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Transcript
Biography
Table of Contents
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1. Childhood of Princess Diana 32. Family & Marriage 53. Accomplishments of Princess Diana 74. Problems & Separation 115. Divorce 136. Princess Diana Biography in Fashion 157. Death 198. Styles 269. Inquiry into Dina’s death 2610 Timeline for Princess Diana 2811. Princess Diana Quotes 31
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Biography
iana, Princess of Wales, (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was the first wife of
Charles, Prince of Wales. Their sons, Princes William and Harry,[3] are second
and third in line to the throne of the United Kingdom and fifteen other
Commonwealth Realms.
DA public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana remained
the focus of worldwide media scrutiny before, during and after her marriage. This continued
in the years following her death in a car crash and in the subsequent display of public
mourning. Contemporary responses to Diana's life and legacy are mixed but popular interest
with the Princess endures.
CHILDHOOD OF PRINCESS DIANA
Diana Frances Spencer was born at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England on 1 July
1961. She was the youngest daughter of Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and his first
wife Frances Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (formerly the Honorable Franc es Burke Roche).
The Spencers are a very old English family. They have been the friend s and helpers of the
Royal Family for hundreds of years. The romantic link to the Royal Family began with Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), who was determined that her favorite granddaughter,
the first Lady Diana Spencer, would marry the
Prince of Wales. The prime minister, however,
objected and forbade the marriage. It took the
Spencers of Althorp another two-and-a-half
centuries for one of their daughters to marry a Prince
of Wales. And by historical coincidence, her name
was also Lady Diana Spencer…
Diana had two elder sisters, Sarah Spencer and Jane
Spencer, and the younger brother, Charles Spencer.
Diana’s early years were spent almost “next door” to
the Sandringham House of Royal Family. Her first
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meeting with the man she would eventually marry took place, as she recalled, “when I was
still wearing nappies. I’ve known him all my life.”
Princess Diana childhood was darkened with her parents’ separation when she was only six,
when her mother left with another man, the wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd. The divorce
was very painful for the children, especially for the youngest Diana and Charles. The custody
of the children was awarded to the father of Diana, Lord Spencer.
Diana was not an easy child. One of her nannies recalls: “Some children will do as they are
told immediately. Diana wouldn’t. It was always a little battle of wills.” Diana will remain
with a will of her own until the end of her life.
Childhood of Princess Diana – The years at school
Like the children in many rich or old families in England, the Spencer children went to the
boarding school. Diana never rose to any noticeable academic heights, but she came to excel
in many other ways. Miss Lowe, her teacher, particularly remembered Diana for her
“kindness to the smaller members of the community, her general helpfulness, her love of
animals, and her excellence at swimming and indeed her considerable prow ess in general
physical activities.”
Diana was very good at music and sport. She played tennis fairly well, she won the diving
prize, she excelled at netball. At Riddlesworth she won the Pets Corner cup, the prize for the
best-kept pet. West Heath rewarded her social work with a special award for service.
Diana’s grades were not enough, however, to continue her
education at the age of sixteen. Later she made an attempt
to stay at prestigious Swiss finishing school to improve her
French. But she quickly became homesick and flew home
with a firm intention to start working.
After leaving school she got a job as a nanny and part time
cook. Later she took a assistant teaching post at a
kindergarten school in Knightsbridge, London. It was
whilst working as an assistant here that she was first
introduced to her future husband Charles
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FAMILLY & MARRIAGE
Diana's family, the Spencers, had been close to the British Royal Family for decades. Her
maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a longtime friend of, and a lady-in-waiting to
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
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 Protestant and, preferably, a virgin. 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 Pimlico. 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 to the throne since 1659, when Lady
Anne Hyde married the Duke of York and
Albany, the future King James II. Upon her
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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.
Children
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.
On 5 November 1981, Diana's first pregnancy was officially announced, and she frankly
discussed her pregnancy with members of the press corps. In the private Lindo Wing of St.
Mary's Hospital, Paddington on 21 June 1982, Diana gave birth to her and Prince Charles's
first son and heir, William. Among some media, she decided to take William, still a baby, on
her first major overseas visit to Australia and New Zealand, but th e decision was popularly
applauded. By her own admission, Diana had not initially intended to bring William until it
was suggested by the Australian Prime Minister.
A second son, Harry, was born about two years after William on 15 September 1984. Diana
asserted that she and Prince Charles were closest during her pregnancy with "Harry", as the
younger prince became known. She was aware their second child was a boy, but did not share
the knowledge with anyone else, including Prince Charles.
