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00:00:01Tonight, when the Spencers met the monarchy,
00:00:04it should have been the ideal union of two noble families.
00:00:08The Spencers were perfect royal in-laws.
00:00:11They were blue bloods, British aristocracy.
00:00:13On paper, they couldn't have been better.
00:00:16When they became engaged, the Queen said, oh, she's one of us.
00:00:20But these two blue-blooded families were on a collision course.
00:00:24The Spencers and the Windsors, it's been at times the clash of the titans.
00:00:29This film will shed new light on the colourful, controversial Spencer family.
00:00:34Diana's stepmother reign was an absolute force of nature.
00:00:39Two families both very similar and very different.
00:00:43The Windsors wouldn't express their emotions,
00:00:46whereas the Spencers expressed it in volumes, catastrophically sometimes.
00:00:52Featuring insider accounts and recently unearthed footage.
00:00:56I've never seen her show her dissatisfaction on camera before.
00:01:00It's a most remarkable piece of footage.
00:01:03We go behind the scenes of the ultimate family fallout.
00:01:07Emotions were running very high.
00:01:09It was unconventional. It was rebellious.
00:01:12It was all the words that you come to associate with the Spencers.
00:01:15The rift between the Spencers and the Windsors had become a gulf.
00:01:19And reveal how the Spencer family changed the house of Windsor forever.
00:01:24Without the Spencers, the Windsors wouldn't be the family they are today.
00:01:28When Charles Spencer went to the pulpit, we expected it to be emotional.
00:01:53But his eulogy was explosive.
00:01:56I stand before you today the representative of a family in grief.
00:02:01In a country in mourning. Before a world in shock.
00:02:06In front of the royal family and a global television audience of billions,
00:02:10Diana's younger brother launched into a devastating attack on the house of Windsor.
00:02:16I thought, oh my goodness, he's actually damning the royal family.
00:02:21I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way
00:02:28in which you were steering these two exceptional young men.
00:02:31It was critical of the monarch to her face, critical of the royal family to their faces.
00:02:36So that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.
00:02:43Earl Spencer's eulogy was an extraordinary act of rebellion.
00:02:48For centuries, there had been a strong alliance between the Spencers and the Windsors.
00:02:53Charles Spencer, making this eulogy, was looking across the coffin of his sister towards the Queen.
00:03:00And the Queen is his godmother. That's how closely bound the Windsors and the Spencers are.
00:03:06Earl Spencer's emotional eulogy laid bare the differences between the Spencers and the royals.
00:03:13Differences that had existed from the moment the families first met.
00:03:19Back in 1980, the press were desperate to find out anything they could about a young English aristocrat called Lady Diana Spencer.
00:03:41From the moment she was pegged as a girlfriend of Prince Charles, Diana's life had been turned completely upside down.
00:03:49She'd gone from being just a regular girl about town, albeit a very upper class one, to suddenly the centre of media attention.
00:03:57It was absolutely overwhelming.
00:03:59While the world might have only just learned her name, the royal family knew the Spencers well. Very well.
00:04:06And as a Spencer, Diana would make more than a suitable spouse for the heir to the throne.
00:04:12Diana came from a truly aristocratic family. The Spencers go back centuries, you know, and had been part of the nobility of this country for a very long time.
00:04:34The Spencers of Orphal came to prominence in the 15th century, when their enormous fortune brought them an earldom from Charles I.
00:04:43For the next 300 years, the Spencers were regulars at the royal palaces.
00:04:49You can look to almost every generation and you'll see that there's a connection between the Spencers and the Windsors.
00:04:55Both of Diana's grandmothers served the Queen Mother in one way or another.
00:05:00In many ways, Diana was more royal than the royals. She could trace her ancestry back to the first Tudor King, Henry VII.
00:05:08She could trace her ancestry back to James I. Her blue blood was absolutely impeccable.
00:05:16Diana was proud of her heritage. She always used to refer to the House of Windsor as the Germans,
00:05:21because her family, the Spencers, had been in Britain for many, many years before the Windsors moved from Germany.
00:05:28So there was that kind of generational snobbishness that her family was, if not as grand, grander than the royal family.
00:05:38Centuries later, the Spencers and the royal family remained close.
00:05:44So close, in fact, that Diana wasn't even the first of her sisters to date the Prince.
00:05:50In 1977, the Prince was dating her elder sister, Lady Sarah, and had been invited by Sarah and her father to join a shoot on the Althorpe estate.
00:06:03Sarah had the Spencer red hair. She had the Miss fiery temperament. She knew exactly what she wanted. She certainly gave Prince Charles a bit of a run around.
00:06:14But Sarah had soon blown her chances when she gave a candid interview to the press.
00:06:19What goes on within palace walls stays within palace walls. And to break that rule so openly was a fatal mistake by Sarah.
00:06:31While Sarah and Charles' budding romance was over, the relationship between the Windsors and the Spencers ran much deeper.
00:06:38Diana's father, Johnny Spencer, had been an equerry in Australia when the Queen made a very long tour early in her reign.
00:06:49Johnny Spencer was about as dim as an aristocrat can possibly be.
00:06:54His commanding officer in the army had said that if you set his trousers on fire, it would take him ten minutes to realise that his bottom was burning.
00:07:03But that was not a big disadvantage, because he knew how to behave, he was extremely polite, his manners were impeccable, and he revered the royal family.
00:07:14But the Queen's relationship with Johnny Spencer was more than professional.
00:07:19There was a strong bond of affection between Johnny Spencer and Queen Elizabeth.
00:07:24When he was serving in World War II, you know, they corresponded too.
00:07:28So he would be a number of eligible young men that may have even been considered to be a future husband to the Queen.
00:07:39When he married Francis Fermoy, the Queen, the Queen Mother, came to their wedding.
00:07:46And the Queen donated St James's Palace so that he could have a wonderful reception.
