66Lucy Posted July 25, 2008 Posted July 25, 2008 Diana, Princess of Wales, (Diana Frances; nee Spencer; July 1, 1961 – August 31, 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Their sons, Princes William and Henry (Harry), are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonwealth Realms. A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana remained the focus of near-constant media scrutiny in the United Kingdom and around the world up to and during her marriage, and after her subsequent divorce. Her sudden death in a car crash was followed by a spontaneous and prolonged show of public mourning - what many considered "their own personal this life" (Requiem for Diana, Collins Hanley). Contemporary responses to Diana's life and legacy have been mixed but a popular fascination with the Princess endures. The long awaited Coroner's Inquest reported in April 2008 that Diana had been unlawfully killed by the driver and the following paparazzi. Early life Diana was 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, and later Frances Shand Kydd). She was born at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England on 1 July 1961 at 6.45 in the evening. She was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church by the 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). She was the third child to the couple, her four siblings being 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), and Charles Spencer (born 20 May 1964). Following her parents' acrimonious divorce in 1969 (over Lady Althorp's affair with wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd), Diana's mother took her and her younger brother 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 with their mother. Lady Althorp sued for custody of her children, but 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. In 1976 Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, after he was named as the "other party" in the Dartmouths' 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 to the Island of Seil off the west coast of Scotland. Diana, like her siblings, did not get along with her stepmother. Education Diana was first educated at Silfield School Kings Lynn, Norfolk, then at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls' School (later reorganized 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 longed to be a ballerina. She studied ballet for a time, but at 5'10" was too tall. Diana moved to London before she turned seventeen. An apartment was purchased for her at Coleherne Court in the Earls Court area, and she lived there until 1981 with three flatmates. Marriage Prince Charles' love life had always been the subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous glamorous and aristocratic women, including Princess Diana's sister Lady Sarah Spencer. 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. Engagement and wedding Their engagement became official February 24, 1981 with the heir to the throne presenting the princess with a walnut-sized �30,000 ring consisting of 14 diamonds and a sapphire. The 20-year-old princess married at St Paul's Cathedral, which offered more seating than Westminster Abbey which was previously used for royal nuptials, on 29 July 1981 in what was widely billed as a "fairytale wedding" watched by a global television audience of 750 million. At the altar Diana accidentally reversed the order of Charles' names saying Phillip Charles Arthur George instead. The wedding started at 11:20 A.M. BST, and Diana wore a gown valued at �9000 with 25 foot train and the finest lace. 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. Asked what part Camilla had played in the break-up of her marriage, Diana commented during the BBC programme Panorama, "Well there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." Diana had an affair with her riding instructor, James Hewitt. She confirmed this during the Panorama television interview. Charles had confirmed his own affair over a year earlier in a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby. The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated on 9 December 1992. While she blamed Camilla Parker-Bowles for her marital troubles, as early as October 1993, Diana was writing to a friend that she believed her husband was now in love with Tiggy Legge-Bourke and wanted to marry her. On 3 December 1993, Diana announced her withdrawal from public life. Divorce In December 1995, the Queen asked Charles and Diana for "an early divorce". This followed shortly after Diana's accusation that Tiggy Legge-Bourke had aborted Charles's child, causing Tiggy to instruct Peter Carter-Ruck to demand an apology. Two days before this story broke, Diana's secretary Patrick Jephson resigned, later claiming that Diana had "exulted in accusing Legge-Bourke of having had an abortion". On 20 December 1995, Buckingham Palace publicly announced that the Queen had sent letters to Charles and Diana advising them to divorce. The Queen's move was backed by the Prime Minister and by senior Privy Councillors, and, according to the BBC, was decided after two weeks of talks. Prince Charles immediately agreed with the suggestion. In February 1996, Diana announced her agreement as well. The divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996. Diana received a lump sum settlement of around �17,000,000 along with a legal order preventing her from discussing the details. Days before the decree absolute of divorce, Letters Patent were issued by Queen Elizabeth II containing general rules to regulate the titles of people who married into the Royal Family after divorce. In accordance with those rules, as she was no longer married to the Prince of Wales, and so had ceased to be a Royal by marriage, Diana lost the style, Her Royal Highness and instead was styled, Diana, Princess of Wales. Buckingham Palace issued a press release on the day of the day the decree absolute of divorce was issued, announcing Diana's change of title. Buckingham Palace stated that Diana was still officially a member of the Royal Family, since she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne. This was confirmed by the Deputy Coroner of the Queen’s Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, who after a pre-hearing on 8 January 2007 ruled that: "I am satisfied that at her