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Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances
Mountbatten-Windsor, née Spencer) (1 July 1961–31 August 1997) was the
first wife of HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. From her marriage
in 1981 to her divorce in 1996 she was styled Her Royal Highness The
Princess of Wales. She was almost always called Princess Diana by the
media despite never having had the right to that title, as it would
imply that she was a princess by birthright rather than by marriage.
Though she was noted for her pioneering
charity work, the Princess's philanthropic endeavours were overshadowed
by a scandal-plagued marriage. Her bitter accusations of adultery,
mental cruelty and emotional distress riveted the world for much of the
1990s, spawning biographies, magazine articles and television movies.
From the time of her engagement to the
Prince of Wales in 1981 until her death in a car accident in 1997, Diana
was arguably the most famous woman in the world, the pre-eminent female
celebrity of her generation: a fashion icon, an ideal of feminine
beauty, admired and emulated for her high-profile involvement in AIDS
issues and the international campaign against landmines. During her
lifetime, she was often referred to as the most photographed person in
the world. To her admirers, Diana, Princess of Wales was a role model —
after her death, there were even calls for her to be nominated for
sainthood — while her detractors saw her life as a cautionary tale.
* * * *
Personal
life
Early years
The Honourable Diana Frances Spencer was
born the youngest daughter of Edward Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and his
first wife, Frances Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (formerly The
Honourable Frances Burke Roche). Partially American in ancestry — a
great-grandmother was the American heiress Frances Work — she was also a
descendant of King Charles I. During her parents' acrimonious divorce
over Lady Althorp's adultery with wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd,
Diana's mother 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, meant custody of Diana and her brother was given 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,
and she acquired the courtesy title of The Lady Diana Spencer. A year
later, Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only
daughter of the romance novelist Barbara Cartland, after being named as
the "other party" in the Earl and Countess of Dartmouth's divorce.
Diana was educated at Riddlesworth Hall in
Norfolk and at West Heath School in Kent, where she was regarded as an
academically below-average student, having failed all of her O-level
examinations. At age 16 she briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette,
a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. Diana was a talented
amateur pianist, excelled in sports and reportedly longed to be a
ballerina.
Marriage and family
Diana's family, the Spencers, had been
close to the British Royal Family for decades. Her maternal grandmother,
the Dowager Lady Fermoy, was a longtime friend of Queen Elizabeth the
Queen Mother . The Prince of Wales briefly dated Lady Sarah Spencer,
Diana's older sister, in the 1970s.
The Prince's love life had always been the
subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous women.
Nearing his mid-thirties, he was under increasing pressure to marry. In
order to gain the approval of his family and their advisors, including
his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten of Burma, any potential bride had to
have an aristocratic background, could not have been previously married,
should be, preferably, a virgin, and Protestant. Diana fulfilled all of
these qualifications.
Reportedly, the Prince's former girlfriend
(and eventually his second wife) Camilla Parker Bowles helped him select
the 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer as a potential bride, who was working
as an assistant at the Young England kindergarten in Knightsbridge.
Buckingham Palace announced the engagement on 24 February 1981. Mrs
Parker Bowles had been dismissed by Lord Mountbatten of Burma as a
potential spouse for the heir to throne some years before, reportedly
due to her age (16 months the Prince's senior), her sexual experience,
and her lack of suitably aristocratic lineage.
The wedding took place at St Paul's
Cathedral in London on Wednesday 29 July 1981 before 3,500 invited
guests (including Mrs Parker Bowles and her husband, a godson of Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother) and an estimated 1 billion television
viewers around the world. Diana was the first Englishwoman to marry an
heir-apparent to the throne since 1659, when Lady Anne Hyde married the
Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II. Upon her marriage,
Diana became Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales and was ranked as
the most senior royal woman in the United Kingdom after the Queen and
the Queen Mother.
The Prince and Princess of Wales had two
children, Prince William of Wales on 21 June 1982 and Prince Henry of
Wales (commonly called Prince Harry) on 15 September 1984.
After the birth of Prince William, the
Princess of Wales suffered from post-natal depression. She later
developed bulimia nervosa, and made a number of suicide attempts. In one
interview, released after her death, she claimed that, while pregnant
with Prince William, she threw herself down a set of stairs and was
discovered by her mother-in-law. It has been suggested she did not, in
fact, intend to end her life (or that the suicide attempts never even
took place) and that she was merely making a 'cry for help'. In the same
interview in which she told of the suicide attempt while pregnant with
Prince William, she said her husband had accused her of crying wolf when
she threatened to kill herself. If the suicide attempts did take place,
there was certainly a significant risk she would miscarry her baby.