00:07:53As the two families grew, they remained close.
00:07:57For the majority of Diana's childhood, the Spencers were the Queen's nearest neighbours.
00:08:02Diana had lived at Park House, which was next door to Sandringham, so she was part of that world.
00:08:07Diana used to go and play at what they called the Big House with Prince Andrew, who was almost the same age as her.
00:08:14And one of the nannies actually remembers seeing the Queen on our hands and knees playing hide-and-seek with Diana and Prince Andrew.
00:08:25The Queen Mother and Lady Fermoy, Diana's maternal grandmother, plotted to see if they could get Charles to marry Diana.
00:08:35The Spencers were perfect to become royal in-laws.
00:08:40They knew royal protocol. They were friends of the royal family.
00:08:43They were British aristocracy. On paper, they couldn't have been better.
00:08:47But while the Spencers had all the right credentials to make this the perfect match, their characters were the polar opposite of the Windsors.
00:08:57The Windsors kept everything to themselves. They wouldn't express their emotions.
00:09:02Whereas the Spencers expressed it in volumes, catastrophically sometimes.
00:09:09They argued and fought and were quite dysfunctional.
00:09:13Diana's parents, Johnny and Frances' marriage, was particularly volatile.
00:09:18Johnny Spencer was always seen as a gentle sort of figure. That was his public image.
00:09:23But behind closed doors, he did have a temper on him and Frances too was very forthright and the two clashed.
00:09:31This very early on damaged Diana as it would any child. No child wants to see their parents screaming at each other.
00:09:40By the time Diana was six years old, her parents' marriage was over.
00:09:44The divorce was one of bitterness and acrimony. The family was split.
00:09:51Diana's grandmother testified against her own daughter in favour of Earl Spencer.
00:09:56He won custody of the children, which was very unusual in those days.
00:10:00And Diana was deeply affected by it, to the point where she almost stopped speaking.
00:10:05And it's something which stayed with her all her life.
00:10:08Then in 1976, All Forb House gained a new, suitably extrovert resident.
00:10:15Diana's stepmother, Rain.
00:10:17Rain was an absolute force of nature.
00:10:22She was a remarkable creature in many ways.
00:10:25Famous for this sort of quaffed helmet of hair.
00:10:28She was a massive social climber.
00:10:31Her mother was a very colourful character.
00:10:34She was the Mills and Boone writer, Barbara Cartland, who really turned Rain into a sort of a project, really.
00:10:43Rain, she was determined, was to marry well.
00:10:46She set out not just to marry Johnny Spencer, but to marry a house.
00:10:50She really wanted to be Chatelaine of Arthur.
00:10:53The latest member of the Spencer family did not receive a warm welcome from Diana and her siblings.
00:10:59They used to hum the old nursery rhyme, Rain, Rain, go away, come back another day, very much in her hearing.
00:11:09Acid Rain was a later variant of Rain, Rain, go away.
00:11:14I mean, Acid Rain was very apt for Rain in many ways because she had a very sharp tongue on her.
00:11:22There were a lot of clashes between Rain and Johnny's children.
00:11:27Diana had a fantasy of how she would escape the unhappiness of Spencer family life, inspired by her new step-grandmother, Barbara Cartland.
00:11:36Diana, as a child, often had her head buried in these very romantic stories of the girl who's whisked off her feet by the handsome prince.
00:11:44Now, aged 19, Diana's fairy tale ending was within reach.
00:11:49The loud and emotional Spences and the discreet Windsors would soon be brought together for good.
00:11:56By February 1981, after just 13 dates, Prince Charles was ready to pop the question to the eminently suitable Lady Diana Spencer.
00:12:15Charles invited her down to Windsor Castle and they were in the nursery.
00:12:24And he just asked her, you know, would you like to marry me?
00:12:28And she said, oh, yes, please.
00:12:30It was just the ultimate dream for her.
00:12:33The beginning of a day to remember for Prince Charles, Lady Diana, and for quite a lot of other people, too.
00:12:48The long awaited, much written about engagement had happened.
00:12:52Diana had aristocratic blood.
00:12:55So, when they became engaged, the queen said, oh, she's one of us.
00:13:00The Spencers were respected aristocrats.
00:13:03But this royal union would propel the family to global fame.
00:13:08Johnny was taking one picture after another.
00:13:11It was, um, very sweet.
00:13:14Very happy for Diana, very happy.
00:13:16Diana's looking beautiful. She looks beautiful.
00:13:19Diana's lovely. Very, very happy. You haven't seen her look better.
00:13:22I think that a lot of people were suggesting that he was, he'd enjoyed a drink or two.
00:13:27But, of course, he'd had a stroke in 1978, which had impacted upon the way he spoke.
00:13:32It was the ultimate recognition of the aristocracy and the, um, amazing family the Spencers were,
00:13:42that, uh, the heir to the throne would want to marry his daughter.
00:13:48For Diana's stepmother, Rain, this was the moment in the spotlight that she had been waiting for.
00:13:55Rain wanted to make herself known and so wore a white mink coat so the cameras could focus on her straight away.
00:14:02She was now irretrievably linked to the royal family.
00:14:06She certainly had arrived.
00:14:07People wanted to hear, not just from the queen and the royal family, but from the Spencers.
00:14:13Lady Spencers, what are they going to do now? What are their plans now?
00:14:17Where are they going to get married and where will they go and have their honeymoon and where will they live?
00:14:22Well, I think so much has got to be decided. You know, there's so many imponderables.
00:14:27The weddings, I think, have been announced, will be in July, but no date has yet been fixed.
00:14:31For the obvious reasons, there's so many people's engagement books, uh, to, uh, rearrange.
00:14:39While Diana's father was over the moon his daughter would be a royal bride, her mother, Frances, was wary.
