Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales

(1961—1997)

Diana Frances Spencer was born on Ju­ly 1, 1961, in Norfolk, England, the third of the Lord and Lady Althorp's four child­ren. She grew up at Park House, a man­sion in Norfolk located next door to the royal family's Sandringham estate. One of Diana's playmates was Prince Andrew, Charles's brother. Diana's mother, the Honorable Frances Shand-Kydd, is the daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Irish baron. Lady Fermoy, Diana's grandmother, was for years chief lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother. Diana's father, the Viscount Alt-horp who became an earl in 1975, was a remote descendant of the Stuart kings and a direct descendant of King Charles II (1630—1685). The Spencers have served the Crown as courtiers for generations and are related to the Sir Winston Chur-chills and at least eight U.S. presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, and Franklin D. Roosevelt

Diana, a quiet and reserved child, had a relatively happy home life until she was eight, when her parents divor­ced, and her mother ran off with the heir to a wallpaper fortune. Her father even­tually won the custody battle over their son and three daughters. Diana, who re­mained close to her mother, became de­pressed. In 1976 the Earl Spencer married Raine Legge, the daughter of British ro­mance novelist Barbara Cartland. Appa­rently, the Spencer children and their stepmother had a stormy relationship.
Diana's academic career was unremar­kable. She was tutored at home until the age of nine, when she was sent to Ridd-lesworth Hall in Norfolk. At the age of 12, Diana began attending the exclusive West Heath School in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she enjoyed ballet. Later she fell in love with Prince Charles. She hung his picture above her cot at the boarding school and told a classmate, «I would love to be a dancer — or Princess of Wales.» After school Diana worked in a kinder­garten.
Charles met Diana and liked her very much but he thought Diana was too young to consider as a marriage prospect.
Charles proposed to Diana at dinner in his Buckingham Palace apartment on February 3, 1981. Diana was the first Bri­tish citizen to marry the heir to the thro­ne since 1659, when Prince James — later James II — married Lady Anne Hyde.
Lady Diana Spencer began enchanting the public and international press shortly

before her July 29,1981, wedding to Prin­ce Charles of Wales, heir to the British throne, in a ceremony that was broadcast worldwide

The wedding took place on July 29, 1981. A congregation of 2,500 and a world­wide TV audience of about 750 million watched the ceremony under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

On November 5, 1981, the palace anno­unced that the Princess of Wales was expec­ting a child. Charles was present when his wife gave birth at London's St. Mary's Hospital, 11 months after the royal wed­ding. Prince William, nicknamed Wills, was born in June of 1982. A second son, Harry, was born two years later in Sep­tember of 1984. Diana tried to raise the children as normally as possible, away from the glare of publicity.

Soon afterward, Diana's professional life became an endless round of ceremo­nial tree plantings, introductions, and public appearances. In their first seven years of marriage, the Prince and Prin­cess of Wales made official visits to 19

countries and held hundreds of handsha­king sessions.

Over the years, Diana immersed herself in numerous charitable activities. Shе became involved in such social issues such as homelessness and drug abuse, visited leprosariums in Nigeria and Indonesia, shook hands with patients at an AIDS ward in a Middlesex Hospital, and once visited victims of an IRA (Irish Republican Ar­my) bombing in Northern Ireland. In 1990, People noted, Diana was the patron of 44 charities, making more than 180 visits on their behalf the previous year.

Diana's marriage apparently had been ailing for years. Over the next few years Charles and Diana's widely varying intel­lectual and social interests became appa­rent: he was an intellectual who preferred to read philosophical literature, while Diana liked romance novels. Charles enjoy­ed polo and horseback riding; Diana once fell off a horse and had lost any passion she had for riding. He enjoyed opera; she preferred ballet and rock music.
The media's obsessive fascination with the Princess of Wales hardly waned over
the years and at times became frenetic, particularly in the mid-1990s as her mar­riage to Prince Charles became increa­singly unstable.
Rumors about the stability of Charles and Diana's marriage surfaced repeatedly over the years. Many royal watchers say the union was destined for trouble beca­use the fairy tale wedding raised expec­tations that most couples would find im­possible to meet. Others cited the difference in the couple's ages and interests, and Charles's long-time friendship with Ca­milla Parker Bowles, a woman he had once asked to marry him.
On February 29, 1996, the Princess an­nounced that she had agreed to a divorce. In March of 1996 Diana suggested to Charles that they announce their divorce on television. Diana lost her title of Her Royal Highness and right to the throne, but kept the moniker Princess of Wales and continued to live in Kensington Pala­ce. Just over

a year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris.

Diana continued her diplomatic role as Princess of Wales after the divorce. She visited terminally ill people in hos­pitals, traveled to Bosnia to meet the vic­tims of land mines, and met Mother Te­resa in New York City's South Bronx in June 1997. Romantically, the press linked her with Hasnat Khan, a Pakistani-born heart surgeon, and Dodi al Fayed, whose father owns Harrods Department Store in London. However, her number-one pri­ority remained her two sons.


As Diana spent more time with Fayed, the paparazzi hounded the couple, who could not go anywhere without cameras following close behind. On August 31, 1997, the paparazzi followed the couple after they dined at the Ritz Hotel in Paris (owned by Fayed's father). The combina­tion of the pursuing paparazzi, driving at a high rate of speed, and having a drunk driver behind the wheel, all played into the automobile accident which claimed Princess Diana's life. Some witnesses sta­ted that photographers frantically snap­ped pictures and obstructed police officers and .rescue workers from aiding the vic­tims. The driver and Fayed died at the scene; Princess Diana died from her inju­ries a few hours later.


Diana's funeral was held in Westmin­ster Abbey on September 6th. Her sons, Princes William and Harry, her brother, Earl Spencer, her ex-husband, Prince Charles and her ex-father-in-law, Prince Philip, as well as five representatives from each of the 110 charities she represented, followed the coffin during part of the funeral procession. Elton John re-wrote the song «Candle in the Wind» and sang «Goodbye, England's Rose» for his close friend. It was estimated that 2.5 billion people watched Princess Diana's funeral on tele­vision, nearly half the population of the world. One royal watcher stated, «Diana made the monarchy more in touch with people.»
The world mourned for «the people's princess» with an outpouring of emotion and flowers. People waited up to eight hours to sign condolence books at St. James Palace, and 100,000 people per day passed through Kensington Palace, where Diana lived. Her mother, Francis Shand Kydd, stated, «I thank God for the gift of Diana and for all her loving and giving. I give her back to Him, with my love, pride and admiration to rest in pe­ace. »