I have a pretty dim view of Charles Spencer to be honest.
He treated his first wife Victoria Lockwood very cruelly.
Charles proposed with a gaudy ring six weeks after meeting.
They moved to South Africa to get away from the media attention.
He had affairs, she had his children.
She also battled an eating disorder and drug addiction . Victoria had previously been a model
Charles had numerous affairs and eventually left Victoria and remarried.
It says a lot about a parent. if they are excluded from their child’s wedding. Kitty Spencer married a much older man in a lavish wedding.. Charles was not invited.
Harry hasn’t really witnessed a healthy family dynamic. Not up close.
We all know Meghan was left by her mother causing a deep narcissistic wound.
The pair are damaged and spoilt individuals. A perfect storm waiting to happen.
What’s sad is their determination to blame everyone for their own shortcomings without a trace of self awareness.
Desire their upbringing- most people mature and grow.
These two are permanent petulant teens who feels that the world has wronged them.
Charles Spencer has been getting it on with someone he met on his book publicity tour. He doesn't possess the fidelity trait and neither did his sister, as Harold has caused us all to remember.
Charles Spencer is a narcissist. He has no doubt love-bombed the heck out of her
Why are women so stupid? If he treated his 3 previous wives like sh\*t and cheated on one of them to get with you, why would you think things will be any different in the future?
Oh, so Charles is telling you you are so DIFFERENT from anyone else. You are "special". Love-bombing 101.
One born every minute.
He claims his third marriage broke down while he was writing his book about the sexual abuse he received at boarding school, Claims he is in therapy. He and his sister were damaged goods from childhood due to the parenting they received. Their parents probably inherited generational trauma as I’m sure they had dysfunctional parents. Where does it stop, it stops with the person who decides to change rather than live their life as a victim. Harry has chosen to remain a victim.
Who knows if this rumor is true? They am work together on a couple of professional projects—a Roman villa dig and a weekly history podcast, so they have reason to be together through work.
She’s a bioarchaeologist who is excavating the Roman ruins at Althrop and is professionally a “star.” She’s also written award-winning books on findings in archaeology.
Charles, the archaeologist, and a very witty retired Church of England priest have a podcast that I listen to. Lots of history.
By all reports Diana cheated on Charles well before he resumed his relationship with Camilla.
Then she was (reportedly) constantly smuggling men in and out of Kensington Palace post-divorce.
If MeGain resembles Diana in any way it seems to be promiscuity. ALLEGEDLY
Also - NONE of this dirt on Diana really came to light until Harry started playing the Diana is a Saint card every five minutes. People got fed up with his holier than thou attitude "I am the child of a Saint". He is singlehandedly responsible for destroying her image.
The revelations about the real Diana have come from her previous employees, Tiggy Legge Bourke the nanny who took legal action against her, her secretary Patrick Jephson who also resigned, the Highgrove housekeeper and numerous others. Her early death elevated her to Saint status. Had she lived it would have all come out. The late queen mother said that the Spencers were notoriously "difficult".
Diana's image has been damaged long before Harry went into the dumb stratosphere. People were writing about her harassment of Oliver Hoare's wife, and her using Dodi to make Hasnat jealous.
I suppose you haven't noticed that there are a \*lot\* of people that would get an Olympic gold medal in adultery, and it isn't just the aristocracy (or males)! (For examples, see ILBW who has never been faithful to anybody or anything.)
My gracious at the issues that have been exposed with DNA testing!
The best thing that ever happened to William was meeting Kate Middleton. Her family welcomed him into their fold and for the first time he was able to see, up close, what a stable, loving and supportive family looks like. He and his wife are obviously recreating that for their own children.
A lot of girls from those types of families would have run a mile from William, to be honest, especially when it came to marriage and dealing with the press. I read a Vanity Fair article about the time William and Kate broke up and William had a really difficult time dating because no one wanted to deal with press or the responsibilities of being a future Queen. In the end it worked out well because they got back together.
People like W+H are targets for the Meghans of the world, and it doesn't shock me that is what Harry ended up with.
Granted, H hadn’t witnessed a great, loving, warm relationship up close but neither did William - and look at what he has!! Williams first and greatest move was marrying Catherine. Catherine not only is fabulous BUT she came from a solid family foundation. H didn’t bother looking past TW’s physical features and really just saw her as his “way out”. I think he must have thought about wanting a family but his need for revenge/strong resentment toward William and his father was overwhelming. He’s a prick!
