Diana, Princess of Wales, Diana Frances, born Spencer on July 1, 1961 in Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk, died August 31, 1997 in Paris, was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. They were married on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul's Cathedral in London (divorced on August 28, 1996). She is the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry.
Diana was a descendant of several English regents such as Charles I, Charles II and Jacob II. Her parents were Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer (1924–1992) and her mother was Frances Ruth Burke-Roche (1936–2004). She grew up on the Althorp House family estate in Northamptonshire, England. As Princess of Wales, Diana attracted a great deal of media attention and she quickly became a style icon. The dissolving divorce came to be portrayed in depth by the media, which raised ethical questions about the media coverage of public figures. Diana was the patron of several charities and has been remembered, among other things, for her commitment to AIDS sufferers and to land mines.
Diana was the youngest daughter of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer and his wife Frances, born Burke Roche. Diana was thus a descendant of several English regents such as Charles I, Charles II and Jacob II. She was born in Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk, England on July 1, 1961, and was baptized on August 30, 1961 in St. John's. Mary Magdalene of the Bishop of Norwich. She was the parents' fourth child. Her older sisters Sarah and Jane were born in 1955 and 1957, respectively, and she also had an older brother who was born and died in 1960. The current Earl Spencer, Diana's younger brother Charles, was born three years after her on May 20, 1964.
After the parents' divorce in 1969, which was a result of Lady Althorp's extramarital affair with Peter Shand Kydd, heir to a major wallpaper industry, Diana's mother took her and her younger brother Charles to London, where they settled on a floor in Knightsbridge. At Christmas the children returned to Norfolk with their mother and Lord Althorp then refused to allow them to return to London. Instead, he applied for solitary custody of the children. When Frances's own mother testified against her in the custody trial, the court decided to grant Diana's father sole custody of the children. On July 14, 1976, Lord Althorp remarried to Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, who was the only daughter of famous author Barbara Cartland. During this period, Diana lived with his father, with his mother. Her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer and the Althorp family seat on June 9, 1975, and her mother moved to Scotland. Like her other siblings, Diana did not agree with her stepmother.
Diana attended several schools during the equivalent of elementary school, including Silfield School, Kings Lynn, Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk, and West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, Kent. She was considered a weak student. She failed twice to pass her undergraduate O-levels. However, she had received a prize for her involvement in local charity. In 1977, when she was 16, Diana left West Heath and was instead a time student at Institut Alpin Videmanette, a high school-level school in Switzerland. It was at this time that she first met her future husband who had a brief relationship with Diana's older sister, Lady Sarah. Diana was a very good swimmer and dreamed of becoming a ballerina. She took ballet lessons, but then became too long with her 178 cm to become a professional dancer.
Diana moved to London just before she turned 17. She settled down in her mother's apartment, which was vacant when Frances spent most of the year in Scotland. When she turned 18, she got her own apartment in Kensington for a birthday present. Until 1981 she lived there together with three girlfriends.
In London she went for a course in gourmet cooking, but she never became a good cook. She worked as a child dance leader, but had to stop with this as a skiing accident meant she had to be away from work for three monthsder. She then got a job as an assistant at a preschool while she worked extra as a maid for her sister Sarah and some other people in the family's acquaintance circle, and in the evenings she happened to take a job as a party and conference hostess.
It had often been speculated about Prince Charles's love life in the English press. He had been associated with several famous, glamorous women, such as Diana's big sister Sarah, and the future Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla Shand. When he was in his thirties, the press was big on him to settle down and get an heir. In order for the public, Queen Elizabeth II and Parliament to approve his bride-to-be, it was important to find someone who was a member of the English Church.
Prince Charles had known Diana for many years through his family. Diana's father had previously been one of the queen's closest men and Diana's grandmother, lady Ruth Fermoy, was a very good friend to the queen mother. It wasn't until the summer of 1980 that he began to show some interest in her over a weekend when they were both guests of mutual acquaintances and Diana came later to watch as he played horse polo at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor. He invited her on a sailing trip another weekend, and the relationship developed. She was then invited to Balmoral Castle where she was introduced to his family and it was also there that celebrity photographers for the first time saw the couple together. After the couple continued to hang out in London, Charles invited Diana to Windsor Castle where he freed her on February 6, 1981, and Diana answered yes. However, the engagement was kept secret for a few more weeks, but it was published on February 24, 1981 from Buckingham Palace.
The couple's engagement was welcomed on February 24, 1981, after Diana opted for an engagement ring with 14 diamonds worth £ 30,000. The ring was very similar to her mother's engagement ring.
Just over the age of 20, Diana became Princess of Wales when she married Charles on July 29, 1981 in St. Paul's Cathedral. Westminster Abbey, which is usually used for royal weddings, had been selected as it has significantly less seating. "The Fairy Tale" had a global television audience of over 750 million viewers. When they were to make the promises, Diana accidentally flipped on Charles's name so she incorrectly said Philip Charles Arthur George, which is Charles Dad's, Prince Philip's name. She had also excluded from the promises the word obey, which caused a great deal of resurrection. The ceremony started at 11:20, and Diana wore a dress with a little over 20 feet in length, valued at £ 9,000.
