• The fourth season of The Crown follows Diana Spencer and Charles'southward whirlwind courtship, and its long-lasting ramifications.
  • Diana was born to an aristocratic family in England.
  • Hither's what we know about Diana's upbringing—from her parents' divorce to her family's connections to the royal family.

Diana is often remembered for everything that happened after her meeting with Prince Charles: The cyclone courtship (thirteen whole dates!), the bear witness-stopping wedding, the dramatic divorce, and her death. Just when Diana start appears in season four of The Crown, she's withal in her schoolgirl days. What was her life like before she became one of England's, if not the world's, about beloved figures?

Born to 2 wealthy parents on July 1, 1961, Lady Diana Spencer grew up side by side to the aristocracy. Though she first met Prince Charles at the age of 16, she knew many people in his family: Queen Elizabeth Two was her brother'due south godmother, and she played with Charles'southward brothers as a child. According to an anecdote from Tina Brown'southward, The Diana Chronicles, Charles, so 17, once interrupted five-year-former Diana's "tea political party" with Andrew.

The Spencers have been a prominent family since the 15th and 16th century, co-ordinate to a book nearly the family's history. They fabricated their initial fortune with sheep farming, and never lost said fortune. In 1975, Diana earned the title of "Lady" when her grandfather died, and her male parent became the 8th Earl Spencer.

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Diana'southward relative Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Print Collector // Getty Images

The Spencer men accept their earlship, only it's the Spencer women who accept made headlines over the years. While Diana is the most famous of the Spencers, she's descended from other fascinating females: Sarah Marlborough was Queen Anne'south controversial confidante (and was played by Rachel Weisz in The Favourite) and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire became a glory in Georgian-era England for her unusual matrimony organization (she was portrayed by Keira Knightley in The Duchess) .

Clearly, Diana's childhood was one of privilege and esteem—just was it joyful? One of her nannies weighed in with her opinion. "Diana had a happy secure childhood. From the moment I met her and worked with the family, I saw she was helpful, laughing, exuberant, loved by both her parents, and the apple of her father's heart," her former nanny, Mary Clarke, wrote.

All the same, Diana's brother, the current Earl Spencer, disagrees with that rosy picture. Here's what we know well-nigh the childhood of Princess Diana—and what The Crown skips over.

Diana had four siblings—including a sister who dated Prince Charles.

Diana's father, John Spencer, was the eighth Earl Spencer (though was a Viscount when he married). Her mother, Frances Ruth Roche, was the daughter of Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy and Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, and was even wealthier than the Spencers. Queen Elizabeth attended their wedding in 1954. Similar Diana, Frances was a immature bride—she was but 18 when she married John, who was 30.

The Spencers had five children, including Diana. Their 3rd child (and long-awaited son), John, died as an infant, devastating Diana'south female parent. Diana grew upwardly with her 2 sisters, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, and her brother Charles. Earlier Diana became involved with Prince Charles, he dated her eldest sister, Sarah in 1977.

aristocratic wedding

The nuptials of Viscount Althorp and the Hon. Frances Roche at Westminster Abbey.

Terry Disney // Getty Images

Her parents divorced when she was 7, and it changed Diana forever.

In 1969, the family unit ruptured when Diana's mother reportedly abruptly left her father for Peter Shand Kydd, an Australian wallpaper tycoon (no known connectedness to Camilla Shand). What ensued was a courtroom and custody battle, and resulted in what her brother called an "unhappy childhood."

"Diana and I had 2 older sisters who were abroad at schoolhouse, so she and I were very much in it together and I did talk to her well-nigh it," Spencer explained in a revealing 2020 interview in The Sun Times. "Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn't cutting out for maternity. Not her fault, she couldn't practice information technology. She was in love with someone else—infatuated, actually."

young diana

Lady Diana Spencer and her brother, Charles.

Primal Press // Getty Images

Following an intense custody boxing (in which Frances's mother, Ruth, testified against her), the Spencer children lived with their father permanently. Co-ordinate to her blood brother, Diana felt abased by their female parent. "While she was packing her stuff to leave, she promised Diana she'd come back to see her. Diana used to wait on the doorstep for her, but she never came," Charles, Diana's brother, told The Sunday Times.

However, The Diana Chronicles paints a more complicated picture: Co-ordinate to the book, Frances was shut out of the children'due south lives, with the doors of Park House literally closed on her. She never expected to lose her children, and would cry at the end of every Saturday visit: "'Oh, I don't desire you lot to leave tomorrow!'" Diana recalled, per the book.

Charles, who was 2 when their parents divorced, said Diana was like a female parent figure to him. She "was the big sis who mothered me as a baby… and endured those long train journeys betwixt our parents' homes with me at weekends," he told The Sunday Times.

Diana'southward mother and her married man somewhen settled on a minor Scottish island off the declension of Oban, where she opened a souvenir store. Diana reportedly didn't get forth well with her father'south second wife, socialite Raine Legge. Charles's four children were not informed of their wedding ceremony, nor were they invited to the party, according to The Diana Chronicles.

little princess diana

Fox Photos // Getty Images

Equally a girl, Diana played with her futurity brother-in-laws.

