of Lord Mountbatten, following in the
footsteps of Charles parents, who had also honeymooned
there. The couple then embarked on an extended cruise of the
Mediterranean on the royal yacht, Britannia. It was during this
cruise that Diana's problems with bulimia nervosa were
reported to have first surfaced. The princess was deeply
distressed when photographs of Camilla Parker-Bowles fell
from Charles' diary.
The fairy tale marriage did not get off to a very auspicious start. The fundamental differences
manifested themselves early on. Diana desperately needed support and affection as she
struggled to cope with the onerous task of her new role in the fierce media spotlight that was
relentlessly focused on her. This, she strongly felt, her husband failed to provide. Charles,
although concerned, failed to understand his young wife's problems and, accustomed to being
the focus of attention, resented constantly being upstaged by his highly attractive wife.
The new Princess of Wales soon became pregnant with what was hoped would be a male heir to
the throne. In the early stages of her pregnancy she was extremely unhappy. During the course
of an argument with Charles, she threw herself down the stairs at Sandringham House. Diana
was found by the Queen Mother, who was greatly shocked by the experience. Fortunately,
although she had some bruising around the stomach, the foetus was unharmed. Other
distressing incidents where to follow, where, desperate for attention from her husband, she
threw herself into a glass cabinet and cut her wrists with the serrated edge of a lemon slicer.
Throughout these troubles a public show of togetherness had to be maintained. The British
public began to take 'Shy Di' to their hearts, charmed by her stunning good looks and
empathetic nature, they developed a voracious appetite for photographs and magazine articles
about their Princess, fueling a circulation war amongst the tabloid press.
Charles failed to understand his highly strung young wife's problems and increasingly resented
being upstaged at every turn by Diana, whose immense popularity overshadowed his own and
showed no signs of abating. He was irked by the fact they when he made an important speech it
would invariably be ignored and media attention would instead inevitably focus on what outfit
his wife was wearing that day or her current hairstyle. Public interest in Diana was such that her
face on the cover of a magazine or newspaper guaranteed huge sales. She was universally
admired, not only for her stunning good looks and acute sense of style, but also for her gift of
empathy with children, with the aged, the infirm and the dying and her ability to communicate
with the ordinary people.
Diana, at a low ebb and as she later said, "at the end of my
tether," secretly collaborated with the author Andrew Morton, in
a book which exposed the royal marriage as the sham it had
become and chronicled in vivid detail Diana's struggle with
bulimia and the several suicide attempts the unhappy Princess
had made. It also catalogued her grievances at her self-centred
husband's indifference to her plight and continued relationship
with his long-term mistress. The book became a best seller
overnight. As a direct result of the furore and scandal the book
caused and Charles reaction to what he saw as total betrayal, an
official separation was decided upon on 9 September, 1992.
Diana was also alleged to have had a relationship with James Gilbey, her telephone partner in
the so-called Squidgygate affair. Another supposed lover was Barry Mannakee, who was
assigned to the Princess's security detail, although the Princess adamantly denied a sexual
relationship with him. After her separation from Prince Charles, she was said to have become
involved with married art dealer Oliver Hoare, to whom she admitted making numerous
telephone calls, and with rugby player Will Carling. She also publicly dated respected heart
surgeon Hasnat Khan before her brief involvement with Dodi Al-Fayed.
The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated on 9
December 1992, by which time her relations with the Royal
Family, excepting the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, were
difficult. Their divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.
Diana received a lump sum settlement of around
£17,000,000 along with a legal order preventing her from
discussing the details. The Princess was denied the style Her
Royal Highness and instead was styled as Diana, Princess of
Wales. 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
has since been 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."
After the divorce, Diana retained her apartment in Kensington Palace, which remained her
home until her death. She also completely redecorated and gave her loyal staff members a pay
raise. She also did a great deal of useful work particularly for the Red Cross and in a campaign to
rid the world of land mines. Her work was always on a humanitarian rather than a political level.
She was extremely aware of her status as mother of a future King and was prepared to do
anything to prevent harm to her sons. She pursued her own interests in philanthropy, music,
fashion and travel - although she still required royal consent to take her children on holiday or
represent the UK abroad. Without a holiday or weekend home, Diana spent most of her time in
London, often without her sons, who were with Prince Charles or at boarding school. She
assuaged her loneliness with visits to the gym and cinema, private charity work, incognito
midnight walks through Central London and by compulsively watching her favourite soap
operas (EastEnders and Brookside) with a 'TV dinner' in the isolation of her apartment.
In April 1987, the Princess of Wales was one of the first high-profile celebrities to be
photographed touching a person infected with HIV. Her contribution to changing the public
opinion of AIDS sufferers was summarised in December 2001 by Bill
Clinton at the 'Diana, Princess of Wales Lecture on AIDS': In 1987, when
so many still believed that AIDS could be contracted through casual contact,
Princess Diana sat on the sickbed of a man with AIDS and held his hand. She
showed the world that people with AIDS deserve no isolation, but compassion
and kindness. It helped change world's opinion, and gave hope to people with
AIDS.
Diana also made clandestine visits to show kindness to the sick. According to nurses, she would
turn up unannounced (for example, at the Mildmay Hospice in London) with specific instruc-
tions that her visit was to be concealed from the media.