On November 5, 1981, it was announced that Princess Diana was pregnant, a fact that the Princess also debated with the press in an outspoken manner. On June 21, 1982, Diana gave birth to her first child, son and heir to Prince William. When she then decided to include William on her first longer state visit to Australia and New Zealand, this sensation aroused in the press, but the general public looked positively that she did not want to be separated from her son. Diana later mentioned that she was encouraged in this decision by the Australian Prime Minister.
Just over two years later, the couple's second son, Harry, was born on September 15, 1984.
Although Diana was often criticized during her lifetime for her choice of work, her relationship with the press and her easily accessible attitude as well as how she behaved towards her husband and his family, it has always been pointed out that Diana was a devoted and good mother as always overwhelmed their children with love and care. Diana allowed very little interference from the rest of the family when it came to the boys, she chose their name, opposed the family tradition of circumcising boys, she dismissed a nanny whom the queen appointed, but whom she herself did not trust, and she also chose which schools they would walk in. Often she drove them to school in the mornings when time allowed. She also designed her own work schedule according to their needs.
During the second half of the 1980s, the Princess of Wales expanded her involvement in various charities. This was an expected part of her role as princess, for example, she had always visited hospitals and schools. However, Diana came to develop an interest in areas that were not traditionally considered suitable for royalty, such as severe illnesses such as leprosy and AIDS. In addition, she lined up for organizations that sought to improve the situation of homeless and drug addicts. From 1989 she supported the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
Most notable was Diana's involvement in the organization International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which ran a campaign against land mines that led to The organization was rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 1997. When this came soon after the princess's death, many saw the award as a posthumous tribute to her efforts.
In the early years of the 1990s, Charles and Diana's marriage began to crack. At first, this was kept secret, but the insomnia between the two soon became public. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales communicated with the media through friends, and they both blamed the failure of marriage on each other. Charles resumed his old relationship with Camilla Shand who had married and was now called Camilla Parker-Bowles. Diana claimed that Charles started a deal with Camilla as early as 1984, just three years after the wedding with Diana, while Charles later admitted that the deal began in 1986. When Diana in an interview for the Panorama program by the BBC was asked what role Camilla had played for the prince's failed marriage, Diana replied that We were three in this marriage, so it was a little cramped.
In the Panorama interview, broadcast on November 20, 1995, Diana also acknowledged that she had had a deal with her riding teacher, James Hewitt. Charles had acknowledged his affair over a year earlier in a televised interview by Jonathan Dimbleby. The Prince and Princess of Wales officially separated on December 9, 1992. Although the deal with Hewitt was that of Diana's extramarital relations that lasted the longest, Diana also had other relationships after it ended with Hewitt when he was commanded to Germany. Some sources have argued, despite Diana always asserting the opposite, that Diana also had relationships with Hewitt before the deal, including one of her bodyguards who later died in a motorcycle accident.
Although Diana blamed the big problems in her marriage mainly on Camilla, she also came to believe that Prince Charles had additional women's affairs. In October 1993, Diana wrote to a friend that she thought Charles was in love with another woman named Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and that he wanted to marry her. Legge-Bourke had been hired by Prince Charles to help with the sons when they were staying with him, and Diana was very negative about Legge-Bourke's relationship with the princes. On December 3, 1993, Diana announced that she was retiring from the public.
In December 2007, information emerged that Diana harbored suspicions that Prince Charles wanted to harm her, among other things she had written in a letter to a friend that she thought Charles wanted to get her out of the way.
In December 1995, Queen Charles and Diana briefly asked them to agree on a divorce. This was a direct result of the interview Diana gave in the Panorama program. Just before, Diana had openly claimed that Tiggy Legge-Bourke had had children with Charles, but had undergone an abortion, to which Legge-Bourke had responded by demanding a public apology. The incident led to Diana's private secretary resigning.
On December 20, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had sent the letters regarding a divorce to Diana and Charles. The Prime Minister and the members of the Queen's Privy Council stated that they supported the measure. Prince Charles immediately declared himself positive to a divorce. In February, Diana announced that she agreed to the divorce, and she also managed to irritate the court by going out with her own press release, explaining this.
The divorce won legal force on August 28, 1996.
Diana received a sum of £ 17 million against her pledge to never make a public statement on the divorce settlement.
A few days before the divorce gained legal force, regulations were adopted that determined how title issues should be handled after royal divorces. According to these, in connection with the divorce, Diana lost the title of royal highness and would instead be called Diana, Princess of Wales. This change in titling was confirmed in a press release from Buckingham Palace on the day the divorce went through.
Buckingham Palace also announced that Diana, as mother of the two princes William and Harry, would continue to be considered a member of the royal family, this was confirmed by members of the Queen's personal staff.
After the divorce, Diana remained in Kensington Palace until her death.
Diana tried to find love again, including with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, whom several of Diana's closest friends have called "the love of her life". However, Khan's relationship ended after two years in June 1997.
Within a month, Diana had instead begun to meet Dodi Fayed, son of the man she was visiting that summer, Mohamed Al-Fayed, owner of the Harrods department store. Diana had agreed to visit Fayed's family in southern France.