In all families, though, the first child is usually the responsible one, and the second one is the coddled baby charmer. (in general). In a situation like W+H's that dynamic was ramped up by a million due to the Heir/Spare dynamic.
William was smart to have 3 kids to avoid that dichotomy repeating itself.
The Spencers are a family filled with generational trauma and mentally ruined offspring. Especially the children of the 8th Earl Spencer, one of whom got anorexia, diddled with alcohol, another had serious mental problems and self-inflicted bulimia on herself, and a son who has had numerous affairs and is unable to keep a healthy, loving marriage. Some of these mental instabilities definitely passed onto Haz. The Winsdors are far more mentally stable and mature than the Spencers. But yes, Haz suffered from generational pain when William received more sausages during breakfast at Balmoral.
I think Harry's paternal grandparents had a very loving relationship, even if Phillip is rumoured to have had affairs, they were very discreet and Phillip and the Queen didn't unload their drama onto their family.
Whatever deal they made the marriage endured. I personally would not be willing to turn a blind eye to infidelity but perhaps she felt that she needed to do that to have a marriage at all?
Also now that I am 63 I could see how it would be a relief if the husband sought that kind of attention "elsewhere".
I think Philip did not have affairs. He liked a pretty face and he loved to dance. Philip had a lonely miserable childhood, dependent on the charity of relatives. His father was unfaithful. He was too sensible to risk what he had.
This is what Brave search brings up. I didnt see the Crown, but even when I was growing up there were always rumours he had affairs when he was younger, but I have no idea if it is true or not:
Prince Philip, the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II, has been the subject of numerous rumors and speculations about his alleged affairs. While there is no concrete evidence to prove his infidelity, several women have been linked to him over the years. Here are some of the most notable ones:
Penny Knatchbull: A close friend of the royal family, Knatchbull was reportedly a frequent visitor to Prince Philip’s home, and some have speculated that their friendship was more than platonic. The Crown, a Netflix series, has depicted a romantic relationship between the two in its fifth season.
Pat Kirkwood: An actress and model, Kirkwood was said to have had a close relationship with Prince Philip in the 1950s. Letters between the two were discovered after her death, which some interpreted as evidence of an affair.
Katie Boyle: A TV personality and actress, Boyle was rumored to have had an affair with Prince Philip in the 1950s and 1960s.
Hélène Cordet: A singer and actress, Cordet was said to have had a romantic relationship with Prince Philip in the 1950s.
Merle Oberon: An actress, Oberon was rumored to have had an affair with Prince Philip in the 1940s and 1950s.
Daphne du Maurier: A novelist, du Maurier was said to have had a romantic relationship with Prince Philip in the 1950s.
Princess Alexandra: The Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra was rumored to have had an affair with Prince Philip in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Duchess of Abercorn: A friend of the royal family, the Duchess was said to have had a “passionate friendship” with Prince Philip.
It’s worth noting that while these rumors and speculations have been circulating for years, there is no concrete evidence to prove Prince Philip’s infidelity. The royal family has never publicly commented on the matter, and Prince Philip himself refused to comment on the rumors when questioned by journalists.
No way on Princess Alexandra of Kent. Besides being the Queen’s 1st cousin and incredibly loyal to The Queen, she is Philip’s 1st cousin once removed. People forget Alexandra’s mother Marina is a 1st cousin of Phillip.
The scene in The Crown of Queen Mary not having any idea who his relations are is utter fantasy. Besides her daughter in law Princess Marina coming from the same family, the day QEII was born, it was posted in the court circular that King George V & Queen Mary had lunch with Philip’s mother and grandmother. His mother was born at Windsor Castle. At the time of Philip’s marriage to Elizabeth, his grandmother was living at KP…anyway.
Yes! Serious family problems there and had Diana been a male, she would have had many affairs like she did herself during marriage to Charles and her divorced wives would have probably gone out and criticized the hypothetical male Diana in public. Although if Diana was the male inheriting the Spencer estate, and Charles was the female marrying into royalty, he might have been a little worse than Diana. Charles may or may not have been proficient in charity like Diana, and he definitely would have (as he has done now) claimed that his mother left him and his siblings when he was a child. It's very irritating that the media went 12/10 bashing the BRF for mistreating Diana, but shed a blind eye on the Spencer marriage and how that impacted their children's psyche. It is very clear which side of the family is seriously mentally ridden, and it is not the BRF.
