The Right Honourable

The Earl Spencer

DL
Spencer in 2017
Born
Charles Edward Maurice Spencer

(1964-05-20) 20 May 1964
London, England
EducationEton College
Alma materMagdalen College, Oxford
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1989; div. 1997)​
    Caroline Freud
    ​
    ​
    (m. 2001; div. 2009)​
      ​
      ​
      (m. 2011)​
      Children7, including Lady Kitty and Louis, Viscount Althorp
      Parent(s)John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer
      Frances Shand Kydd
      Relatives
      FamilySpencer

      Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, DL (born 20 May 1964), styled Viscount Althorp between 1975 and 1992, is a British peer, author, journalist, and broadcaster. He is the younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and is the maternal uncle of William, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.

      Early life and education

      Charles Edward Maurice Spencer was born in London on 20 May 1964. He was baptised in Westminster Abbey, with Queen Elizabeth II as his godmother. [1] His parents were titled Viscount and Viscountess Althorp, as his paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, was still alive at the time of his birth.[1] Spencer grew up with three elder sisters, Sarah, Jane, and Diana. A brother, John, was born four years before him, but died hours after his birth.[1] Charles and Diana were very close to each other in their childhood. His parents' troubled marriage ended in divorce when he was three years old. Spencer became styled as Viscount Althorp when his father became Earl Spencer in 1975. He was educated at Eton College and read Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford.[2][3]

      Career

      Spencer worked as an on-air correspondent with NBC News from 1986 to 1995, primarily for the network's morning programme, Today, and NBC Nightly News. He wrote and presented the 12-part documentary series Great Houses of the World (1994–1995) for NBC Super Channel. He also worked as a reporter for Granada Television from 1991 to 1993.

      Spencer has written several book reviews for The Guardian and The Independent on Sunday as well as feature stories for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and American publications such as Vanity Fair, Verandah and Nest.

      Upon his father's death on 29 March 1992, 27-year-old Spencer succeeded as 9th Earl Spencer, 9th Viscount Althorp, 9th Viscount Spencer of Althorp, 9th Baron Spencer of Althorp, and 4th Viscount Althorp. He also inherited Althorp, the family's ancestral seat in Northamptonshire. Since 2009, he has restored Althorp, re-roofing it and restoring its entire exterior for the first time since the 1780s. He has also helped establish Althorp Living History, a handmade fine-furniture line reproducing pieces from the collection at Althorp. The Spencer family's wealth derived from their profitable sheep farming in the Tudor era.[4][5]

      On 31 August 1997, his older sister Diana died after a car crash in Paris and Spencer delivered the eulogy at her funeral service held at Westminster Abbey six days later. In his eulogy he rebuked both Britain's royal family and the press for their treatment of his sister.[6] Spencer ruled out conspiracy theories concerning his sister's death, and called the alleged letter she wrote 10 months before her death in which she discussed her fears of a planned accident "just a bizarre coincidence rather than tied in with reality."[7] Spencer received an apology from Tim Davie, the BBC's director general, in late 2020 for the unethical practices used by BBC staff to gain his sister's consent to be interviewed in November 1995 for the corporation's Panorama television programme.[8] He said a full inquiry should be conducted which Davie has said will happen.[9]

      Spencer was a member of the House of Lords from 29 March 1992 (the day his father died and he inherited the peerage) until the House of Lords Act 1999 excluded most hereditary peers on 11 November 1999.[10]

      On several occasions, Spencer has been accused of refusing to allow his sister Diana to live in a cottage on the Althorp estate, despite her request at the height of her emotional difficulties.[11] These allegations have repeatedly been proven to be untrue, as seen in an apology published by The Times in 2021, admitting that "having considered his sister's safety, and in line with police advice, the Earl offered the Princess of Wales a number of properties included Wormleighton Manor, the Spencer family's original ancestral home".[12]

      Diana was buried on Spencer's ancestral estate, Althorp, where he built a garden temple memorial and a museum to her memory, displaying her wedding dress and other personal effects. The museum was opened to the public in 1998 with all profits going to Diana's Memorial Fund, also set up by Spencer. At this stage, Spencer began writing a series of books dealing with the estate itself and with his family history, beginning with an account of his ancestral home, Althorp: the Story of an English House, published in 1998.

