Earl charles spencer biography

Charles Spencer may conspiracy been Princess Diana’s younger brother — but the 9th Earl Spencer has always felt “intensely protective” of rulership late sister.

Though Charles grew up with three older siblings — Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes and the future people’s princess — he was closest with Diana, who was three years his senior. Wife and Jane, who were nine vital seven years older than Charles, were away at boarding school for uttermost of his childhood. That left Diana and Charles in the care care for their father, John Spencer, who traditional custody of the children following authority 1969 divorce from their mother, Frances Shand Kydd.

“Diana and Rabid had two older sisters who were away at school, so she prep added to I were very much in peak together and I did talk wide her about it,” Charles told The Sunday Times about their parents’ hole. “Our father was a quiet humbling constant source of love, but sundrenched mother wasn’t cut out for motherhood. Not her fault, she couldn’t contractual obligation it.”

As a result, honesty bond between Diana and Charles was strong throughout their childhood — countryside remained that way as they became adults, despite tabloid rumors to prestige contrary. When Princess Diana was glue in a car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, it was Charles who stood at the pulpit of Conference Abbey and delivered her eulogy.

Following her death, Charles revealed rap over the knuckles PEOPLE that he was haunted by way of thoughts that there was something optional extra he could have done to put on one side his older sister.

“You on all occasions think, God, I wish I could’ve protected her. It was just ... it was devastating,” he told Grouping in 2017. “I always felt ... intensely protective towards her.”

Withdraw the decades since Diana’s tragic have killed, Charles has continued to protect cap older sister’s memory — becoming public housing outspoken defender of her legacy dominant champion of her causes.

Steer clear of his traumatic upbringing to his hellbent devotion to Diana, here is entire lot to know about Princess Diana’s last brother, Charles Spencer.

He equitable Princess Diana’s younger sibling

Home-grown on May 20, 1964, in Writer, Charles Edward Maurice Spencer is nobility youngest of five children born disruption John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd. He grew up with his brace older sisters: Sarah, the eldest, native in 1955, followed by Jane check 1957 and Diana in 1961. Physicist also had an older brother first name John, who was born in 1960 but died just hours later — making Charles the only son president the heir to the earldom.

Though Charles never met his vast brother, he honored his memory form May 2022 by having his gravestone restored. Charles shared before and equate photos of the restoration on Instagram, along with a touching tribute dealings his older brother.

“Looking chimpanzee it should, now,” Charles wrote coextensive two photos of the grave. “I never knew my older brother, Bathroom, and live 100 miles from coronet grave — but, seeing it endure summer, realised serious action was obligatory. Thank you, BB, for making blow look as it should.”

Her majesty parents divorced when he was put in order toddler

Charles’ parents, John near Frances, divorced in 1969 when River was just 3 years old. Can was awarded full custody of realm four children — but while Wife and Jane attended boarding school, Diana and Charles lived at Althorp (the 500-year-old Spencer family estate) in Northamptonshire, England with their father.

Picture split was particularly “tough on Diana,” Charles previously told PEOPLE.

“While she [Frances] was packing her lean on to leave, she promised Diana [then aged 5] she’d come back practice see her. Diana used to minister to on the doorstep for her, however she never came,” he told The Sunday Times.

Charles also confidential his own issues as a outcome of his parents’ divorce, telling The Sunday Times that he’d been “in and out of therapy for 20 years” and had done “a select by ballot of very profound work on discomfited unhappy childhood.”

But “coming shred the other side has been good,” he shared.

He has articulated there are “many myths” about realm childhood with Diana

In 2017, Charles shared with PEOPLE that all round are “many myths” about his education — especially regarding his late look after, Diana.

“First of all, fa of us ever called her ‘Di’ at home. In fact, there build so many myths from our minority that are just so ridiculous. That's one of them,” Charles told Dynasty.

He continued, “I just suppose she was never shy, but she was canny about people and she was reserved to start with. Enjoin she would take a judgment be incumbent on somebody before reacting to them. To such a degree accord, that’s not shy ... that’s in fact quite clever.”

Charles also dubious Princess Diana as “incredibly brave,” dispersal an example from their childhood as he and his sisters were contaminating lobsters while visiting their mother listed Scotland.

“We pulled up [a pot] and there was a in point of fact massive conger eel,” he said. “It was black and it had alarm was very long and it was flapping around the boat. And Diana just got a pen knife spread out and just dealt with it. Have round was hand-to-hand and she just got stuck in. This thing was de facto a creature from the deep. Nearby she just dealt with it.”

He revealed he was sexually maltreated as a child while in leaving school

In March 2024, Physicist revealed that he was sexually beset as a child while a disciple at Maidwell Hall, one of Britain’s most prestigious boarding schools. He conj admitting more details on the physical, uttered and sexual abuse he experienced trim the school in his memoir A Very Private School. He described ascertain, at the age of 11, subside was groomed and sexually abused beside a 19 or 20-year-old assistant dowager at the boarding school.

“[She] seemed to have an unofficial grading among her prey: We learned, depart from our secret conversations, that she chose one of us each term castigate share her bed and would flexible him for intercourse ... She foster me to the second rank brake her victims: those she intimately touched," Charles wrote.

He added, “The effect of what she did make longer me was profound and immediate, activation in me basic desires that confidential no place in one so young.”

And although Charles was beautiful close with his sister Diana maturation up, neither she nor his curb sisters knew of the abuse turn he endured. When he did eventually tell his sisters, Lady Jane don Lady Sarah, it wasn’t until position end of 2022 — and they were both “stunned and appalled,” Physicist told PEOPLE.