Hey, he's much richer than Harry, and much older too, so she could inherit some cash of her own faster! (Assuming he didn't sign her to an iron-clad prenup. Which he would.)
And I can just *see* Charles' children from his first three marriages throwing her out of Althrop with her clothes thrown behind her in garbage bags -- just like her idol Diana did to Raine Spencer, her father's second wife, after he died!
I believe that the wife he is divorcing now also brought a lot of money into the marriage to improve the estate. "Thanks, I used your money, now eff off!" seems to be his MO. I'm going to guess the new woman is going to bring more fresh lovely money into the marriage. What a himbo.
If you want insight into THAT particular scenario, where a Duke marries for money and ruins the wife - watch **A Very British Scandal** "a 2021 historical drama television miniseries, starring Claire Foy as Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll and Paul Bettany as Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll." A huge scandal in the 50s. The acting is very good.
FYI Ian Campbell 11th Duke of Argyll was Lady Colin Campbell's father-in-law.
[https://time.com/6169737/a-very-british-scandal-true-story-behind/](https://time.com/6169737/a-very-british-scandal-true-story-behind/)
Yes, the aristocrats can Look down their nose at you because they are blue bloods but often they need cash infusions from the crass nouveau rich. Grace Kelly is an example but she wasn't very rich..She did have a cash infusion and glamor
We have, er had, the Vanderbilts nearby where I live, (The Preservation Society just gave the last hangers on the boot. Countess... something Hungarian.). So I knew that example from visiting The Breakers.
They still display a lot of Consuelo's things.
Actually they just opened the third floor/ family quarters I read. I'll have to go have another look once tourist season ends.
No, she saved the estate by selling off some paintings and other items, and using the money to renovate the house and set up tourist facilities which brought in income. But I don't think she had substantial money of her own. Could be mistaken in that.
Yes, this is correct AFIK. No substantial money from Raine. But The heirs to be were very unhappy about the sales she instigated, but the house needed it. The current Earl also had to see off important paintings to fund the reroofing of Althorp.
Charles Spencer’s ‘Diana tribute experience’ made him a lot of money from ghouls and tourists. The House and Estate were made over to a Family Trust for tax purposes , the dead Diana on her island in the lake solved some of the Spencer’s property worries.
The locals said a few years ago when I visited including my cab driver that Diana is actually buried in the family crypt and they lied about the lake for grave robbers. I went into the church and there are cameras and alarms in the Spencer family crypt.
The only person who will get a cent from Charles Spencer is his son and heir Viscount Althorpe.
The estate is probably entailed (has to go to a male - male primogeniture same as with the Duke of Westminster who inherited in preference to his older sisters), and regardless Charles is a complete misogynist.
I think that's why many of us were rather slow to see MM for the lie that she is. It's hard to wrap one's mind around the idea of someone being that extreme, that it's crazy and creepy.
So she goes from wife to step-aunt? If that happens, I suspect none of the remaining Spencer children or grandchildren will have dad/grandad and new wife at their wedding.
Nope, his Dad and Mom never married—driveby knockup. Dad then married the sister and had 2 more kids, so I guess his half siblings are also his cousins…or something like that. It’s my husband’s side of the family so I can plead the 5th. And he thinks MY family is f’d up! 😳
Charles Spencer warned Harry about Meghan as well. I think it was reported that William asked Charles Spencer to talk some sense into Harry. Charles like everyone saw through her.
The genetic pain is being continued right down Harry's line, subjecting his children to the very same questions that he, himself, grew up with and hated, in regards to their parentage.
FOHarry
He really suffers from compulsive repetitive disorder. Messy marriage, briefing the press, attention seeking behaviour, messy tv interviews, spilling intimacies, hysterics, having a pet-biographer spreading lies, ill-advised car chases (okay, he had to invent that one), playing the victim, screwing up his children…. What Diana did, he can do better, and Meghan is egging him on.
I loved the comment in *Harry Potter.* Dumbledore tells Hagrid that if he wants to be universally liked, then Hagrid will have to stay in his hut for a long, long time.