00:14:46What effect do you think it will have on her now that she's going to become a member of the royal family?
00:14:51Do you think it will be easy?
00:14:52It's a very hard question to answer, isn't it? Because it's an unknown world for her.
00:14:57Looking at a mother talking about the prospect of her daughter marrying Prince Charles, you would expect joy, positive energy.
00:15:09What we see here is something almost quite the opposite.
00:15:1312 years on from her acrimonious divorce from Diana's father, it felt like history was repeating itself.
00:15:21Frances, Diana's mother, uh, was terrified that her daughter was going to make the same mistake that she had made.
00:15:28She, Frances, had married very young. She was only 18 when she married Johnny Spencer.
00:15:33There was a big age gap, about 12 years. Isn't that familiar? The same as that between Charles and Diana.
00:15:40Diana's mother's concern was about to be proved well-founded.
00:15:47Following the official announcement of their engagement, Charles and Diana spoke to the press together for the first time.
00:15:56It would become one of the most prophetic interviews in history.
00:16:01I'm amazed that she's been brave enough to take me on.
00:16:06And I suppose in love. Of course.
00:16:09From Diana's point of view, it's very straightforward.
00:16:13We're going to get married. Why are you asking me if we're in love? Of course we are.
00:16:18But then Charles gave his answer.
00:16:21Whatever in love means.
00:16:24He was baffled as to how to answer a question that was about his emotions.
00:16:30Don't forget he'd been brought up by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to hide what they felt.
00:16:39Normally, the clip cuts when he says whatever in love means.
00:16:45But in this recently unearthed extended clip, you can see the full force of Diana's reaction.
00:16:51Whatever in love means.
00:16:54It obviously means two very happy people.
00:16:57Well, from us, congratulations. Thank you very much.
00:17:00Thank you very much. Of your kind.
00:17:12God, it's incredible.
00:17:14Looking at that now.
00:17:15I haven't seen that before.
00:17:17the expression on her face is so eloquent i've never seen her show so clearly her dissatisfaction
00:17:27with him on camera before it's it's a most remarkable piece of footage the silence between
00:17:33the two of them hangs terribly heavily diana really she couldn't be a spencer and show what
00:17:39she felt she had to be a windsor and keep it all under wraps you can actually see
00:17:46the light go out behind her eyes she felt almost her world collapse
00:17:58now the prince of wales's fiance the royal family felt diana needed their protection from the press
00:18:06and so for her last few months as lady spencer diana stayed at buckingham palace
00:18:11it was the perfect opportunity for the spencer who was soon to be a windsor to get to know her future
00:18:19in-laws diana has talked about being traumatized by her own parents divorce she saw getting married
00:18:29and belonging to the windsor family as an opportunity for her to create a stable loving secure family for
00:18:38herself moving into buckingham palace would have been quite a shock to the system prince andrew was away
00:18:47in the navy prince edward was away at school the queen and prince philip of course were in residence
00:18:52but royals don't just drop in on each other diana complained about her life at buckingham palace as
00:18:59being very lonely uh she felt isolated diana had serious cold feet she said to her sisters that she
00:19:06was going to call the wedding off and the sisters said too late dutch which is their nickname for
00:19:12diana your face is on the tea towels now so you can't chicken out
00:19:22while the world got ready for the wedding of the century the fractured spencer family became a national
00:19:28talking point one of the issues was over whether uh barbara cartland she was the mother of diana's
00:19:35stepmother would receive an invitation barbara cartland the romantic novelist who looked like a
00:19:42huge pot of candy floss was an embarrassment there was lots of to-ing and fro-ing about whether she
00:19:48would be invited to the wedding which of course she probably should have been but she wasn't instead
00:19:55diana's step-grandmother watched the wedding from home along with 750 million others around the world
00:20:02it really is a lovely cinderella story isn't it you know exactly a barbara cartland story
00:20:25just like to say a word now i say a word yes um the spencers have through the centuries
00:20:32fought for their king and country today diana is vowing to help her country for the rest of her
00:20:39life she'll be following in the tradition of her ancestors and she will have at her side the man she
00:20:46loves he was identifying the spencers and the royals and saying that to bring them together to unify
00:20:55them um was an act of um patriotism are you at all apprehensive about today not in the least
00:21:03i'm looking forward to every moment of it johnny spencer could barely contain himself on diana's
00:21:08wedding day as diana said to me he was waving himself stupid he loved it there were two reasons
00:21:16why everyone was looking forward to the moment diana emerged from that carriage one of course was to
00:21:22see diana in the wedding dress and the other was to see how johnny spencer her father would cope
00:21:29with that walk up the aisle
00:21:36earl spencer's stroke greatly affected his mobility now the steps at st paul's cathedral are precarious
00:21:42on a normal day
00:21:43once they'd navigated the stairs then it was about a three and a half minute walk down the aisle
00:21:59it was a superhuman effort by lord spencer and you can see the concentration on his face
00:22:05he said that diana walked him down the aisle and it was incredibly moving
00:22:21they get to the altar where prince charles is and johnny spencer kind of sort of stays there
00:22:27i imagine for the poor television cameras it must have been a nightmare here was the one of the
00:22:33prime shots and lord spencer was sort of blocking it
00:22:40just over an hour later diana spencer became a member of the royal family prince and princess of
00:22:47weddings the spencers and the windsors two families so close throughout british history were at last
00:22:54officially tied what a moment for any parents
00:23:04the happy couple headed off on honeymoon they spent a very great deal of their honeymoon at balmoral
00:23:10six weeks with your in-laws i'm afraid it wasn't the best start to married life
00:23:15it wasn't long before the differences between the spencers and windsors began to reveal themselves
00:23:22diana showed how unhappy she was the queen really had no time for what she regarded as a sort of
00:23:31self-indulgent emotional stuff that diana was pulling on the royals and she said that diana would
00:23:38have to buck up then on the 21st of june 1982 the spencer and windsor families were irreversibly joined
00:23:47together forever by royal proclamation the birth of prince william was announced for the spencers their
00:23:57blood is in the future king of england so their place in history is assured diana's mother francis