      In 2003, Spencer founded the Althorp Literary Festival. Speakers at the annual event have included the authors Bill Bryson, Helen Fielding, Antonia Fraser, and Boris Johnson. In 2004, he presented two documentaries for the History Channel on Blenheim: Battle for Europe.[13]

      Spencer was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Northamptonshire in November 2005; the Spencer family have had a long association with the county, the home of the family seat. Spencer is also a patron of the Northamptonshire County Cricket Club.[14] In 2021, Spencer authored an audiovisual walking tour for St. James's Park about the execution of King Charles I entitled Death of a King: The Path to Execution on the BARDEUM mobile app.[15] In 2023, he began presenting the podcast The Rabbit Hole Detectives with Richard Coles and Cat Jarman, in which each of them is given an obscure topic and then they discuss their findings.[16]

      Personal life

      The Earl Spencer has seven children from three marriages.

      On 16 September 1989, Spencer, then known by the courtesy title of Viscount Althorp, married Victoria Lockwood (born 20 November 1965). Spencer and Lockwood were divorced on 3 December 1997, with Diana's death occurring while the case was in progress. After the divorce, Spencer returned to the United Kingdom from Cape Town, South Africa, where Spencer and Lockwood had relocated their family in 1995 to avoid media attention. The Earl has four children by Victoria Lockwood, three daughters and one son:[17]

      On 15 December 2001, he married Caroline Freud (née Hutton; born 16 October 1966), former wife of businessman Matthew Freud. They separated in 2007 and later divorced. They have two children:[21]

      • The Honourable Edmund Spencer (born 6 October 2003)
      • Lady Lara Caroline Spencer (born 16 March 2006)

      On 18 June 2011 at Althorp, Spencer married Karen Gordon (née Villeneuve; born 6 June 1972), a Canadian philanthropist, the founder and chief executive of Whole Child International, a charity based in Los Angeles that works to improve the lot of orphaned, abandoned, or abused children.[21] They have one child together:

      • Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer (born 30 July 2012)[22] named in honour of her aunt, Diana, Princess of Wales.[23]

      The Earl resides at Althorp House, Northamptonshire. He inherited the estate at the age of 27, according to the letters patent, because he was the eldest male in the Spencer family.

      Books

      • Althorp: The Story of an English House (1998). London: Viking.
      • The Spencer Family (1999). London: Viking. US edition: The Spencers: a Personal History of an English Family (2000).
      • Blenheim: Battle for Europe (2004). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; paperback edition by Phoenix, 2005. ISBN 0-304-36704-4. This book was a Sunday Times best-seller, and was shortlisted for "History Book of the Year" at the 2005 National Book Awards.
      • Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier (2007). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 978-0-297-84610-9.
      • Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I (2014). London: Bloomsbury ISBN 978-1-408-85170-8. This book was a Sunday Times best-seller.
      • Impressions of Althorp: Thoughts on My Spencer Heritage (2015). Spencer 1508 Ltd ISBN 978-0957271500.
      • To Catch A King: Charles II's Great Escape (2017). London: William Collins ISBN 978-0008153663
      • The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I's Dream (2020). London: William Collins ISBN 9780008296827