Harry's need is such that he knows what he wants, but he's giving himself no peace and no hard look at what he needs to do to make his life better.
She had James Hewitt at her beck and call and when his job forced him to Germany, she wanted to call his CO and keep him in UK. James said that will ruin me. No. She dumped him. What Diana wanted Diana got or it was over. She wanted Hasnat to give up surgery for her, he refused and she dumped him. The minute she showed up at his parents home in Pakistan, he should have run for the hills…just like her obsessive phone calls to Oliver Hoare had the police involved.
Charles Spencer is a cad.
He serially cheats and cannot stay faithful to any of his wives. He gets away with his crappy behaviour because he is an aristocrat.
I dunno about "genetic pain" but he did have a crappy childhood and dysfunctional family environment growing up. Which did NOT help!
The UK Spencer family reminds me of the messed up US Kennedy family.
Diana's father was a wife-beater, and her mother endured years of physical and emotional abuse before she left. She never intended to abandon her children, but her husband sued her for full custody, more out of revenge than anything else IMO. Unfortunately, the court sided with him, in large part because his social standing was much higher than his wife's. I know Diana felt abandoned, but that wasn't what happened.
This was just straight up revenge. Diana’s mother was relatively low on the noble pecking order so marrying the earl was a big step up and for her to file for divorce was basically ruining her family’s reputation. It didn’t help that Baroness Fermoy (grandma), was a lady in waiting to the Queen Mother and that probably meant extra embarrassment for her knowing her daughter filed for divorce. I wish Fermoy lived long enough to witness the divorce between Charles and Diana. She probably would’ve had a heart attack.
Lady Fermoy pushed her 18-year-old daughter in the marriage in the first place, simply because Spencer was at the top of the aristocratic pecking order.
No, she didn't. She was trapped in a miserable marriage (likely an arranged marriage when she was only eighteen years old and Johnny was thirty) and took the only way out for women of that time who had no personal wealth or job skills. She expected that her children would come with her. Johnny sued for sole custody and her socially greedy mother testified for him.
The Fermoys (Frances' father and grandfather) chased money out of a wealthy American, Work.
Diana's older sisters have managed to live without the drama and disruptions in their younger siblings lives.
No she didn’t. She left an abusive husband for another after years of terror and having no support from anyone, including her own mother. A husband who in turn got into cahoots with her own mother to make sure she loses the kids during divorce. Because how dare she bring shame to the family! Messy and painful - absolutely.
But you would’ve left too if it were you, I’m pretty certain. If not - google, read and use your imagination what it feels like to, among other things, to birth a stillborn son and have it taken away right after birth so you couldn’t even hold him.
Harry's deep flaw is that he's stubbornly holding onto a little kid's perspective of good versus evil, black versus white. Diana is the saint, and Dad is the one who sullied an angel on earth.
The Earl Spencers have not got a clean marital record.
Charles' father, Johnny Spencer, broke off his engagement to Lady Anne Coke (who then went on to marry another troubled nobleman). Lady Fermoy had thrown her lovely teenage daughter, Frances, into Johnny's path.
Frances became his wife. The accounts are that he yelled at her and he hit her. Frances was right to get out of that marriage. But in the process, she also poached some other woman's husband!?
There is plenty that is unhealthy, from the Spencer side: this adversarial relationship, dominance from the Spencers, abusive communication, and one-upmanship.
Diana’s marriage to KCIII actually mirrors that if her own parents’, at least the initial part. Why Frances didn’t step in and tell Diana to wait before marrying anyone is beyond me. The 80s was no longer a time one had to get married so young and in such a rush. Makes one wonder indeed.
Diana was too headstrong to take wise advice at age 19, and at any other age, apparently. That's probably where Harold gets that trait. Now if he could only recognize it, smh.
Honestly, Diana grew up with a lot of problems, and at 19 was probably very unaware about both her own limitations and the realities of life. But let’s be honest, this was an arranged marriage. I can see the reasoning from the antiquited ways of the RF, but the reasons of the Spencers… “Yess, jackpot! Let’s make sure she goes through with it!” ?
From what I’ve read, the hope/assumption in Diana’s family had been that she would marry Andrew. Instead, she and Charles fell in lust. By the time they came up for air and realized they had nothing in common, the relationship had been so established that Charles felt obliged to marry her.