00:24:05and her sister jane rushed to the hospital where they were the first of the extended family to see the new
00:24:10royal baby minutes later the other happy grandmother arrived the queen
00:24:19the queen was delighted as the whole family were um allegedly she said well at least he
00:24:24hasn't got ears like his father and then the final verdict from the earl spencer good morning sir can
00:24:29you tell us how good morning how is she very well indeed thank you johnny spencer was absolutely
00:24:37exuberant lovely baby really super baby you know not a little pack it up face to all really good
00:24:45well hello how are you he was of course now grandfather to a future king and an aristocrat
00:24:53would understand exactly what that meant it's good news there was even better news in store for diana's
00:25:01stepmother rain the queen was coming to althorpe for tea rain was a real perfectionist and she wanted
00:25:09to make sure everything was done right there was a full-blown dress rehearsal a day before she had
00:25:15the whole outside of the house repainted the visit was in november and and not best for for painting
00:25:21and decorating and and and the poor old painters they had to use a sponge to sort of dry all the
00:25:26stonework before they could slot the paint on it all turned out to be a complete waste of time because
00:25:31the queen arrived arrived after dark to rain's relief the meeting between the monarch and the
00:25:39spencers at awful ran smoothly it was a triumph for rain because here she was hosting the queen pouring
00:25:47the tea the spencers and the windsor's relationship seemed to be going from strength to strength
00:25:54but it wouldn't be long before they were caught in the middle of the most bitter family breakdown
00:25:58in royal history
00:26:10the house of windsor and house of spencer were forever linked in 1982 with the birth of prince william
00:26:18when prince harry came along on the 15th of september 1984
00:26:22the spencer family blood was suddenly coursing through the veins of the second and third in line
00:26:27to the british throne like any father prince charles was keen to introduce his two sons to each other
00:26:34at the first opportunity and so it was that prince william was led by the hand back to the room where
00:26:39he was born two years ago unlike his brother harry seemed to have inherited those striking spencer looks
00:26:47something prince charles clocked straight away he's alleged to have said my goodness you know he's got red
00:26:56hair and that was clearly a remark aimed at the spencer family their distinctive hair was already visible
00:27:05at the entrance to kensington palace the prince and princess and their baby arrived from the hospital at
00:27:10speed and swept in without stopping then less than an hour later prince charles left to play polo
00:27:17something most new fathers would hardly dare to suggest the news that he had more or less dumped diana
00:27:26and harry at kensington palace and hurried out to play polo seemed astonishing but that was often the royal way
00:27:36this couldn't be further from the family life young diana spencer dreamed of when marrying her prince
00:27:42and joining the house of windsor i think that diana had completely different views of what being a
00:27:51windsor wife was to her husband to charles it was all about duty it was about producing the air and the
00:27:58spare which she had done i think she felt that perhaps her life was was very much of secondary
00:28:07importance at this stage from diana's point of view i think what she wanted was warmth and emotional
00:28:14connection and security all the things that fell apart for her when she was growing up
00:28:28on december the 21st 1984 the spencer and windsor families came together to celebrate prince harry's
00:28:35christening in true windsor style any problems charles and diana were having were pushed to the side
00:28:43it was all smiles for harry's big day the guy was christened in this
00:28:49looks remarkably well despite
00:28:53but away from the cameras there was a clash between the two sides of the family
00:28:58charles made a comment to diana's mother and said oh it's a shame harry's not
00:29:04a girl frances took this like a knife to her heart because she lost a baby boy she was furious that
00:29:14someone could not be totally grateful for a baby who was healthy and and vigorous so when she retorted
00:29:24you should be very happy you've had a healthy boy he was taken aback because prince of wales is not used
00:29:30to being uh spoken to like that it was an extraordinary outburst because most people i fear and trepidation of
00:29:40very senior royals and don't want to get into an argument in company confrontations like this were not
00:29:49the norm for the reserved windsors as diana struggled to find her feet as a windsor wife
00:29:56the royal family hoped she could maintain a stiff upper lip but as a spencer that did not come
00:30:03naturally diana was very troubled at this stage of her marriage she was deeply suspicious about camilla
00:30:09parker bowles she believed that charles still loved camilla was probably seeing camilla and this forced her
00:30:17even further into her eating disorders i think diana would scream and shout and get hysterical and cry
00:30:26and charles absolutely had no idea how to deal with a person like that the windsors found diana's fiery
00:30:34spencer temperament completely alien too i mean the queen mother allegedly once said that spencer's the
00:30:40spencers are very difficult um and diana was proving that she was indeed uh quite troublesome to
00:30:47the royal family the young woman they remembered from the courting days who had charmed the royal family
00:30:53was a dim and distant memory the royal family don't do sick and if if you're cold you put on a sweater
00:31:00if you're sick you take an aspirin and diana's moods uh staying in her room not coming out
00:31:07down for breakfast running out of the room during dinner these were baffling aspects of behavior as
00:31:14far as the queen was concerned it wasn't long before the queen had a spencer knocking on her door for
00:31:21marriage advice i think diana would have felt it was quite normal to go to your mother-in-law and say look
00:31:28things aren't working out oh you know what should i do with your boy with charles how shall i how
00:31:32shall i treat him um and the queen just replied i don't know and as diana then said what sort of
00:31:38help was that the queen was a bit of an imperial ostrich who didn't want to be burdened with diana's
00:31:46emotional baggage i wonder whether she would have felt trapped inside you know the palace walls here i am
00:31:54on my own um i don't feel that there's anyone i can particularly turn to the spencers were aware
00:32:02of the problems between the prince and princess but their close ties with the windsors made things
00:32:07complicated when it came to helping diana diana's sister lady jane fellows was very close to the
00:32:22windsors indeed her husband was on the royal payroll jane was therefore in a very difficult position she
