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Diana
Princess of Wales
Burial	Althorp, Northamptonshire, England
Spouse	Charles, Prince of Wales (1981–1996)
Issue	Prince William of Wales Prince Harry of Wales
Names Diana Frances Spencer
House	House of Windsor
Father	Edward, Earl Spencer
Mother	Frances, Viscountess Althorp

Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances; née Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Her two sons, Princes William and Harry, are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and 15 other Commonwealth Realms.

From obscure beginnings, Diana became an instant celebrity upon her marriage to Prince Charles. Her life became the subject of nearly constant media scrutiny, driven by the public's fascination with her royal status. After years of speculation regarding the couple's marital problems, Prince Charles and Diana were divorced. This event might have resulted in a loss of public attention, but instead, the public sympathised with Diana, due in part to her involvements with charitable work and social causes. Her death in a car accident was immediately followed by an intense period of mourning throughout the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent, worldwide. Contemporary reactions to Diana's life and legacy are mixed, but a fascination with "the People's Princess" continues to the present.

Early life

Diana Frances Spencer was born into the British aristocracy, 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. She was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, by 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). Diana's four siblings were:

• 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)
• Charles Spencer (born 20 May 1964)

During her parents' acrimonious divorce over Lady Althorp's adultery with wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd, Diana's 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. 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.

A year later, 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 north west of Glasgow in Scotland. Diana, like her siblings, did not get along with her new stepmother.

Royal descent

Diana was born into an aristocratic family with royal Stuart ancestry.

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, Diana 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.

Diana's 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, 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.

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. 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. During that period, she studied for a Cordon Bleu cooking diploma, although she apparently hated cooking, and 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 a part-time aide at the Young England Kindergarten nursery school.

Marriage

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. 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, be a virgin, as well as be Protestant. Diana met these qualifications.

Engagement and wedding

Their engagement became official February 24, 1981 and they married at St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July 1981, watched by a global audience of almost one billion.

Problems and separation

In the late 1980s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first suppressed, then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise. Charles resumed his old, pre-marital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, while Diana had an affair with her riding instructor, James Hewitt. %

1. BBC.com (2005). "1995: 'Divorce': Queen to Charles and Diana" (html). BBC. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
2. ^ As a titled royal, Diana held no surname, but, when one was used, it was Mountbatten-Windsor
3. Charles Nevin (1997). "Haunted by the image of fame". The Guardian Unlimited. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
4. BBC.com (1997). "The Life of Diana, Princess of Wales". BBC. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
5. Eugene Robinson (1997). "From Sheltered Life to Palace Life, To a Life of Her Own". Washington Post.com. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)