- Princess Diana's older sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes, are both still alive.
- As season 4 of The Crown shows, Lady Sarah Spencer dated Prince Charles before Diana did.
- Here's what you need to know about Diana's sisters, and where they are now.
Before she was Princess Diana, she was Diana Spencer, the third of four children born to the eighth Earl Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd, and the youngest of three girls. Diana and her older sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, now 65, and Lady Jane Fellowes, 63, did not grow up in close proximity. With four years between Diana and her middle sister, Jane, they were separated by a significant age gap, not to mention geography—they attended the West Heath Boarding School in different years, per Diana: A Princess Remembered.
However, as season 4 of The Crown shows, they grew closer as Diana got older—especially Diana and Sarah, who was six years her senior. They even had the same taste in men: Both dated Prince Charles. The biography Diana: Finally, the Complete Story by Diana Bradford describes Sarah as being “hero-worshipped" by her younger sister.
Today, Princess Diana’s sisters work to keep her memory alive as only they can. Though the notoriously private sisters do not frequently give interviews to the press (Lady Jane has never addressed her sister's death publicly, per People), they’re present at key moments for the royal family.
At Diana’s funeral in 1997, Lady Jane gave an emotional reading of a Henry Van Dyke Jr. poem. Nearly two decades later, she represented the Spencer family at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018, and honored her sister with a reading of “Song of Solomon,” per Royal Central. The family ties continue: Lady Jane's daughter, Laura Fellowes, was chosen by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to be a godmother to Princess Charlotte.
Here’s what we know Lady Sarah McCorquodale, 65, and Jane Fellowes, Baronness Fellowes, 63, and how the true story of their lives compares to season 4 of The Crown.
Sarah Spencer dated Prince Charles before Princess Diana.
The Spencer children grew up in proximity to the Windsors. According to Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles, Diana played with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, Prince Charles' younger siblings, as a girl. But it was her older sister, Sarah, who first formed a relationship with Charles.
Sarah and Charles met in the late '70s at a house party at Windsor Castle for the racing week of Royal Ascot. According to Diana: Finally, the Complete Story by Sarah Bradford, the two had a connection: “Prince Charles enjoyed Sarah’s sparkiness and irreverent wit and they made each other laugh.” Charles and Diana began to socialize more often—Sarah, like her sister, was invited by the Queen to Balmoral.
It was through their relationship that Charles first met 16-year-old Diana at a dance at Althorp, the Spencer family’s ancestral home. "I remember thinking what a very jolly and amusing and attractive 16-year-old she was. I mean, great fun, and bouncy and full of life and everything," Charles said during their engagement interview in 1981.
However, Charles and Sarah's flirtation came to a close in 1978, after she opened up about her relationship to the press. Cue suspenseful music. The interviews occurred after Sarah returned from a skiing vacation with Charles and friends in Klosters.
“I’m not in love with Prince Charles," Sarah told Woman’s Own, per Bradford's Diana biography. "I’m a whirlwind sort of lady, as opposed to a person who goes in for slow-developing courtships. I can assure you that if there was to be any engagement between Prince Charles and myself, then it would have happened by now. I wouldn’t marry anyone I don't love, whether it was the dustman or the King of England. If he asked me I would turn him down. He doesn’t want to marry anyway. He’s not ready for marriage yet.”
Following the interviews, Charles told Sarah she had done something "stupid." Their relationship fizzled as a result, but Sarah apparently approved of Diana’s relationship with Charles. She reportedly said, "I introduced them, I'm cupid," per The Guardian.
Diana's sister Jane married an assistant private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II.
Diana's middle sister, Jane, had connections to the crown before Diana. In the book Diana: Finally, the Complete Story, biographer Bradford characterizes Lady Jane and her husband Robert Fellowes as part of the "'magic circle" around the crown. Fellowes was Private Secretary to the Queen from 1990 to 1999—which meant the Spencer sisters were in Buckingham Palace at the same time. When Diana and Charles separated in 1992, the sisters' relationship was caught in the middle.
Today, Robert and Lady Jane have three children: Laura and Eleanor, and a son, Alexander. Laura is Princess Charlotte's godmother. Robert was given the title of Baron thanks for his service to the Queen, making Fellowes a Baroness.
Diana called Sarah "the only person I know I can trust."
Lady Sarah married Neil McCorquodale in 1980, a year before Diana married Charles. In an odd twist, McCorquodale is related to Sarah's own stepmother, Raine Spencer. Sarah and McCorquodale, are together to this day, and have three children: Emily, George, and Celia.
When Diana was living with Charles, she remained close with her Sarah, at one point calling McCorquodale “the only person I know I can trust," per People. Sarah's daughter Celia paid homage to her legendary aunt during her 2018 wedding by donning Diana's tiara.
The Spencer sisters were photographed at Diana's funeral in 1997.
Bereft by the unexpected death of their sister, the Spencer siblings' grief was apparent at Diana's funeral in 1997. Charles, the youngest of the four Spencer children, made headlines for delivering a controversial eulogy, and Jane read a poem.
Later, in 2004, they gathered for the opening of their sister's memorial.
They’re close to their nephews, William and Harry.
After Diana's death, People reported that Lady Sarah and Lady Jane went out of their way to spend time with Diana's sons—attending Harry’s Ludgrove soccer games and visiting William at Eton. Today, they're still in their nephews' lives. Princess Diana's siblings were at Prince William and Kate's wedding in 2011, and Prince William and Meghan's in 2018.
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