00:32:30was diana's sister but she was also married to robert fellows who was the queen's private secretary or
00:32:38deputy private secretary there was um one moment when diana and charles had had a disagreement and diana
00:32:48again desperate to get her husband's attention she got hold of his pen knife and scratched herself and
00:32:53the next day she showed her sister jane and said it was so awful we had such a fight and this is what
00:33:00i did and jane's reaction far from being sympathetic to diana says you know you can't let the side down
00:33:06you've got a show of stiff upper lip what jane means is that you can't let the side down meaning the royal
00:33:12family uh the institution her own family the spencers were desperate for the marriage to work
00:33:19and powerless to intervene when it came to matters within the royal household there wasn't a huge
00:33:25amount that the spencer family could do for diana i mean except for being there and offering her
00:33:30support i mean she was incredibly close to her older sister sarah with sarah i think she could
00:33:38pour her heart out and hopefully get some kind of um support advice guidance or just an arm around her
00:33:46shoulder diana's father felt rather helpless when it came to trying to offer solutions to diana what
00:33:53could anyone do she was married to the future king beyond the loving words and the loving hug of a father
00:33:59there wasn't much he could do among the windsor children there was one person who never seemed
00:34:05to warm to the idea of a spencer joining the firm princess anne tricky would be the best word to
00:34:13sum up the relationship between anne and her sister-in-law diana there's any word about diana
00:34:19any word about diana i don't know you tell me
00:34:25and she didn't like the way she went about her engagements all that touching and holding hands
00:34:31that was an anathema to princess anne who was very formal and slightly haughty in the way that she
00:34:37went about her official business and diana basically just distanced herself from anne because
00:34:43she found anne very bruise and anne couldn't be bothered to deal with diana's histrionics so
00:34:48well if diana's you know getting all upset about this it's too bad the queen mother's traditional
00:34:54windsor values never wavered either charles's greatest support in life was the queen mother his his devoted
00:35:02granny and i think the queen mother she probably saw diana as another mrs simpson somebody who might
00:35:11conceivably pull the monarchy down i remember diana told me that she found the queen mother intimidating
00:35:19and that she was you know rather wary of her the queen mother probably would have felt that diana
00:35:25should just uh put up with it get on with it that would be her attitude the queen mother counted diana's
00:35:33grandmother as a close friend and configant she was also a useful windsor ally in the spencer camp
00:35:41lady ruth fermoy diana's maternal grandmother had served as a a lady in waiting for the queen mother
00:35:47and she was very much of the same era in terms of her thinking divorce was not an option she knows
00:35:54that diana is unhappy in the marriage with charles and desperately unhappy but effectively tells her to
00:36:01get a grip suck it up and stop crying she sides with the windows over her own granddaughter
00:36:11but there was one windsor who didn't tow the family line royal rebel princess margaret diana and
00:36:19margaret were great pals first of all they both lived at kensington palace so they were
00:36:24neighbors but i think margaret perhaps more than any other member of the family really understood
00:36:28what diana was going through she had been the tragic figure uh in years gone by that perhaps diana was
00:36:36becoming she'd had her heart broken by not being allowed to marry a man she'd fallen in love with
00:36:42captain peter townsend because he was married and then divorced princess margaret understood what it was
00:36:49like to be confined and constrained by the rules and protocol of belonging to the house of windsor
00:36:57both families encouraged charles and diana to keep up appearances throughout the 80s
00:37:03the spencers and the windsors were united in trying to keep the uh the wales's marriage together there was
00:37:11very much a sense on all sides that the marriage of the air to the throne could not fail but eventually
00:37:18the cracks started to show all the press attention was focused on the couple's attitude to each other
00:37:25as the gloomy winter evening closed in rumors of marriage problems put their relationship under intense
00:37:31public scrutiny i think it must have been horrific for diana actually to continue this this public
00:37:37persona when her inside she was falling apart and her marriage was crumbling but worse was to come
00:37:44in the early 90s the marriage that joined the two families would reach new lows
00:37:48with scandals shaking the foundations of both the spencers and windsors
00:37:53as the world's most high profile royal couple fell apart their families tried to support them diana's spencer
00:38:10siblings rallied round diana especially was close to charles so she was thrilled when he was getting
00:38:19married for the first time and agreed that prince harry should be a page boy now at charles spencer's
00:38:28wedding harry looked to be having an absolute ball but he was harry was always impish she was always
00:38:33cheeky diana always said that prince harry is the naughty one like me and she called him my little spencer
00:38:40diana is very proud of her her spencer heritage she wanted her children to be familiar with the spencer
00:38:48side of the family so it wasn't just going to be all about the royals 1992 was set to be a difficult
00:38:55year for the windsors with three royal marriages in trouble an unhappy diana turned to her own family
00:39:03more and more but the spencers also had a terrible year i mean 1992 really um was bookended by by sadness and
00:39:13the death of diana the death of diana's beloved father in march that year that was a huge blow for
00:39:21diana and in many ways it may have precipitated the things that were to come down the line
00:39:28diana was really hit for six and it also coincided with the kind of epoch of the war of the of the
00:39:37waleses she got little support from charles her wreath said i miss you dreadfully darling daddy but
00:39:44will love you forever diana i think she relies on on sarah jane and charles her her three siblings as
00:39:52as you would at a parent's funeral then just three months later the release of andrew morton's now
00:39:59infamous book rocked the royal family for a year and a half diana and i worked together on her
00:40:15biography diana her true story and when it was published in june 1992 people were saying well
00:40:22was diana behind it or what's what's going on here but it wasn't just diana who worked on the book with
00:40:28morton other members of the spencer family were also involved charles spencer gave me a long interview
00:40:35about their childhood and diana's father gave permission to use some of her wonderful childhood