      Coat of arms

      Coat of arms of Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer
      Coronet
      A Coronet of an Earl
      Crest
      Out of a Ducal Coronet Or a Griffin's Head Azure gorged with a Bar Gemelle Gules between two Wings expanded of the second
      Escutcheon
      Quarterly Argent and Gules in the 2nd and 3rd quarters a Fret Or over all on a Bend Sable three Escallops of the first
      Supporters
      Dexter: A Griffin per fess Ermine and Erminois gorged with a Collar Sable the edges flory-counterflory and chained of the last and on the Collar three Escallops Argent; Sinister: A Wyvern Erect on his tail Ermine similarly collared and chained
      Motto
      Dieu Defend Le Droit (God defend the right)

      References

      1. 1 2 3 "Biography for Earl Charles Spencer". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      2. ↑ "Ken Dodd at Althorp's Literary Festival". Althorp. Archived from the original on 23 May 2009. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      3. ↑ "Speaker Profile". London Speaker Bureau. Archived from the original on 18 November 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      4. ↑ The Tarnished Crown: Crisis in the House of Windsor, by Anthony Holden, London, Viking Publishers 1993.
      5. ↑ "Almost alone among the great families who rose to affluence in the sixteenth century the Spencers owed their wealth not to the favour of a monarch or to the acquisition of monastery lands but to their own skill as farmers and businessmen." Georgina Battiscombe in The Spencers of Althorp, 1984
      6. ↑ "Prince William's uncle Earl Spencer set to wed". BBC. 15 February 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      7. ↑ "Earl rules out Diana conspiracies". BBC. 22 October 2003. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
      8. ↑ Urwin, Rosamund (1 November 2020). "BBC says sorry to Diana's brother Earl Spencer for interview 'deceit'". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 7 November 2020. (subscription required)
      9. ↑ "Princess Diana interview: 'Dark cloud over BBC journalism' says Lord Grade". BBC News. 9 November 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
      10. ↑ Goodwin, Stephen (16 June 1993). "Inside Parliament: Peers given lesson in land access: Maiden speech by Earl Spencer focuses on responsible approach to use of the countryside – Bill attacks 'sleazy world of Tory finances'". The Independent. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
      11. ↑ Davies, Caroline (23 October 2003). "Diana 'wept as she read brother's cruel words'". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 3 September 2015. He (Paul Burrell) launched a scathing attack on Lord Spencer, calling him a hypocrite, and said the letter that had most hurt Diana was one from her brother refusing her permission to move to the Althorp estate and dismissing the bulimia from which she suffered as "mental problems"
      12. ↑ "'Deprived Diana of a Home': Princess Diana's brother Charles Spencer's legal victory". The New Zealand Herald. 29 July 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
      13. ↑ Jikhano (26 May 2006). "History Channel: Blenheim – Battle For Europe". Retrieved 20 June 2016.
      14. ↑ "Board of Directors - Northants Cricket". Archived from the original on 4 August 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
      15. ↑ "Charles Spencer". BARDEUM. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
      16. ↑ Sawyer, Miranda (25 February 2023). "The week in audio: The Coldest Case in Laramie; Carol and Muriel; The Rabbit Hole Detectives and more". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
      17. ↑ Calvi, Nuala (25 April 2011). "Royal wedding clash of the titles! Spencers vs. Parker Bowles". CNN. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      18. ↑ Tregaskes, Chandler (25 July 2021). "Dolce & Gabbana on creating Lady Kitty Spencer's stunning wedding dress". Tatler. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
      19. ↑ Henni, Janine (16 March 2023). "All About Princess Diana's Niece Lady Amelia Spencer Ahead of Her Wedding". People. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
      20. ↑ Wade, Prudence (28 March 2023). "Diana's niece Lady Amelia Spencer marries in opulent Versace gown". The Independent. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
      21. 1 2 Roya Nikkhah; Ben Leach (18 June 2011). "Earl Spencer marries for a third time". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      22. ↑ "Princess Diana's Brother Names His Daughter in Her Memory". US Weekly. 6 August 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
      23. ↑ "Earl Spencer names baby daughter after Diana, Princess of Wales". The Telegraph. UK. 6 August 2012. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.

      Sources

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