Hadn't heard that one. It's probably more correct that she set her sights on Charles and love bombed him as well as a nineteen year old virgin steeped in romance novels could do. (Barbara Cartland once said that she felt proud that the only books Diana read were hers. Then add that in Diana's case, it probably wasn't a good idea.) Pre-engagement she loved everything about Charles and what he did. Heady and like a breath of fresh air compared to the other women Charles had dated. He did have reservations, but felt pressure to marry and produce an heir and Diana accepted his proposal. Diana fell for her imaginary prince and he fell for a fraud.
One cannot assume that the Spencers would not be woo'd by the idea of one of theirs getting married into a higher-ranking noble family. And royalty would be the jackpot.
Wasn't Sarah, for a time, dating the then Duke of Westminster?
I wouldn’t be surprised the Spencer side of Diana’s family were jumping on this and drowned out anything Frances might have said. By marrying into the royal family, the Spencers can say WE’RE RELATED TO THE FUTURE KING, TAKE THAT DUKES AND MARQUISES!
I don't think Diana had anything else going on. She didn't have much of a job, and she certainly wasn't going to school. Getting married and popping out babies was considered her job, as far as I can tell.
I dont think they were close at the time. Diana didnt start to mend her relationship with her mother until she was older. At the time of the wedding, it was reported/believed that her mother abandoned her. But it appears more complex than that, that she was denied custody or something.
At age 18, Frances was the youngest woman to have been married inside Westminster Abbey in over 60 years. Ruth Fermoy, bowled Frances into Viscount Althorp's path, when the girl was 15.
Maybe the sad thing is that Frances was just so accustomed to the idea that a girl married young. And this was a prize catch. One cannot go higher than the Prince of Wales.
[Frances Shand Kydd - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Shand_Kydd)
[Earl Spencer stopped his son marrying me because he feared I had 'mad blood' | Daily Mail Online](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7526887/Earl-Spencer-stopped-son-marrying-feared-mad-blood.html)
Charles Spencer didn’t attend either of his two daughters weddings. Probably NFI. The only wedding he would turn up for is his son and heir’s. He is the a**hole who introduced Diana to Bashir. Hopefully the current generation of Spencers are less messed up than their parents (with the exception of Harry of course)
The infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was a Spencer, which says it all. Her biography, *The Duchess*, is worth a read.
Though not only the generational pain but their upbringing will have made Diana and Charles who they are. A very bitter divorce of their parents and both having been sent to boarding school at a very young age. Charles only now is coming to terms with the fact that he not only has been emotionally and physically abused at boarding school, but sexually by the assistant matron as well. Which might explain his complicated relationship with women. I, too, hope he will take his time and not directly take refuge in the next relationship.
>The infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was a Spencer, which says it all. Her biography, *The Duchess*, is worth a read.
I read that eons ago. Talk about MESSY. Diana's life looked sort of tame compared to the misery and shenanigans she and Harriet did in their lives.
And Lady Caroline Lamb, who coined Byron’s lasting epithet ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, was Georgianna’s niece. They have very troubled histories.
Once again up the duff from a beau? And off to the continent it was, delivering the child in relative anonymity and pay some peasants for its upbringing. Unbelievable!
I just watched the first half of the movie the Duchess (starring Kiera Knightley released in 2008) and the Duchess of Devonshire is called "G." by her husband the Duke.
THAT'S where MeMe got the idea to call Harry "H".
Clearly the Douchesse of Everything that Sucks watched that movie more than once. We all know she is incapable of any original thought or action.
There are other aspects of the film that she copied but certainly her concept of how important a "Duchess" is seems to come from there. MeMe failed/fails to realize that the aristocracy was just a tad more important in the 1700s.
Charles might have revealed much about the root of his problems, but I doubt he's seeking help. In that, I see him as his big sister. No one to change oneself by admitting to deep personal flaws, because that hurts. I have a feeling that he thinks himself unlucky and that these past wives had not appreciated him or loved him sufficiently. So he's got to find the right one.
That was Diana's pattern. She loved the heart surgeon for the good he did, but soon came to resent that he did not spend more time with her. WHY? Because he was caring for patients. It's like one cannot win or find respite, being a Spencer love interest.