00:40:43pictures and perhaps and nobody's ever said this but perhaps they were thinking this was a way out for
00:40:49diana to actually ex express what's really been going on it really did redefine the public's
00:40:57perception of the royal family it laid bare her bouts of bulimia her alleged suicide attempts her
00:41:04private misery uh there were suggestions that charles's friendship with camilla parker bowls were
00:41:10perhaps more than just friendship this would have sent shock waves through the royal family because what
00:41:18this book was doing was opening up the family secrets the fallout put diana's sister jane in an
00:41:27impossible position i think jane fellow's loyalties were torn but she she had to side on the side of
00:41:35the monarchy because her husband was the queen's private secretary prince philip had a good relationship
00:41:41with diana over the years but the publication of her biography changed everything prince philip would have
00:41:48been outraged that diana had chosen to pour out her soul in this way this isn't the way things were done
00:41:57in the windsor or the mount baton family come to that but what he did during that summer and autumn of
00:42:031992 he wrote her a series of letters which were tough and unflinching in many regards but they were also
00:42:10uh full of compassion and understanding he was saying to her i too was an outsider who married into
00:42:17this family i too had to make huge adjustments to my life uh to accommodate this weird and wacky world
00:42:26of the windsors um but if i can do it you can do it prince philip's interventions were in vain
00:42:34by november 1992 it was clear that the spencer windsor union was over the tour of south korea was
00:42:43really the last hurrah i suppose it was a picture of unhappiness of marital turmoil
00:42:51on the 9th of december 1992 the inevitable announcement was made by prime minister john major
00:42:58it is announced from buckingham palace that with regret the prince and princess of wales have decided
00:43:03to separate within days the spencer family took sides as the marriage completely unraveled and the
00:43:13awful years that followed they were immensely loyal to diana when diana separated from prince charles
00:43:22she became she came to rely a lot more on her big sister sarah sarah becomes a sort of de facto lady
00:43:28in waiting and she trusts sarah uh to be at her right hand side when she's on official visits abroad she
00:43:37feels very safe with sarah charles spencer was also quick to put family first i think after the separation
00:43:45diana was unsure whether she should stay at the palace or should she move out or where could she go
00:43:52when her brother uh charles her younger brother offered her a garden house which was on the
00:43:58all thorpe estate it would offer her a great deal of privacy uh away from the cameras um and
00:44:05a new start really and she was very excited about this but the plan was stopped in its tracks
00:44:12law spencer came to the conclusion that having the whole razzmatazz that goes with diana
00:44:19right on his doorstep was not going to be such a good idea so he ended up saying no well diana of
00:44:26course was deeply let down she was devastated she couldn't believe her brother had said no to her
00:44:33and for a while uh the relationship between charles and charles spencer that is and diana was was in the
00:44:40deep freeze this is a spencer um tendency they would have explosive arguments with one another and not
00:44:51talk for a very long time and then get back together and diana fitted into this box absolutely
00:44:59charles spencer's relationship with his sister was eventually repaired
00:45:03but in 1995 he was contacted by bbc journalist martin bashear who said he wanted to share some
00:45:11concerns he had about diana's safety
00:45:13martin bashear approached charles spencer saying he wanted to do an interview based on
00:45:27security breaches he had this suggestion that diana was being spied upon so that was his in
00:45:33he then managed to engineer a meeting with diana via charles spencer and well one thing led to another
00:45:41and before we knew it to her she was giving this explosive panorama interview to him
00:45:47the historic interview that eventually aired on the bbc was watched by 23 million people in britain
00:45:53britain alone panorama was jaw dropping from beginning to end um every sentence that came out of diana's
00:46:00mouth was uh extraordinary do you think mrs parker bowls was a factor in the breakdown of your marriage
00:46:09well there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded
00:46:15i actually knew most of it because i'd had long conversations with diana but what i didn't know
00:46:20is that she was going to question whether prince charles was fit to be king whether indeed um he
00:46:27wanted the top job as she called it whether he was cut out for it that was the dagger through the heart
00:46:33as far as the palace was concerned and because i know the character i would think that the top job
00:46:39as i call it would bring enormous limitations to him and i don't know whether he could adapt to that
00:46:50charles spencer had unwittingly set the wheels in motion for his family's biggest betrayal of the
00:46:55windsors yet so even though charles spencer introduced princess diana to martin bashear
00:47:03he didn't know what the eventual documentary contained no one did he sat down to watch it with his
00:47:11mother at all thought and i think was as a as a gog and as aghast as everybody else was in the country by
00:47:17what diana had to say it's kind of common courtesy within the family to let the queen know if you're
00:47:22going to give um an interview and for diana to do that it really was an atom bomb she lobbed a bomb
00:47:30into the kind of royal family just watched it kind of go off one of the rare occasions when the queen
00:47:36intervened because she does try to stay out of the private affairs of her family but this time she wrote
00:47:43to charles and she wrote to diana and she said get a divorce on the 28th of february 1996 diana agreed
00:47:51to a divorce the 15-year relationship between the spencers and the windsors was all but over she's
00:47:59said to be inside kensington palace very sad and very pensive according to friends a royal divorce for
00:48:07the second in line to the throne this is monumental you know this is the breaking up of the fairy tale
00:48:14marriage that they had delivered to the nation in many ways there was a sense of relief um on from the
00:48:21winters that the divorce had come about for diana's siblings there was a relief too because they had sort
00:48:28of been drawn into the vortex of the uh the diana charles saga for so many years i think everyone was
00:48:36was worried about how she was going to cope in this sort of post-divorce world um you know she'd been
00:48:42stripped of her royal title what was she going to do she had to find a new role for herself and as the
00:48:49families began to slip apart diana embraced her freedom from the windses no one could have predicted
00:48:56the tragedy that would force them back together
