John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

Early life, education and military career

Lord Spencer was born Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, the only son and younger child of Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, and his wife the former Lady Cynthia Hamilton, second daughter of the 3rd Duke of Abercorn. He was born on 24 January 1924 in their family home at 24 Sussex Square, Bayswater, London. He was educated at Eton, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and the Royal Agricultural College. Popularly known to his family and friends as Johnnie Althorp, he served as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys from 1944 to 1945, and was Mentioned in Dispatches. He landed in France the day after D-Day. He led a British Army unit in an operation to liberate two French towns, La Neuve-Lyre and La Vieille-Lyre. From 1947 to 1950, he served as Aide-de-Camp to His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir Willoughby Norrie, then Governor of South Australia.

He was engaged to 1950's debutante of the year, Lady Anne Coke (later Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret). His father objected to the match on the grounds of "mad blood", a reference to the institutionalised relatives of the queen, and the engagement was broken off. Much later, the director of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute thought that a genetic disease in the Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis family may have killed male members of the family in early childhood and caused learning disabilities in females.

Spencer held the offices of County Councillor for Northamptonshire (1952), High Sheriff of Northamptonshire (1959) and Justice of the Peace for Norfolk (1970). He served as equerry to King George VI (1950–52) and to Queen Elizabeth II (1952–54), and was invested as a Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1954.{{London Gazette

Family life

On 1 June 1954 Spencer and the Hon. Frances Ruth Roche, the younger daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy, were married in Westminster Abbey by Percy Herbert, Bishop of Norwich. Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family attended the wedding ceremony. They had five children:

• Lady Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia Spencer (born 19 March 1955), goddaughter of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, married Neil Edmund McCorquodale on 17 May 1980 and had issue
• Lady Cynthia Jane Spencer (born 11 February 1957), goddaughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, married Robert Fellowes, Baron Fellowes, on 20 April 1978 and had issue
• Hon. John Spencer (12 January 1960 – 12 January 1960), died within ten hours of his birth
• Lady Diana Frances Spencer (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), married to Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles III), from 1981 to 1996 and had issue
• Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (born 20 May 1964), godson of Queen Elizabeth II, married first to Victoria Lockwood from 1989 to 1997 and had issue, married second to Caroline Hutton from 2001 to 2007 and had issue, and married third to Karen Villeneuve on 18 June 2011 and had issue

According to author Penny Junor "Johnny could be violent, and [Frances] felt she and her children would be safer out of the home". Their daughter Diana also recalled "seeing my father slap my mother across the face and I was hiding behind the door and she was crying".

The marriage was not a happy one, and in 1967, Frances left John to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune in Australia, whom she had met the year before. Frances lived with Diana and Charles in London during the separation, but during that year's Christmas holidays, Viscount Althorp refused to let his children return to London with their mother. John and Frances Spencer were divorced in 1969. Immediately thereafter, Frances married Peter Shand Kydd and John was granted custody of their children by the courts after his former mother-in-law, Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, testified against her own daughter. In 1976, Lord Spencer married Raine McCorquodale, the former wife of the 9th Earl of Dartmouth and daughter of Captain Alexander McCorquodale, a British Army officer, and the romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland.

In 1978, Spencer suffered a severe stroke, He died of a heart attack in 1992, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles. His funeral was held at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington, and his ashes were interred in the family vault beneath the Spencer chapel.

Coat of arms

Ancestry

References

Bibliography

References

1. (30 March 1992). "The 8th Earl Spencer, 68, Dies; Father of the Princess of Wales". The New York Times.
2. (30 March 1992). "The 8th Earl Spencer Dies". The Washington Post.
3. (4 September 2019). "Princess Diana's dad was WWII hero, her brother Charles Spencer reveals in 'Today' sitdown". USA Today.
4. (4 September 2019). "Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, shares discovery of father's WWII heroism". Today.
5. (24 September 2019). "Father of Princess Diana Was Hero Who Liberated Two Towns in WWII".
6. (7 December 2019). "Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner review – a bestselling glimpse of the royals". The Guardian.
7. "[http://www.mcri.edu.au/pages/our-people/mcri-history.asp The History of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute] {{webarchive. link. (11 September 2011" website, retrieved 14 November 2011.)
8. Coke, Hope. (19 November 2020). "Behind The Crown: The true story of the Queen's cousins, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon".
9. "[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=i3czAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AZMDAAAAIBAJ&dq=nerissa%20bowes-lyon&pg=4737%2C5919064 Bowes-Lyon Retardation Gene May Have Killed Males‎]", ''The Age'', 9 April 1987.
10. "Diana, Princess of Wales biography". The official website of the British Monarchy.
11. "Princess Diana: The Earl's daughter, born to life of privilege". CNN.
12. (1 June 1954). "Queen heads lists guests at wedding". The Gazette.
13. Cohen, Rebecca. (8 October 2021). "Princess Diana once witnessed her father 'slap' her mother during the royal's tumultuous childhood, CNN doc details". Insider.
14. Brown, Tina. (2007). "The Diana Chronicles". Doubleday.
15. ''The Times (London)'', Thursday, 8 July 1993; p. 4 col. D and p. 19 col. A
16. (30 March 1992). "Edward John Spencer; Earl Was Princess Diana's Father". Los Angeles Times.
17. (30 March 1992). "Edward John Spencer; Earl Was Princess Diana's Father". Times Wire Services.
18. (30 March 1992). "Princess Diana's father, 68, dead of heart attack".