She was universally regarded as a devoted and demonstrative mother. However, she rarely
deferred to Prince Charles or to the Royal Family,
and was often intransigent when it came to the
children. She chose their first given names, defied
the royal custom of circumcision, dismissed a royal
family nanny and engaged one of her own choosing,
in addition to selecting their schools and clothing,
planning their outings and taking them to school
herself as often as her schedule permitted. She also
negotiated her public duties around their timetables.
After the birth of Prince William, the Princess of
Wales suffered from post-natal depression. She had
previously suffered from bulimia nervosa, which
recurred, and she made a number of suicide
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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 (that is, Queen Elizabeth II). 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. It has also been suggested that she suffered from borderline personality disorder.
ACCUMPLISHMENTS OF PRINCESS DIANA
Diana, Princess of Wales, was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the mother of
Princes William and Henry.
One of the greatest accomplishments of Princess Diana was without any doubt the fact that
she did succeed in making the world a better place for a lot of people all over the world.
Princess Diana helped very many people personally, but she was also a supporter of many
charity projects.
She played an active role in the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines, a campaign that
won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Her
participation was due to her concern about
injuries landmines create, often to children.
One of the accomplishments of Princess Diana
was her help to raise AIDS awareness. At the
time when people were frightened about
catching AIDS by touching someone, she
visited people with AIDS to show that this
wasn’t true. She showed to the world that people with AIDS deserve compassion and
kindness. A lot of charity work of Princess Diana involved children of any kinds. As a patron
of the British Deaf Association Princess Diana had taken the initiative to learn a number of
words in sign language. She would work on her skill, master it and later use it in her work.
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The children at East End school for the deaf invented a special sign for her: you run your
hand from the front of your hair to the back, referring to her famous hairstyle…
One of the achievements of Princess Diana was raising funds for various charities. A lot of
charities raised substantial amounts of money from just one appearance by the Princess at a
ball or film premiere. However Diana always made sure not to be associated with the
glamorous side of things. She would visit every charity under her patronage at least twice a
year, talking to the staff personally.
Princess Diana had a rare ability to make people happy just by talking to them, shaking their
hands, or giving a hug. Her ability to listen, look directly into the eye, and talk to a person in
a way that “made you feel that you were the only person that she was at all interested”, made
her a subject of true admiration and love of a lot of people that she helped. Once asked if she
ever felt depressed about visiting terminally ill patients, she replied: "No, sitting on the edge
of someone's bed in those situations is the least complicated relationship you can have in your
life. They're happy to see you, you're happy to do whatever small amount you can do just by
being there. And it's incredibly energizing. It's what keeps me going."
One of the greatest accomplishments of Princess Diana was raising her two children in love
and devotion to them, and with a very high degree of awareness of her role as a mother of a
future king. Like in many other aspects of her royal life, with her children she would also
follow her heart rather than follow the royal protocols.
Diana was a different royal mother: she wanted to keep her children with her, and to give
them plenty of love. She would not be afraid to give them love and hugs in public. From their
younger years Diana’s children were involved in her charity work: writing letters to some of
the people she had met and talked about,
visiting sick people in hospitals, visiting
together with her the places where homeless
people lived. Her sons would never forget the
other side of life their mother showed them. It
was an idea of Prince William to sell a lot of her
dresses for charity.
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The accomplishments of Princess Diana can be best summarized in the words of Queen
Elizabeth II:
“She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her
capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired
and respected her - for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion
to her two boys. ...”
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
knowingly touching a person infected with the
HIV virus. 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', 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 deserve no isolation, but compassion and kindness. It helped
change world opinion, and gave hope to people with AIDS with an outcome of saved lives of
people at risk.
Landmines
Perhaps her most widely publicized 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
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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. (In fact, 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 Honorable 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".
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Princess Diana once admitted that her work came “from the heart, not from the head.” And it
was not merely a part of royal protocol to her. She was not afraid of illness, nor meeting
people who were dying. She was ready with a hug and kiss for everyone.
Once a man who could not see, but wanted to know what Diana was like, asked her if he
could touch her face. “Of course you can,” she said. He moved his hands over her face until
he could make a picture of her in his head. “You are very pretty!” he said.
In 1982, the newspapers reported that Diana was working with five charities. In 1985 this
number grew to eighteen. Diana frequently visited children’s’ hospitals, and often little
children felt that she was their special friend.
Princess Diana once said: “I’m not frightened of dying, if
I can die happy.”
PROBLEMS & SEPARATION
From left to right, Prince Charles and the Princess
of Wales, the United States First Lady Nancy
Reagan, and United States President Ronald
Reagan in November 1985.
During the early 1990s, 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.