In the mid 1980s her marriage fell apart,
an event at first suppressed, but then sensationalised by, the world
media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales spoke to the press through
friends, accusing each other of adultery. Charles resumed his
relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, whilst Diana became involved
with a series of men, including James Gilby, (the so-called Squidgygate
affair). She later confirmed (in a television interview with Martin
Bashir) that she had also had an affair with her riding instructor,
James Hewitt. (Theoretically, such an affair constituted high treason by
both parties.) Another of her lovers reportedly was a bodyguard assigned
to the Princess's security detail, although the Princess adamantly
denied a sexual relationship with him, as well as married art dealer
Oliver Hoare.
The Prince and Princess of Wales separated
on 9 December 1992; their divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996. The
Princess lost the style Her Royal Highness, and became Diana, Princess
of Wales, a titular distinction befitting a divorced peeress. However,
at that time, and to this day, Buckingham Palace maintains that, since
the Princess was the mother of the second and third in line to The
Throne, she remained a member of the Royal Family.
In 2004, the American TV network NBC
broadcast tapes of Diana discussing her marriage to the Prince of Wales,
including her description of her suicide attempts. The tapes were in the
possession of the Princess during her lifetime; however, after her
death, her butler took possession, and after numerous legal wranglings,
they were given to the Princess's voice coach, who had originally filmed
them. These tapes have not been broadcast in the United Kingdom.
Charity
work
Starting in the mid-to-late 1980s, the
Princess of Wales became well known for her support of charity projects,
and is credited with considerable influence for her campaigns against
the use of landmines and helping the victims of AIDS.
AIDS
In April 1987, the Princess of Wales was
the first high-profile celebrity to be photographed touching a person
infected with the HIV virus. 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', when he said:
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 deserved not isolation, but compassion. It helped
change world opinion, helped give hope to people with AIDS, and helped
save lives of people at risk.
Landmines
Perhaps her most widely publicised charity
appearance was her visit to Angola in January 1997, when, serving as an
International Red Cross VIP volunteer, she visited landmine survivors in
hospitals, toured de-mining projects run by the HALO Trust, and attended
mine awareness education classes about the dangers of mines immediately
surrounding homes and villages.
The pictures of Diana touring a minefield,
in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket, were seen worldwide.
(Mine-clearance experts had already cleared the pre-planned walk that
Diana took wearing the protective equipment.) In August that year, she
visited Bosnia with the Landmine Survivors Network. Her interest in
landmines was focused on the injuries they create, often to children,
long after the conflict has finished.
She is widely acclaimed for her influence
on the signing by the governments of the UK and other nations of the
Ottawa Treaty in December 1997, after her death, which created an
international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines. Introducing
the Second Reading of the Landmines Bill 1998 to the British House of
Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, paid tribute to Diana's work
on landmines:
All Honourable Members will be aware from
their postbags of the immense contribution made by Diana, Princess of
Wales to bringing home to many of our constituents the human costs of
landmines. The best way in which to record our appreciation of her work,
and the work of NGOs that have campaigned against landmines, is to pass
the Bill, and to pave the way towards a global ban on landmines.
As of January 2005, Diana's legacy on
landmines remained unfulfilled. The United Nations 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".
Death
Circumstances
On 31 August 1997 Diana was involved in a
car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, along with her
romantic companion Dodi Fayed, their driver Henri Paul, and Fayed's
bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones.
Late in the evening of Saturday 30 August,
Diana and Fayed departed the Hôtel Ritz in Place Vendome, Paris, and
drove along the north bank of the Seine. Shortly after midnight on 31
August, their Mercedes-Benz S 280 entered the underpass below the Place
de l'Alma, pursued in various vehicles by nine French photographers and
a motorcycle courier.
At the entrance to the tunnel, their car
struck a glancing blow to the right-hand wall. It swerved to the left of
the two-lane carriageway and collided head-on with the thirteenth pillar
supporting the roof, then spun to a stop.
As the casualties lay seriously injured in
their wrecked car, the photographers continued to take pictures.
Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul were both
declared dead at the scene of the crash. Trevor Rees-Jones was severely
injured, but later recovered. Diana was freed, alive, from the wreckage,
and after some delay due to attempts to stabilize her at the scene, she
was taken by ambulance to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, arriving there
shortly after 2.00 a.m.. Despite attempts to save her, her internal
injuries were too extensive. Two hours later, at 4.00 that morning, the
doctors pronounced her dead. At 5.30, her death was announced at a press
conference held by a hospital doctor, Jean-Pierre Chevènement (France's
Interior Minister) and Michael Jay (Britain's ambassador to France).
Later that morning, Chevenement, the French
Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, the wife of the French President, Jacques
Chirac, and the French Health Minister, Bernard Kouchner, visited the
hospital room where Diana's body lay and paid their last respects. After
their visits, the Anglican Archdeacon of France, Father Martin Draper,
said commendatory prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.