On August 31, 1997, Diana involved in a car accident at the Pont de L'Alma tunnel in central Paris along with the man designated as her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, their driver Henri Paul, and Dodi's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones.
Late in the evening of Saturday, August 30, Diana and Fayed left the Hôtel Ritz at Place Vendôme in Paris and traveled along the northern bank of the Seine River. Shortly after midnight on August 31, their Mercedes-Benz S280 drove into the tunnel under Place de l'Alma, while being pursued by nine French paparazzi photographers in various vehicles and a motorbike-courier.
At the start of the tunnel, their car struck the right side of the tunnel and flew across the two-lane road over to the left side of the tunnel, frontally crashing with the thirteenth pillar holding the roof. While the princess and her fellow passengers were severely injured in the car wreck, photographers continued to take pictures.
Dodi Fayed and the driver were both pronounced dead at the scene. Fayed's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was seriously injured, but survived. Diana was rescued, alive, from the wreck and after trying to stabilize her on the spot, she was taken by ambulance to Hôpital de la Pitié, where she arrived shortly after 2:00 in the night. Despite repeated attempts to save her life, her internal injuries were extensive. Two hours later, at 4:00 that morning, the doctors declared her dead. At 5.30 am, the tragic message was given to the press at a press conference held by Jean-Pierre Chevènement (French Minister of the Interior), Michael Jay (UK Ambassador to France) and the doctor.
Later that morning, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, together with President Bernadette Chirac and France's Health Minister Bernard Kouchner, visited the room where Diana's body lay to show her final reverence for the princess. Then Diana was also visited by France's Anglican archdeacon, Father Martin Draper.
That afternoon, Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana's two sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, arrived in Paris to retrieve Diana's remains. They then took Diana on her last trip home to England.
Several media reports have claimed that the car in which Diana was traveling collided with the pillar at a speed of 190 km / h, and that the pointer on the car's speedometer had stuck in that position. It was later announced that the car's actual speed at the time of the collision had been around 95-110 km / h. The car was traveling at a significantly higher speed than the allowed 50 km / h, considerably faster than was appropriate in the Alma tunnel. In 1999, a French investigation found that the car had come into contact with another vehicle (a white Fiat Uno) in the tunnel. The driver of that car, like the car, has never been found.
Investigators found that the crash was an accident caused by the affected driver as he tried to escape the high-speed pursuit of paparazzi photographers.
In November 2003, photographers Christian Martinez and Fabrice Chassery, who took pictures of Diana when she was injured in the wreck, were found photographers, and photographer Jacques Langevin, who took pictures of the couple when they left Hôtel Ritz, was found guilty of violating privacy laws in France.
In January 2004, a government inquiry was launched in London by Michael Burgess, an employee of the British court. In 2006, a movie came out about the British court's actions following Diana's death, called The Queen.
Prime Minister Tony Blair had just taken up his new post when Diana died. Princess Diana was an icon of the British and the shock effect of her death triggered a wave of upset and grief as well as strong interest from the press and the general public. The piles of flowers grew every hour outside Buckingham Palace and, above all, at Diana's official Kensington Palace residence in London. In one speech, Blair called Diana "the princess of the people", which came to pay much attention. The queen and her family and court were at the same time removed to Balmoral Castle, where Diana's sons were employed, including hunting, in order not to be confronted with his mother's sudden death. During the first few days, the royal family took a wait-and-see attitude. Since Diana had divorced Prince Charles from the throne a year earlier after a very public crisis in marriage, her position within the royal house was somewhat difficult to determine and the silence of the royal couple was perceived by many as chilly.
The Queen returned to London after a few days. She made a television speech and also visited the site in front of Kensington Palace, where the abundance of flowers and candles blocked the regular entrance. Diana was buried a week after the death at a solemn funeral Mass in Westminster Abbey, which was broadcast live via television to much of the world. Her dust was buried on an island in an oval pond at the Spencer family's Althorp estate.
Also, Diana's funeral surrounds was paid a great deal of attention. At the funeral, Elton John played a special version of his own "Candle in the Wind". The original version's tribute to Marilyn Monroe had been replaced here by one of Diana. The single released with the new version has subsequently been sold in 33 million copies.
Ten years after Diana's death, about 500 people gathered to honor her memory in Guards Chapel in Wellington Barracks in central London. The hosts of the ceremony were her sons William and Harry. Well-known guests included Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Elton John and the Spencer family.
It may be noted that Mohamed Al-Fayed was not present at the ceremony. He honored the victims by a silent minute at his department stores instead. Al-Fayed has, after Dodi's and Diana's death, appointed members of the royal family as accomplices to the tragedy. In the trial of the couple's death that took place in the UK in 2007, Al-Fayed, through his lawyers, pointed out the Duke of Edinburgh as a murderer. It was alleged that he was ordered by the security service to remove Diana and Dodi from the road. This charge was firmly rejected by the court, citing no evidence whatsoever for this thesis.
There was also a big concert in her honor, Concert for Diana, which was broadcast live on TV in 140 countries.