The United Nations has appealed to the nations which produced and
stockpiled the largest numbers of landmines (China, India, North Korea,
Pakistan, Russia, and the United States) to sign the Ottawa Treaty forbidding
their production and use, for which Diana had campaigned. Carol Bellamy,
Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said
that landmines remained "a deadly attraction for children, whose innate
curiosity and need for play often lure them directly into harm's way". Diana
should be credited with at least trying to bring to world attention the terrible
damage such mines creates in whole communities.
Fayed's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was closest to the point of impact and yet the only
survivor of the crash; he was the only one to be wearing a seatbelt. Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed
were killed instantly, and Diana - unbelted in the
back seat - slid forward during the impact and,
having been violently thrown around the interior,
"submarined" under the seat in front of her, suffe-
ring massive damage to her heart and subsequent
internal bleeding. She was eventually, after
considerable delay, transported by ambulance to
the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, but on the way to
casualty went into cardiac arrest twice. Despite
lengthy resuscitation attempts, including internal
cardiac massage, she died at 4 a.m. local time.
The death of Diana has been the subject of widespread conspiracy theories, supported by
Mohamed Al-Fayed, whose son died in the accident. Her former father in law, Prince Philip,
seems to be at the heart of most of them but her ex-husband has also been named, and was
questioned by the Metropolitan Police in 2005. Some other theories have included claims that
MI6 or the CIA were involved. Mossad involvement has also been suspected, and this theory has
been supported on US television by the intelligence specialist barrister Michael Shrimpton. One
particularly outlandish claim, appearing on the internet, has stated that the princess was
battered to death in the back of the ambulance, by assassins disguised as paramedics.
These were all rejected by French investigators and British officials, who claimed that the driver,
Henri Paul, was drunk and on drugs, although CCTV footage of Paul leaving the Ritz hotel with
the Princess and Dodi Fayed does not appear to depict a man in a drunken or incapable state.
Nonetheless, in 2004 the authorities ordered an independent inquiry by Lord Stevens, a former
chief of the Metropolitan Police, and he suggested that the case was "far more complex than any
of us thought" and reported "new forensic evidence" and witnesses.[18] The French authorities
have also decided to reopen the case. Lord Stevens' report, Operation Paget, was published on
December 14, 2006 and dismissed all allegations of conspiracy as without foundation.
The Burial of Diana
A unique state televised funeral was planned for Diana in
London, watched by an estimated two billion worldwide
audience. The original plan was for her to be buried in the
Spencer family vault at the local church in nearby Great
Brington, but Diana's brother, Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer,
said that he was concerned about public safety and security
and the onslaught of visitors that might overwhelm Great
Brington. He decided that he wanted his sister to be buried
where her grave could be easily cared for and visited in
privacy by her sons and other relations.
As tributes continued to flood in from all around the globe, the public turned up to line the route
and express their grief in their millions. As the cortege passed Buckingham Palace, the royal
family stood outside to express their respect and even the Queen herself inclined her head to the
coffin of her daughter-in-law. The royal standard above Buckingham Palace, contrary to
tradition, was lowered to half mast, following severe censure of the Queen in the newspapers.
Prince William never raised his head along the long traumatic walk and the young Harry,
though deeply affected, displayed much composure.
After the playing of a passage from Verdi's Requiem, a favourite of Diana, Elton John played his
new rendition of 'Candle in the Wind', rewritten for the Princess. Her brother, Earl Spencer read
his tribute to his sister in a voice cracked with emotion, it was greeted by rounds of applause
from the crowds gathered outside, which reverberated into the Abbey itself, an audible censure
of the Windsor's.
The coffin was then taken the eighty miles to Althrop in Northamptonshire, Diana's childhood
home, for a private family burial. Crowds lined the entire route, throwing flowers at the hearse,
even from motorway bridges. She was buried on an island, in the middle of an ornamental lake
on the estate, known as The Oval within Althorp Park's Pleasure Garden. A path with thirty-six
oak trees, marking each year of her life, leads to the Oval. Four black swans swim in the lake,
symbolising sentinels guarding the island. In the water there are several water lilies. White roses
and lilies were Diana's favourite flowers. Earl Spencer later spread the public's floral tributes to
the "Peoples Princess" on her island grave. A visitor centre
at Althrop covering the life of the Princess is now open to
the public during the summer months.
It raised money for Centrepoint, a homeless charity of which William is patron, and Sentebale,
an AIDS charity based in Lesotho, set up by Harry in memory of his mother. Prince William and
Prince Harry invited the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of
Cornwall, as well as Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes and Earl Spencer.
The princes have also arranged a memorial service on 31 August 2007 to mark the 10th
anniversary of their mother's death. Prince William said: "We both wanted to put our stamp on
it. We want it to represent exactly what our mother would have wanted; how she was and all that
sort of thing. So therefore the church service alone isn't enough."
"We wanted to have this big concert with, you know, full of energy, full of the sort of fun and
happiness which I know she would have wanted. It's got to be the best birthday present she ever
had. The main purpose is to celebrate and to have fun and to remember her in a fun way."
Prince William added: "We've decided that it's going to be called Concert for Diana, because
obviously the evening is going to be purely about her. It's to remember her and to celebrate her
life."
But over the years both princes have bonded with her and
wholeheartedly expressed their support for her marriage
to their father last year. They have also grown close over
the years to Camilla's family - especially her children, Tom
and Laura Parker Bowles - and even attended the funeral
of her father, Major Bruce Shand.
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