At around 2.00 p.m. the Prince of Wales and
Diana's two sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes,
arrived in Paris to collect Diana's body. They left with her body 90
minutes later.
Subsequent
events
Initial media reports stated Diana's car
had collided with the pillar at over 190 km/h (120 mph), and that the
speedometer's needle had jammed at that position. It was later announced
the car's actual speed on collision was about 95-110 km/h (60-70 mph),
and that the speedometer had no needle as it was digital. The car was
certainly travelling much faster than the legal speed limit of 50 km/h
(30 mph), and faster than was prudent for the Alma underpass. In 1999 a
French investigation concluded the Mercedes had come into contact with
another vehicle (a white Fiat Uno) in the tunnel. The driver of that
vehicle has never come forward, and the vehicle itself has not been
found.
The investigators concluded that the crash
was an accident brought on by an intoxicated driver attempting to elude
pursuing paparazzi at high speed.
In November 2003, Christian Martinez and
Fabrice Chassery, the photographers who took photos of the casualties
after the crash, and Jacques Langevin, who took photos as the couple
left the Ritz Hotel, were cleared of breaching French privacy laws.
On 6 January 2004, an inquest into the
death of Diana opened in London held by Michael Burgess, the coroner of
The Queen's Household.
Accident or
assassination?
Debate rages between those who believe she
was assassinated, and those who believe she died as the result of an
accident.
The French investigators' conclusion that
Henri Paul was drunk was made largely on the basis of an analysis of
blood samples, which were stated to contain an alcohol level that
(according to Jay's September 1997 report) was three times the legal
limit. This initial analysis was challenged by a British pathologist
hired by the Fayeds; in response, French authorities carried out a third
test, this time using the medically more conclusive fluid from the
sclera (white of the eye), which confirmed the level of alcohol measured
by blood and also showed Paul had been taking antidepressants.
The samples were also said to contain a
level of carbon monoxide sufficiently high as to have prevented him from
driving a car (or even from standing). Some maintain this strongly
indicates the samples were tampered with. No official DNA test has been
carried out on the samples, and Henri Paul's family has not been allowed
to commission independent tests on them.
The families of Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul
have not accepted the French investigators' findings. In the Scottish
courts, Mohamed Al-Fayed applied for an order directing there be a
public inquiry and is to appeal against the denial of his application.
Fayed, for his part, stands by his belief that the Princess and his son
were killed in an elaborate conspiracy launched by the SIS (MI6) on the
orders of the "racist" Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, apparently
believing the Duke abhorred the idea of his grandsons potentially having
Muslim or half-Arab siblings. (Al-Fayed has repeatedly claimed that the
Duke of Edinburgh controls SIS.)
Motivations which have been advanced for
murder include suggestions Diana intended to convert to Islam, and that
she was pregnant with Dodi's child. In January 2004, the former coroner
of The Queen's Household, Dr John Burton, said (in an interview with The
Times) that he attended a post-mortem examination of the Princess's body
at Fulham mortuary in which he personally examined her womb and found
her not to be pregnant.
Later in 2004, US TV network CBS showed
pictures of the crash scene showing an intact rear side and an intact
centre section of the Mercedes, including one of a unbloodied Diana with
no outward injuries, crouched on the rear floor of the vehicle with her
back to the right passenger seat — the right rear car door is completely
opened. These pictures caused uproar in the UK, and spurred another
lawsuit by Mohammed Al-Fayed.
Rumours and conspiracies aside, it must be
noted Diana, Dodi and Paul were not wearing seat belts when the car
crashed. Rees-Jones, the only survivor, had his seat belt on. Also, the
underpass at the Place de l'Alma is known as an accident black spot; it
is on a stretch of high-speed road but only has limited visibility ahead
in places; and there are square-shaped pillars in the central
reservation which could lead to collisions.
Funeral and
public reaction
Diana's death was greeted with
extraordinary public grief, and her funeral at Westminster Abbey on 6
September drew an estimated 3 million mourners in London, as well as
worldwide television coverage. People in India watched the funeral, even
as mourning started to sweep over their country following the passing of
Mother Teresa the day before.
More than one million bouquets were left at
her London home, Kensington Palace, while at her family estate of
Althorp the public was asked to stop bringing flowers, as the volume of
people and flowers in the surrounding roads was causing a threat to
public safety.
The reaction of the Royal Family to the
death of Diana caused unprecedented resentment and outcry. The Royal
Family's rigid adherence to protocol was intepreted by the public as a
lack of compassion: the refusal of Buckingham Palace to fly the Union
Jack at half mast provoked angry headlines in newspapers. "Where is our
Queen? Where is our Flag?" asked The Sun. The Queen, who returned to
London from Balmoral, agreed to a television broadcast to the nation. At
the urging of Downing Street, what was to be a recorded piece became a
live broadcast, and the script was revised by Alastair Campbell to be
more "human".
