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See also part 2 of The
Spencers – Diana's Dynasty which focuses on the head of the clan
Charles, Earl Spencer.
When Princess Diana's marriage was unravelling and she was being attacked from all sides, she would try to fortify herself with the mantra: 'Remember you're a Spencer.' Diana may have been abandoned by the Royal Family, but no one could deny her own deeply aristocratic lineage. The Spencers are one of Britain's oldest dynasties, and Diana's union with Prince Charles had represented the summit of several centuries of social mountaineering. Though the heir to the throne has taken most of the blame for the failure of his marriage, the first part of Channel 4's The Spencers – Diana's Dynasty shows that the seeds of the princess's emotional turmoil were sewn long before the break-up, in her own troubled upbringing. Royal connections On the surface, Diana's childhood was one of privilege and material comfort. Her family can trace their line back to William the Conqueror. For more than 400 years, the magnificent 13,000-acre Althorp estate in Northamptonshire has been the family seat. They built their huge fortune on wool-spinning in Tudor times, but by the middle of the last century there was little money left other than in property. Diana's father Johnnie, who would become the eighth Earl Spencer, managed to keep a toehold in high society as a royal equerry. He was effectively an elevated servant, but at least this allowed him to hobnob with the Windsors – very important for a man to whom status mattered enormously. So it was a surprise to some that his chosen bride was Frances, daughter of Lord and Lady Fermoy, who was considered a little beneath him on the society ladder. Frances's socially-ambitious mother, though, was very well connected: she was a lady-in-waiting and very close personal friend to the Queen Mother. Frances and Johnnie's wedding was billed as one of the social events of 1954, with the Queen and Princess Margaret among the guests. Lady Fermoy gave the newlyweds Park House, her home on the Sandringham estate, and the Spencers became close neighbours of the Royal Family. Unhappy families After Frances gave birth to two daughters, Sarah and Jane, Johnnie was desperate for a male heir. In 1960, they had a son, John, who died after just 11 hours, and Diana arrived on 1 July 1961. It was another three years before Charles, the future ninth Earl, was born and Johnnie finally got the son he craved. Frances soon became unhappy and when Diana was six, she left the family home for London and the arms of her lover, wallpaper magnate Peter Shand Kydd. There ensued a battled for custody of the children. When it came to court, Johnnie had an extraordinary ally – Frances's mother, Lady Fermoy. Determined to drive the Spencer dynasty on, she sided with her son-in-law, testifying against her daughter. Johnnie Spencer won the day. Close in age, Diana and Charles were deeply affected by their parent's bitter divorce. School holidays were spent being shuttled between their father and mother. There was no doubt, in his father's eyes at least, that Charles was the chosen one. He received much more attention than his three older sisters. None of the Spencer siblings took to their father's second wife Raine, daughter of the romantic novelist Barbara Cartland. Behind her back the children called their bouffant-haired stepmother 'Acid Raine'. She alienated them even more when she fired staff, sold off art treasures to prop up the cash-strapped estate, and redecorated Althorp to her own flamboyant taste. The children suffered a further blow when Johnnie had a stroke. They had to accept that Raine was now firmly in charge. Chosen to be queen The elder sisters Sarah and Jane left the family home to live in London. It was Sarah who first caught the eye of Prince Charles and she was tipped as a royal bride. However, in 1980 it emerged that it was the youngest and most naïve Spencer girl who was actually in his sights. The formidable combination of the Queen Mother and Lady Fermoy worked behind the scenes to help engineer the union and Diana and Charles became engaged in February 1981. For Johnnie, it was a dream come true: one of his daughters was a future Queen. According to friends, though, Diana felt like a sacrificial lamb; just a few days before she married, she had deep misgivings. The royal wedding of 29 July 1981 was dressed up as a fairytale. Diana soon produced two sons, William and Harry – the required 'heir and a spare'. But the marriage was rapidly heading for an unhappy ending. Within six years, Diana and Charles were leading separate lives and she had begun an affair with James Hewitt. An extraordinarily tough, volatile, sexy woman began to emerge. To many, it seemed her Spencer traits were breaking through as she stepped out of the shadows of her husband's oppressive family. The ruthless Earl Johnnie died in March 1992, and Charles Spencer, at 27, became the ninth Earl. His stepmother's days within the dynasty were numbered; her belongings were removed from Althorp in black bin liners. Raine's swift departure showed that Charles could call upon the ruthless Spencer streak when he felt the need – just as he would some years later when he reminded the world that his sister had belonged to the House of Spencer, not the House of Windsor. |
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