Who Were Princess Diana's Parents? All About John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty ; Serge Lemoine/Hulton Archive/Getty

Princess Diana’s parents wereJohn SpencerandFrances Shand Kydd. The two married in 1954 and divorced 15 years later. Spencer and Shand Kydd had five children together, three girls and two boys — one of whom died shortly after birth — before going their separate ways.

Edward John Spencerwas born on Jan. 24, 1924, to parentsAlbert Spencerand LadyCynthia Hamilton. He attended Eton College before he enrolled at the Sandhurst Military Academy.Frances Shand Kydd(née Frances Ruth Burke Roche) was born on Jan. 20, 1936, to parents Maurice Roche and Ruth Sylvia Gill.

Keep reading to learn more about Princess Diana’s parents, John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd.

Queen Elizabeth II was a guest at their wedding

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Shand Kydd married Spencer when she was just 18 years old. The two exchanged vows atWestminster Abbey, andQueen ElizabethII was in attendance, per theBBC. The wedding was considered “the social event of 1954,” according to the report.

They had 5 children together, including Princess Diana

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One year after they wed, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter namedElizabeth Sarah Lavinia. Two years later,Cynthia Janejoined the family. Their third child was a son named John, who was born in 1960. According toThe Mirror, he died hours after he was born.

Though Spencer was hoping for another boy,Diana Franceswas born the next year. In 1964, the couple welcomed their youngest,Charles Edward Maurice, who would eventually inherit Earl Spencer’s title.

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Spencer worked as aroyal equerryfor bothKing George VIand the youngQueen Elizabeth,according to the BBC,and rented a home at the Queen’s estate in Sandringham when his children were young. The family lived atPark House, where Diana was born in 1961.

“There’s always been something special about Park House. It’s difficult to put a finger on what it is,” Diana’s former nanny Ingrid Crane toldCNNin 2007.

They divorced when Princess Diana was young

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Spencer and Shand Kydd’s relationship began to sour in 1967. At the time, Shand Kydd had fallen in love with another man, according toThe Washington Post.

“We just drifted apart, and there was nothing either of us could do about it,” Shand Kydd said at the time, according toThe Telegraph. They divorced in 1969.

Spencer was awarded sole custody of his children, and while Sarah and Jane left to attend boarding school, Diana and her younger brother lived at Althorp with their dad.

Their mother married Peter Shand Kydd in 1969, although the two later divorced in 1990.

“Diana and I had two older sisters who were away at school, so she and I were very much in it together and I did talk to her about it,“Charles toldThe Sunday Timesin 2020. “Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity. Not her fault, she couldn’t do it. She was in love with someone else — infatuated, really.”

John Spencer remarried without telling his kids

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In 1976, Spencer wedRaine McCorquodalewithout telling his children. When Diana found out, she was so upset that she smacked her father across the face.

“I was the little crusader here … and I got really angry and I, if I remember rightly, I slapped him across the face, and I said, ‘That’s from all of us, for hurting us’ and walked out and slammed the door,” Diana said in video tapes recorded with her voice coach, according to theDaily Mail.

John Spencer walked Princess Diana down the aisle in 1981

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Spencer walked his daughter down the aisle whenshe marriedthen-Prince Charlesin 1981. Three years before the wedding,Spencer suffered a stroke, which left him with some balance issues.

“There are times I wish she was marrying an ordinary chap, so I could have her and my son-in-law living here with me in the park,” Spencer said after Diana’s engagement, referring to his home at Althorp.

Spencer faced health challenges in the years that followed. In March 1992, he wasadmitted to the hospitalwith pneumonia. He latersuffered a heart attackand died at 68 years old.

Princess Diana was not in touch with her mother later on in life

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Diana had a difficultrelationship with her motherwhen she was younger, and as an adult, Diana and her mother hada falling out. Things really seemed to go south afterDiana and Charles' wedding, however.

“My mother let me down terribly with the wedding. She kept crying … saying that she couldn’t cope with the pressure,” sherevealed in recordingswith biographer Andrew Morton. “I didn’t speak to her for three or four years afterward. She drove me mad … It was me that was being strong and her sobbing the whole time.”

In the last few months of Diana’s life, Shand Kydd would write her daughter letters, but they would be returned unopened.

Shand Kydd diedat her home in Scotland on June 3, 2004.

source: people.com