00:49:12by the summer of 1997 both the spencer and windsor families faced the fallout of diana's newfound freedom
00:49:19the spencer's and the windsors were horrified there was diana going out with an egyptian playboy
00:49:28she was off the rails as far as they were concerned at this time diana's own mother was
00:49:33absolutely furious she wasn't in fact on speaking terms with her mother at all but one person stepped
00:49:40forward to listen in the unlikely form of an old family foe johnny spencer's widow rain diana was full
00:49:48of surprises throughout her life and there were few surprises uh to compete with her decision to change
00:49:55rain spencer from being the hated wicked stepmother to becoming a close confidant rain was an outsider
00:50:04diana consider herself an outsider and she found great comfort and consolation in rain rain was appointed
00:50:13to one of harrod's boards by muhammad al-fayyad and that cemented really um the connection between diana's
00:50:22spencer family if you like with muhammad al-fayyad at the end of august 1997 dody fired took diana to paris
00:50:32the events that followed pushed the already strained relationship between the spencer's and the
00:50:37windsors to breaking point the mercedes in which the princess had been traveling with dodie fired
00:50:49the driver lost control the car span overturned and hit a pillar news leaked out slowly to the spencer
00:50:56family and it wasn't clear whether diana was alive or dead diana's mother was sitting at home in
00:51:03scotland waiting she gets one phone call dana's been injured doesn't get another word it was a terrible
00:51:11ordeal for the whole family to go through just this gradual seeping under the door of information
00:51:18at 4am diana was officially pronounced dead the british ambassador phoned belmoral to tell the royal
00:51:27family the news as far as prince charles was concerned when he heard the news at first he was
00:51:35absolutely horrified and he said everybody was going to blame him but more than that feeling
00:51:41this was going to have a disastrous effect on the monarchy itself
00:51:44prince charles had made a decision against the queen's wishes to go to paris with diana's sisters
00:51:54sarah and jane to bring diana home
00:51:57charles fought for diana more strongly after her death than he had done in her life it was a strange
00:52:05irony thrown together in grief the spencers and the windsors had less than a week to make arrangements
00:52:15there was quite a tussle between the spencers and the windsors as to uh what kind of funeral they
00:52:21wanted is she a member of the royal family is she a member of the spencer clan is she roy she's no
00:52:28longer hra she's divorced i mean who is she there was a huge falling out certainly between charles
00:52:35spencer and the prince of wales and they had a big verbal altercation on the telephone so much so the
00:52:40prince of wales ended up hanging the phone up on charles spencer charles spencer was too spencer-like
00:52:46and prince charles was too windsor-like so they never connected the planning for the funeral was
00:52:54extremely fraught but it was largely kept in the hands of the palace diana's mother was very upset
00:53:03that she wasn't really involved in the funeral she really did have very little to say which upset her
00:53:10enormously the spencers would have preferred a family funeral but i've no doubt
00:53:16as soon as they saw the outpouring of grief it became clear that something much grander
00:53:23and inclusive than a private funeral was needed
00:53:29and it was the beginning of a week of mass hysteria i think we went collectively into
00:53:34hysterical mourning about the loss of of the princess
00:53:37there was a kind of paralyzing inactivity at the heart of the royal institution nobody really quite knew
00:53:51what to do or how to play it and the queen fell back on protocol on tradition
00:53:58people asked the mother of the nation to show that she was the mother of the nation whereas her response
00:54:08was to be the grandmother to the boys and to stay in balmoral the public thought it was very unfeeling and
00:54:14they thought the queen should be down in london mourning with everyone but that's not the way the
00:54:19royal family have ever ever done things but of course diana's death changed everything this is what people
00:54:25wanted and this is what people expected i think it's disgusting that they have not peered or said a
00:54:30word i think it's a disgrace on the whole royal family there was a really sort of strong feeling
00:54:38in the capital almost a feeling of revolution
00:54:43the queen bowed to public pressure and returned to london with william and harry the day before the funeral
00:54:50would have been a massive shock for william and harry to see that kind of massive public reaction
00:54:57some would say overreaction people who'd never met their mother crying and screaming and and wailing
00:55:04william william thank you so much grin and grip smile thank you so much that smile thank you so much
00:55:12it gives me the shivers actually it feels so inappropriate that those two boys were effectively
00:55:19kind of wheeled out to meet the general public after one of the most astonishing weeks in british history
00:55:29the funeral was a chance for both families to put their differences aside and grieve together
00:55:37it was attended by a million mourners in london and billions more around the world
00:55:43there was a sharp intake of breath at seeing these terribly young boys looking up at the carriage that
00:55:52carried their mother's coffin royal tradition is that the male members of the family do accompany the
00:55:58funeral cortege prince harry told me looking back it was absolutely terrible that they would do
00:56:07this for a 12 year old boy this is of course a windsor decision not a spencer one to make him walk
00:56:17behind his mother's coffin oh i guess emotional um and to have to share his grief
00:56:26with millions of people who were crying and thinking they knew her she was my mother
00:56:33they didn't know her she was mine and he said he had to clasp his hands and dig his fingers
00:56:41into his palm so that he didn't cry
00:56:54the division between the spencer and windsor families was there for all to see
00:56:58it fell to charles spencer to deliver the funeral address i stand before you today the representative
00:57:07of a family in grief in a country in mourning before a world in shock earl spencer's eulogy
00:57:15was one of the most astonishing speeches of the 20th century on behalf of your mother and sisters
00:57:22i pledge that we your blood family will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way
00:57:29in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply
00:57:34immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned it was devastating in its assault on
00:57:46the royal family in the sense that it was suggested that the boys uh had been constricted by these
00:57:55old-fashioned fuddy-duddy traditions i was reporting it sort of opposite the abbey and when we heard that
00:58:01eulogy i thought oh my goodness he's actually damning the royal family the eulogy was unconventional