The chronology of the break-up identifies reported difficulties between Charles and Diana as
early as 1985. During 1986, Prince Charles turned again to his former girlfriend, Camilla
Shand, who had become Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Andrew Parker-Bowles. This affair
was exposed in May 1992 with the publication of Diana: Her True Story, by Andrew
Morton. The book, which also laid bare Diana's allegedly suicidal unhappiness, caused a
media storm. This publication was followed during 1992 and 1993 by leaked tapes of
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telephone conversations which negatively reflected on both the royal antagonists. Transcripts
of taped intimate conversations between Diana and James Gilbey were published by the Sun
newspaper in Britain in August 1992. The article's title, "Squidgygate", referenced Gilbey's
affectionate nickname for Diana. Next to surface, in November 1992, were the leaked
"Camillagate" tapes, intimate exchanges between Charles and Camilla, published in Today
and the Mirror newspapers.
In the meantime, rumours had begun to surface about Diana's relationship with Major James
Hewitt, her former riding instructor. These would be brought into the open by the publication
in 1994 of Princess in Love.
In December 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the Wales' "amicable separation"
to the House of Commons, and the full Camillagate transcript was published a month later in
the newspapers, in January 1993. On 3 December 1993, Diana announced her withdrawal
from public life. Charles sought public understanding via a televised interview with Jonathan
Dimbleby on 29 June 1994. In this he confirmed his own extramarital affair with Camilla,
saying that he had only rekindled their association in 1986, after his marriage to the Princess
of Wales had "irretrievably broken down.”
While she blamed Camilla Parker-Bowles for her marital troubles, Diana at some point began
to believe Charles had other affairs. In October 1993 Diana wrote to a friend that she believed
her husband was now in love with Tiggy Legge-Bourke and wanted to marry her. Legge-
Bourke had been hired by Prince Charles as a young companion for his sons while they were
in his care, and Diana was extremely resentful of
Legge-Bourke and her relationship with the young
princes.
DIVORCE
Diana at the Cannes film festival in 1987
Diana was interviewed in a BBC Panorama interview
with journalist Martin Bashir, broadcast on 20
November 1995. In it, Diana asserted of Hewitt, "Yes, I
loved him. Yes, I adored him." Of Camilla, she claimed
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"There were three of us in this marriage." For herself, she said "I'd like to be a queen of
people's hearts." On Charles's suitability for kingship, she said: "Because I know the
character I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him,
and I don't know whether he could adapt to that."
In December 1995, the Queen asked Charles and Diana for "an early divorce," as a direct
result of Diana's Panorama interview. This followed shortly after Diana's accusation that
Tiggy Legge-Bourke had aborted Charles's child, after which Legge-Bourke instructed Peter
Carter-Ruck to demand an apology. Two days before this story broke, Diana's secretary
Patrick Jephson resigned, later writing Diana had "exulted in accusing Legge-Bourke of
having had an abortion".
On 20 December 1995, Buckingham Palace publicly announced 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 Diana
announced her agreement after negotiations with Prince Charles and representatives of
Queen, irritating Buckingham Palace by issuing her own announcement of a divorce
agreement and its terms.
The divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.
Diana received a lump sum settlement of around £17 million along with a clause standard in
royal divorces preventing her from discussing the details. Diana and her advisers negotiated
with Charles and his representatives, with Charles reportedly having to liquidate all of his
personal holdings, as well as borrowing from the Queen, to meet her financial demands. The
Royal Family would have preferred an alimony settlement, which would have provided some
degree of control over the erstwhile Princess of Wales.[citation needed]
Days before the decree absolute of divorce, Letters Patent were issued with general rules to
regulate royal titles after divorce. In accordance, as she was no longer married to the Prince
of Wales, 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 decree absolute of divorce
was issued, announcing Diana's change of title.
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Buckingham Palace stated Diana was still a member of the Royal Family, as she was the
mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne, which was confirmed by the Deputy
Coroner of the Queen’s Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, after a pre-hearing on 8 January
2007: "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 Family and the other was not."
Personal life after divorce
After the divorce, Diana retained her double apartment on the north side of Kensington
Palace, which she had shared with Prince Charles since the first year of their marriage, and it
remained her home until her death.
Diana dated the respected heart surgeon Hasnat
Khan, from Jhelum, Pakistan, who was called
"the love of her life" after her death by many of
her closest friends,[35] for almost two years,
before Khan ended the relationship.[36][37] Khan
was intensely private and the relationship was
conducted in secrecy, with Diana lying to
members of the press who questioned her about
it. Khan was from a traditional Pakistani family
who expected him to marry from a related
Muslim clan, and although Diana expressed
willingness to convert to Islam, their differences,
not only religion, became too much for Khan.
According to Khan's testimonial at the inquest
for her death, it was Diana herself, not Khan, who ended their relationship in a late-night
meeting in Hyde Park, which adjoins the grounds of Kensington Palace, in June 1997.