Diana was born in Park Firm, a 9-bedroom mansion located on the Queen's grounds at Sandringham. The house was built in 1863 by the Prince of Wales (later on Rex Edward 7) to arrange "overflow" at his royal home, Sandringham Firm. When Queen Elizabeth II and her family were staying at Sandringham, they socialized with the Spencers.

In 1987, Park Business firm was converted into a three-star hotel designed for travelers with disabilities. According to a review, guests are shown the bedroom where Diana was born.

file 50 years since birth of diana, princess of wales on july 1

Fundamental Press // Getty Images

She had other connections to the royal family unit—lots of them.

Even before Diana married into the royal family, she knew them intimately. Diana's family had multiple connections to the Crown. Her blood brother, Charles, is Queen Elizabeth Ii's godson. Her father, the eighth Earl Spencer, was Queen Mary's godson. And her grandmother, Lady Fermoy, was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother—she's depicted in The Crown.

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Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother shake easily with Charles Spencer.

Tim Graham // Getty Images

The Crown introduces Diana at her second babyhood dwelling house, Althorp Park.

When Diana was 14, her life changed abruptly. Her grandfather died, making her father the eighth Earl Spencer—and heir to the family's home. But Althorp was no ordinary home. The mansion had belonged to the Spencer family for over 500 years, since Sir John Spencer purchased it in 1508.

"The children rarely visited the big business firm as a family unit when the old Earl was alive. Growing up they knew nothing nearly their heritage," Brownish writes in The Diana Chronicles.

The estate sits on 13,000 acres in the English countryside, and contains 28 listed buildings and structures. The 100,000-square-pes, 90-room mansion is just the commencement. Althorp Park is occasionally open to the public. Today, her brother Charles lives there. Information technology'due south also the site of Diana's grave.

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Diana wasn't considered a student, and dropped out of boarding school at xvi.

In 1970, when she was nine, Diana was sent to an all-girls boarding school called Riddlesworth. After three years she went on to attend the West Heath Boarding School for Girls (which has plaques in her honor to this day). According to accounts, school wasn't Diana's potent adjust. Diana failed her O-level exams twice before dropping out of boarding school entirely at the age of 16.

Afterwards, she attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a Swiss finishing school known for its wealthy students (Sarah, her sister, too attended). It was 17-year-old Diana'southward first time out of the country, or on an airplane. It was around this time that she outset met Prince Charles, who was then dating her sister, Sarah.

charles and lady sarah spencer

Prince Charles and Sarah Spencer.

Tim Graham // Getty Images

Diana wanted to become a dancer, higher up all.

Diana had a number of passions outside of school. She was a swimmer, a skier, a tennis role player, a pianist. Above all, though, she wanted to go a ballerina. However, at 5'x," she struggled to pursue the career.

According to the book The Real Diana, at the age of 17, she reached out to the Vacani Dance School to railroad train equally a dancing teacher, even if she was unable to be a ballerina. Madame Vacani told the author of The Real Diana that she only trained for a month. "She went skiing and never came back. I think that she felt that the training—three years and until 6:xxx in the evening—would exist too all-embracing. She never gave a reason for non returning," the book says.

Simply put, becoming a dance teacher wasn't her passion—dancing was. Whenever she was feeling stressed, Diana would trip the light fantastic toe.

Earlier meeting Charles, she worked as a nanny and a cleaning lady.

When Charles meets Diana in The Crown, she's living with friends in London and cleaning her sister'southward house for money. In existent life, Diana indeed had odd jobs like cleaning houses, serving appetizers at cocktail parties, and working as a kindergarten teacher—which, according to Brown, was a normal function of life as a "Sloane Ranger," the term for Diana'due south clique of upper-crust young people. "Slumming it was part of the inverted cachet of the Sloane Ranger world, since it also announced that you didn't depend on your job for either coin or condition," Dark-brown wrote.

Brown describes Diana between eighteen and 19 equally a "trust fund Cinderella, drifting through temporary work—low-stress, undemanding jobs that drew on her agreeable demeanor."

Ane of her well-nigh notable jobs was every bit bodyguard for the kid of an American businesswoman. "I but roughshod in dear with her. She was wonderful with my child," Mary Robertson, the woman who hired her to sentinel her son, told Inside Edition in 2017.

Robertson didn't know that her babysitter was part of the landed gentry until she accidentally left a card behind that said "Lady Diana Spencer." She later on wrote well-nigh her friendship with Diana, which persisted past her time as a babysitter, in The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Betwixt an American Mother and Her Son'southward Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales.

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Meet The Woman Who Hired Princess Diana As A Nanny Before She Married Charles

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Co-ordinate to Robertson, she and Diana joked about her marrying Prince Charles. In her volume, she wrote that she was "was worried that Diana'southward infatuation with Charles was 'based on her romantic epitome of him, not on the man himself." The Crown shows whether or not Robertson, in her suspicions, was correct.


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