Mourners cast flowers at the funeral
procession for almost the entire length of its journey. Outside
Westminster Abbey crowds cheered the dozens of celebrities who filed
inside, including singer Sir Elton John (who performed a re-written
version of his song Candle in the Wind), actors Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman, director Steven Spielberg, and British tycoon Richard Branson.
The service was televised live throughout the world, and loudspeakers
were placed outside so the crowds could hear the proceedings. Tradition
was defied when the guests applauded the speech by Diana's brother, Lord
Spencer, who bitterly attacked the press and indirectly criticised the
Royal Family for their treatment of her, although Lord Spencer himself
had years earlier refused Diana permission to use a cottage at Althorp
as a sanctuary due to his fears about press intrusion into his family
home.
Diana, Princess of Wales is buried at
Althorp in Northamptonshire on an island in the middle of a lake called
the Round Oval. A visitors' centre allows visitors to see an exhibition
about her and walk around the lake.
During the four weeks following her
funeral, the overall suicide rate in England and Wales rose by 17%,
compared with the average reported for that period in the four previous
years. Researchers suggest that this was caused by the "identification"
effect, as the greatest increase in suicides was by people most similar
to Diana: women aged 25 to 44, whose suicide rate increased by over 45%.
In the years after her death, interest in
the life of Diana has remained high. Numerous manufacturers of
collectibles continue to produce Diana merchandise. Some even suggested
making Diana a saint, stirring much controversy.
As a temporary memorial, the public
co-opted the Flamme de Liberté (Flame of Liberty), a monument near the
Alma Tunnel, and related to the French donation of the Statue of Liberty
to the United States. The messages of condolence have since been
removed, and its use as a Diana memorial has discontinued, though
visitors visit and still leave messages at the site in her memory. The
concrete wall at the edge of the tunnel is still used as an impromptu
memorial for people to write their thoughts and feelings about Diana. A
permanent memorial, the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain was
opened in Hyde Park in London on 6 July 2004, but it has been plagued
with problems and has been declared off-limits to the public at least
twice for repairs.
Diana was ranked third in the (2002) Great
Britons poll sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the British public.
In 2003, Marvel Comics announced it was to
publish a five-part series entitled Di Another Day (a reference to the
James Bond film Die Another Day) featuring a resurrected Diana, Princess
of Wales as a mutant with superpowers, as part of Peter Milligan's X-Statix
title. Amidst considerable (and predictable) outcry, the idea was
quickly dropped. Heliograph Incorporated produced a roleplaying game
Diana: Warrior Princess by Marcus L. Rowland about a fictionalised
version of the twentieth century as it might be seen a thousand years
from now.
After her death, the actor Kevin Costner
claimed he had been in negotiations with the divorced Princess to
co-star in a sequel to the thriller film The Bodyguard, which starred
Costner and Whitney Houston. Buckingham Palace dismissed Costner's
claims as unfounded.
Styles
-
The Honourable Diana
Spencer (birth–9 June 1975)
-
The Lady Diana Spencer (9
June 1975–29 July 1981)
-
Her Royal Highness The
Princess of Wales (29 July 1981–28 August 1996)
-
Diana, Princess of Wales
(28 August 1996–death)
-
The style "Princess
Diana" was incorrect at all times of her life, though often used by
the public and the media.
Honourary
Military appointments
These appointments ceased to be valid when
Diana divorced the Prince of Wales in 1996.
-
The Royal Hampshire
Regiment, Colonel-in-chief (until 1992)
-
The Princess of Wales's
Own Regiment, Colonel-in-chief
-
Royal Australian Survey
Corps, Colonel-in-chief
-
The 13/18th Royal
Hussars, Colonel-in-chief (until 1992)
-
The Princess of Wales's
Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires), Allied
Colonel-in-chief with Margrethe II of Denmark
-
The Light Dragoons,
Colonel-in-chief
Lineage
Prior to her marriage, much research was
done into Diana's lineage by genealogists. It was much publicized that
her ancestry included links to individuals such as Hollywood screen
legend Humphrey Bogart (who was her 7th cousin), and poet Edmund
Spenser, the author of The Faerie Queen. Actor Oliver Platt is more
closely related; both he and Diana, Princess of Wales are descendants of
Frances Work, a late 19th-century American heiress who was briefly the
wife of the Hon. James Burke Roche, later 3rd Baron Fermoy.
-
Previous Princess of
Wales: Mary of Teck (1901-1910)
-
Princess of Wales:
(1981-1996)
-
Following Princess of
Wales: Camilla Parker Bowles
-
(2005 - present) Note -
Camilla does not use the title.
* *
* *
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