Early life and education

Diana was born at Park House, the home that her parents rented on Queen Elizabeth II’s estate at Sandringham and where Diana’s childhood playmates were the queen’s younger sons, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. She was the third child and youngest daughter of Edward John Spencerand his first wife, Frances Ruth Burke Roche (daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy). Her parents’ troubled marriage ended in divorce when Diana was a child, and she, along with her brother and two sisters, remained with her father. She became Lady Diana Spencer when her father succeeded to the earldom in 1975.

Marriage and divorce

She renewed her contacts with the royal family, and her friendship with Charles grew in 1980. On February 24, 1981, their engagement was announced, and her beauty and shy demeanour—which earned her the nickname “Shy Di”—made her an instant sensation with the media and the public. The couple married in St. Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981, in a globally televised ceremony watched by an audience numbering in the hundreds of millions. Their first child, Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales, was born on June 21, 1982, and their second, Prince Henry (“Harry”) Charles Albert David, on September 15, 1984.

“Princess Di” rapidly evolved into an icon of grace, elegance, and glamour. Exuding natural charm and charisma, she used her celebrity status to aid numerous charitable causes, and her changing hairstyles and wardrobe made her a fashion trendsetter. Behind the scenes, however, marital difficulties between the princess and prince were growing. Diana struggled with severe postnatal depression, low self-esteem, eating disorders, and the mounting strain of being constantly pursued by both the official media royal-watchers and the tabloid press, particularly the paparazzi.

“The People’s Princess” and charity work

After the divorce, Diana maintained her high public profile and continued many of the activities she had earlier undertaken on behalf of charities, supporting causes as diverse as the arts, children’s issues. She also was involved in efforts to ban land mines. To ensure that William and Harry had “an understanding of people’s emotions, their insecurities, people’s distress, and their hopes and dreams,” Diana brought her sons with her to hospitals, homeless shelters, and orphanages. To acquaint them with the world outside royal privilege, she took them to fast food restaurants and on public transportation. Her compassion, personal warmth, humility, and accessibility earned her the sobriquet “the People’s Princess.”

Death and funeral

Long one of the most-photographed women in the world, Diana’s unprecedented popularity both in Britain and abroad continued after her divorce. Although she used that celebrity to great effect in promoting her charitable work, the media (in particular the paparazzi) were often intrusive. It was while attempting to evade pursuing journalists that Diana was killed, along with her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, in an automobile accident in a tunnel under the streets of Paris in 1997.

Though the photographers were initially blamed for causing the accident, a French judge in 1999 cleared them of any wrongdoing, instead faulting Paul, who was found to have had a blood alcohol level over the legal limit at the time of the crash and to have taken prescription drugs incompatible with alcohol. In 2006 a Scotland Yard inquiry into the incident also concluded that the driver was at fault. In April 2008, however, a British inquest jury ruled both the driver and the paparazzi guilty of unlawful killing through grossly negligent driving, though it found no evidence of a conspiracy to kill Diana or Fayed, an accusation long made by Fayed’s father.

Why was Prince Charles questioned about Princess Diana’s death in 2004?

Years after Princess Diana died, the British Metropolitan Police opened an inquiry into her death and requested to interview and question Prince Charles. The police had been told about a note that Princess Diana wrote in 1995 that read, “My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury.” Diana reportedly believed that Charles might be planning such an accident so that he could marry Prince William and Prince Harry‘s nanny at the time.

Nothing came of the investigation, and Charles participated fully.