death, Diana, Princess of Wales continued to be considered as a member of the Royal Household." This appears to have been confirmed in the High Court judicial review matter of Al Fayed & Ors v Butler-Sloss. In that case, three High Court judges accepted submissions that the "very name ‘Coroner to the Queen’s Household’ gave the appearance of partiality in the context of inquests into the deaths of two people, one of whom was a member of the Royal Family and the other was not." Personal life after divorce After the divorce, Diana retained her apartment in Kensington Palace, completely redecorated, and it remained her home until her death. She publicly dated the respected heart surgeon from Pakistan, Hasnat Khan, who was called "the love of her life", for almost two years, before Khan ended the relationship due to cultural differences. She soon after began her relationship with Dodi Al-Fayed. These details were confirmed by witnesses at her inquest in November/December 2007. After her divorce, Diana worked particularly for the Red Cross and campaigned to rid the world of land mines. Her work was on a humanitarian rather than a political level. She pursued her own interests in philanthropy, music, fashion and travel—although she still required royal consent to take her children on holiday or to represent the UK abroad. Without a holiday or weekend home, Diana spent most of her time in London, often without her sons, who were with Prince Charles or at boarding school. Charity work Starting in the mid- to late 1980s, the Princess of Wales became very well known for her support of several charity projects. This stemmed naturally from her role as Princess of Wales—she was expected to engage in hospital visits where she comforted the sick and in so doing, assumed the patronage of various charitable organisations—and from an interest in certain illnesses and health-related matters. Diana was a supporter of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a campaign that went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. AIDS awareness In April 1987, the Princess of Wales was one of the first high-profile celebrities to be photographed touching a person infected with HIV at the 'chain of hope' organization. Her contribution to changing the public opinion of AIDS sufferers was summarized in December 2001 by Bill Clinton at the 'Diana, Princess of Wales Lecture on AIDS': "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 deserve no isolation, but compassion and kindness. It helped change the world's opinion, and gave hope to people with AIDS." Bill Clinton Landmines The pictures of former Princess touring an Angolan minefield, in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket, were seen worldwide. It was during this campaign that some accused the Princess of meddling in politics and declared her a 'loose cannon.' In August 1997, just days before her death, she visited Bosnia with the Landmine Survivors Network. Her interest in landmines was focused on the injuries they create, often to children, long after a conflict is over. Death She is believed to have influenced the signing, though only after her death, of the Ottawa Treaty, which created an international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines. On 31 August 1997, Diana died after a high speed car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris along with Dodi Al-Fayed and the acting security manager of the Hotel Ritz Paris, Henri Paul, who was instructed to drive the hired Mercedes-Benz through Paris secretly eluding the paparazzi. Their black 1994 Mercedes-Benz S280 (registration no. 688 LTV 75) crashed into the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel. The two-lane tunnel was built without metal barriers in front of the pillars, so a slight change in vehicle direction could easily result in a head-on collision with a tunnel pillar. None of the four occupants wore seat belts. The paparazzi, who had been trailing the car, arrived at the Alma underpass at different stages. Serge Arnal, Christian Martinez and Stephane Darmon appear to have arrived first, quickly followed by Serge Benhamou. Records supplied by mobile telephone operators Itineris and SFR support Serge Arnal's claim that he attempted to call the emergency services. Film seized from the cameras of Christian Martinez and Serge Arnal showed that they were taking photographs of the car and/or the occupants almost immediately after arrival at the scene – there were no emergency services near the car visible in their photographs. Blood analysis showed that Henri Paul was illegally intoxicated with alcohol whilst driving. He drove at high speed in order to evade the pursuing paparazzi. Tests showed he had consumed amounts of alcohol three times that of the French legal limit. Fayed's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, who was in the passenger seat, was closest to the point of impact and yet he was the only survivor of the crash. Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed were killed instantly, and Diana—unbelted in the back seat- slid forward during the impact and, having been violently thrown around the interior, "submarined" under the seat in front of her, suffering serious damage to her heart with subsequent internal bleeding. She was eventually, after considerable delay, transported by ambulance to the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, but on the way she went into cardiac arrest twice. Despite lengthy resuscitation attempts, including internal cardiac massage, she died at 4 a.m. local time. Her funeral on 6 September 1997 was broadcast and watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide. Wikipedia Quote
Korravai Posted August 1, 2008 Posted August 1, 2008 Thanks Kuks---she looked so much like my sister, I feel that I knew her Quote
*Bronx_Bomber* Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 An amazing lady who is greatly missed. Quote
66Lucy Posted November 4, 2008 Author Posted November 4, 2008 An amazing lady who is greatly missed. Quote
66Lucy Posted November 5, 2008 Author Posted November 5, 2008 You're welcome Lady Korrie Thanks to you as well Quote
wickedcrazyness Posted November 6, 2008 Posted November 6, 2008 She had a great sense of style. Quote
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