00:58:09it was rebellious it was all the all the words that you come to associate with the spencers
00:58:15the spencers do have a different way of dealing with pain and tragedy the winds as they keep up a good
00:58:22front it's a stiff upper lip whereas the spencers are much more inclined to crash about and let it all
00:58:35come out this was a terrific shock to the royal system and i think the queen must have been
00:58:45absolutely appalled by what he said and worse still by the response that he got
00:58:59just as he finished there was a sort of noise in the abbey it sounded almost like
00:59:03hailstones on the roof but actually it was people clapping outside and that sound swept into the abbey
00:59:10until the people at the front of the royal family such as prince charles prince william and harry
00:59:16you know they they went along with it too and started applauding him too the only people that
00:59:20didn't i could see clearly did them were the queen and the queen mother and the queen is his godmother
00:59:27that's how closely bound the with the windsors and the spencers are and i think it was extremely
00:59:34courageous of the earl to make his feelings so pointedly known this was a rapier for us from
00:59:42her own godson and i think the queen was quite shaken by it actually it was possibly the most audacious
00:59:51eulogy in front of the queen for hundreds of years by a member of of the aristocracy um critical of the
00:59:57monarch to her face critical of the royal family to their faces it was an extraordinary kind of act
01:00:04of rebellion after the scathing attack as the earl reclaimed both diana and her son so publicly to the
01:00:11spencer family could the spencer's relationship with the windsors ever recover
01:00:27the death of diana was the death of the very long-term relationship between
01:00:41the windsors and the spencers there was such bad feeling the relationship between the two families
01:00:50was very much broken for a long time after the funeral diana was taken back to the spencer family
01:00:59estate at allthorpe to be buried charles spencer you know said she's a spencer she's come back home
01:01:07on the way to allthorpe the queen's private secretary offered to reinstate diana's hrh title
01:01:13in an attempt to reconcile their differences so robert fellows did offer to reinstate that
01:01:19title her royal highness for diana but charles spencer refused that offer
01:01:26the windsor flag had been draped over diana's coffin in a symbolic gesture it was replaced by
01:01:33the spencer family flag the spencer flag was put in its place and that was very very significant it's like
01:01:41diana is ours now she's returned to her family it was a very very pointed and significant moment
01:01:49it meant for the spencer family that they had reclaimed diana
01:02:01the spencer and the windsor families will always be linked by william and harry the spencers have
01:02:07been more closely involved with harry and william than than we know about
01:02:12they do it quietly behind the scenes there is a very close relationship between the boys and their
01:02:22aunts and uncle
01:02:28sarah spencer was incredibly kind that very soon after diana's death she took to eton the toy that diana
01:02:38had brought while she was in paris for harry's birthday and she wanted him to receive that and
01:02:47that was a very kind aunt thing to do diana's sisters have tried to be there for william and harry at
01:02:56their major milestones in 2010 prince harry received his pilot wings from the army air corps and sarah and
01:03:03jane were on hand to witness that there's been a big spencer turnout at both william and kate's wedding
01:03:09and harry and megan's wedding harry and william are very much aware that the spencers are there for them
01:03:19in 2004 the diana memorial fountain was unveiled in hyde park
01:03:24the spencers and the windsors were there on mass for the first time since diana's funeral
01:03:32the event was a chance for the two families to rebuild their troubled relationship
01:03:39of course there were difficult times but memories mellow with the passing of the years
01:03:45it was a sort of truce between the two families that let's move on we will try to repair the damage
01:03:55as much as we can at the event charles spencer publicly played down the rift between the two
01:04:02families i think the whole anger or rift or whatever has been really overplayed played in the media and
01:04:08um it hasn't been like that for us but you know emotions were running very very high everywhere in
01:04:16those days after diana's death and at her funeral and i think in the years that have gone by um things have
01:04:23calmed down a great deal but it would be a further three years before prince harry stepped forward in a
01:04:31show of public solidarity as a spencer at the memorial service for 10 years after diana died
01:04:40harry actually crossed the nave of the church and went and sat with the spencers for the service and
01:04:47some interpreted that as a very public statement that he was more spencer than windsor harry particularly
01:04:54has wanted to show that he is very much in tune and in contact with the spencer side of his family
01:05:00harry obviously looks like a spencer more than a windsor diana's nickname for harry in the early
01:05:06days was my little spencer and that's because he had the freckles he had the uh red hair that is
01:05:12very characteristic of the spencer family and if you look at pictures of sarah mccorkadale diana's
01:05:18big sister she's the spitting image of prince harry or rather he's the spitting image of her
01:05:23he's a true spencer as well he's reckless something of a rebel
01:05:31that rebellious spencer spirit lives on in the royal family through the princes
01:05:39the relationship between the windsors and the spencers has been strained over the years
01:05:44but both families are now invested together in the british monarchy both families have put the
01:05:50parts behind them they did have to bury the hatchet because william is the future king he is part
01:05:56spencer and part windsor by proxy diana is injected into the the royal institution when william
01:06:05becomes king for the spencers their their their their blood he will be in is in the future king of
01:06:12england i mean he is he is half spencer william their place in history is assured because of the
01:06:20children that diana had the spencers and the winzers have been at times the clash of the titans they've
01:06:30they've been two families with a deep relationship and without the spencers the winzers wouldn't be the
01:06:39family they are today next saturday at night in the story of a princess before she was royal but not
01:06:47before she was world famous the glamorous silver screen legend in brand new grace kelly the hollywood
01:06:53years and there's castle loads of documentaries about our first family including secrets of the royal
01:06:58palaces they're streaming on my five for free next tonight holidaying with the queen and other royal
01:07:04vacations
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