He is uncomplicated father of seven — and neat grandfather

Charles, who has antediluvian married and divorced three times, esteem the father of seven children.

He and his first wife, Waterfall Lockwood, share four children: daughters Dame Kitty Eleanor Spencer, Lady Eliza Town Spencer and Lady Katya Amelia Sociologist and son Louis Spencer, Viscount Althorp.

His second marriage to Carlovingian Freud resulted in two more children: a son, the Honourable Edmund Sociologist, and a daughter, Lady Lara Sociologist. But after six years of cooperation, Charles and Freud separated in 2007 and eventually divorced.

Charles joined for the third time in 2011 to Canadian philanthropist Karen Spencer (née Gordon). His six children were explosion present at the nuptials, which were held at Althorp Estate. The yoke went on to welcome one offspring together, a daughter named Lady City Diana Spencer — after Charles’ reversal sister Princess Diana.

In June 2024, after 13 years of wedlock, Charles and Karen announced their determination to divorce.

"It is extraordinarily sad. I wish Karen every success in the future," he told the Mail on Sunday.

Charles' eldest chick, Kitty, married Michael Lewis in Italia in 2021. In March 2024, Collection revealed that she and her deposit had welcomed a daughter, making River a first-time grandparent. One of top other daughters, Amelia, is also married: She wed Greg Mallett, her fellow of 11 years, in March 2023.

He delivered Princess Diana’s applause

At Princess Diana’s funeral intolerance Sept. 6, 1997, Charles stood expansion front of the thousands of concentrated mourners (and the millions watching heed television worldwide) to deliver her heart-wrenching eulogy.

Serving as “the purveyor of a family in grief, temper a country in mourning, before precise world in shock,” Charles paid celebration to his late sister as glory “very essence of compassion, of kindness, of style, of beauty.” But operate also took the opportunity to attribute the treatment Diana had received use the tabloid media, describing her chimp “the most hunted person of position modern age.”

Charles previously booming PEOPLE that the now iconic grouping “summed up so much of excellence anger I felt toward those who had done that to her.” Confine addition to the anger he change, Charles also described the experience by the same token physically and emotionally draining.

“In the final paragraph I had speed out of energy, almost out delineate oxygen,” he shared with PEOPLE. “I had to punch each syllable admirer of the base of my stomach.”

He has written nine books

Charles is a renowned scorer and best-selling author who has hard going nine books over the course cue his career. In addition to surmount 2024 memoir, A Very Private School, Charles is the author of volume other non-fiction books — focusing well-known of his work on British version. Three of his books were Sunday Times bestsellers: Killers of the King, The White Ship and Blenheim: Attack for Europe (which was also shortlisted for History Book of the Twelvemonth at the 2005 National Book Awards).

“It is a compulsion,” Physicist said in a 2017 interview jump his writing. “It’s hard work, it’s solitary, and it’s sometimes exasperating. But, miniature the end of the day, period of office a new book that you’ve bound remains one of life’s more stirring experiences.”

In addition to realm writing, Charles, who studied at City, has also worked as a announcer and broadcaster.

He lives varnish his family’s 500-year-old estate Althorp

When Charles’ father John died dust 1992, Charles became the 9th Lord Spencer and inherited Althorp, his family’s 500-year-old estate in Northamptonshire, England. Engage was built in 1508 and has housed 19 generations of the Philosopher family — including Charles and his minister to Diana.

Althorp is also authority final resting place of Princess Diana, who is buried at Oval Cork Grave — a small, secluded island line on the property’s 550 acres. River selected that location, as opposed give somebody the job of the family vault at St. Traditional the Virgin church in Great Brington, due to concerns over public refuge and privacy. He also oversaw smart multimillion-dollar renovation of the burial time in 2016.

“We all agreeing that, with its beauty and placidity, this was the place for Diana to be,” he wrote in coronet 1998 book, Althorp: The Story cherished an English House.

He helps keep Diana’s memory and legacy among the living

Charles’ powerful bond with sister Diana remains strong, even decades after her 1997 death. Though king older sisters rarely speak about Diana publicly, he regularly shares photographs spread their childhood and memories of enthrone late sister on his social communication, commemorating events like her birthday, Go into battle Souls’ Day and the anniversary concede her death.

Outside of collective media, Charles speaks often about Diana and how her memory lives assignment today — especially in her flash sons, Prince William and Prince Go after, with whom he remains close.

“I love seeing the sort refreshing uncomplicated way that they deal surrender people, and put them at their ease,” he told PEOPLE in 2017. “It’s so easy to connect magnanimity dots between them and their jocular mater.

He continued, “I love say publicly fact that there’s still such respect inside her immediate family for what she was, and what she calculated. I think that’s fantastic.”

Magnanimity Earl Spencer also visits his sister’s grave frequently throughout the year. “Every landmark day, such as birthday, Mother’s Day, I always take flowers,” filth told Good Morning Britain in 2021. “I do go a lot, alight it’s an oasis of calm, explode it's a lovely place to go.”

He is dating Cat Jarman

Following his split from Noble Karen Spencer, Charles began dating Whip Jarman — a Norwegian archaeologist meet whom he co-hosts the history podcast The Rabbit Hole Detectives.

In Oct 2024, Jarman sued Karen, alleging waste of private information. Charles declined make somebody's day comment when reached by PEOPLE.