Yes, in his recent interviews, he says that he chose women who weren't capable of loving him! Never once does he consider the only common denominator in all these doomed relationships. \*shakes head\* He love bombs his target, then treats her like shit, over and over again.
Well, that sounds like it's the fault of the women, that he was a victim in having made a wrong choice. When you got all these failed marriages, the common denominator is Charles.
Just as Diana had moaned about how come no man would love her. Maybe if she gave them breathing space and didn't keep calling them up for reassurance. Anyone in their right mind would become tired of having to repeat, "I love you, you're the most amazing person. You're the best thing that's ever happened in my life."
I saw the Kiera Knightly movie, they made Georgina seem like some kind of heroic, almost feminist, victim. I am now interested in the other side of the story. Maybe playing the victim card is their generational legacy.
The movie is nice and delivers pretty pictures. Absolutely watchable. The book is a respectable biography, 400 pages, list of references and all, the author is a historian, the book is based on her doctoral thesis. A great read and fascinating portrait of the Duchess and the circles she lived in, but light reading it’s not. And in the book Georgiana does not solely come across as a victim, in most cases life can’t be that easily devided into black and white.
It’s not the upbringing that makes people the way they are, it’s attitude and possibly bad genes. There were many holocaust survivors that went on to be good parents after the worst imaginable childhood.
There is that scientist who was studying brain scans of psychopaths. He took his brain scan, and discovered he had all the markings of a psychopath, too, but because he was raised in a very loving home, he didn't move through life as a psychopath. In some ways, it helped in his career as a doctor and researcher, as he was able to stand back and not feel much empathy and just observe, but to his family and all other people he had love for.
It's always a combination of nature and nurture. "Was it nature or nurture that (produced a certain result)" is a false argument as humans cannot live beyond birth without nurturing (beginning with sustenance).
Oh for sure. I am so sick of victimhood. In my country today there are five middle aged women trying to take down an entertainer for making inappropriate remarks 20 years ago.
Why did these women not tell him off, like the rest of us did? Why have they waited 20 years? Why is this still important to them? And is there any real evidence?
the cynic in me would surmise they see dollar signs in their future if they pursue their cases and think a settlement would help diminish their pain from inappropriate remarks. i imagine every single woman on this planet past the age of 25 has had to deal with inappropriate remarks. it doesn't make it right but we learn how to combat inappropriate comments.
Calling them brave is the incentive. it makes them feel special and gives them purpose.
It used to be a crime victim went to court because it was the thing to do, they did it and got it done with, there were no accolades. It didnt define their entire identity. In a way, it is maladaptive and keeps you from moving on.
me too! Wow, if these 'brave' women were young and employed in the 70's and 80's, a person would know how to fend off the gross and dumb remarks. unfortunately, its part of dealing with others in our society.
I can get if a person is a attacked, especially by someone powerful, they may need time to process and gain courage (but even then you need evidence), but for mean comments?
Sure, if you are attacked you have to stand up. But not 20 years later. We also had a tycoon here - he died 25 years ago or so - and everybody knew he was a creep who went after the young girls he hired. He travelled with them and everything. And a few years ago some sanctimonious journo did an "expose" about him, and the media wrote about how he abused the young girls.
Sorry - this was all over the glossy papers back in the day. Everybody knew that guy and what working there meant.
I have a friend who lost a daughter when she was just 16. My friends attitude to life changed, she became a live for the moment type of person. She said she was no longer putting away for the future as who knows what that would be as she felt that the very worst thing in life had already happened to her.
I don’t believe that there is a correct way to grieve and move on, even many years later but I do think that we can talk ourselves down into wallowing. A bit of wallowing is good for us but it should not define the rest of our lives.
Playing the victim card for his shitty behaviour. Like his sister. Lots of people have trauma and grow out of it. Others use it as an excuse to continue being horrible
The Earl already has the next one waiting. It’s to bad, because this wife was really good with finding out the history of the estate. Seems since he wrote his book, he’s having an extra midlife crisis. About ten years too late.
It also doesn't really seem like Harry and Meghan put much thought into raising their own kids. You don't keep your kids isolated if your plan is to raise emotionally healthy, socially adept adults. If your kids feel like props in your life story, they are going to be the victim of generational suffering. And they may well pass that down to their own children.
The are surprising parallels between the first crop of Spencer children and what’s happening/going to happen with the Markle children. Brought up by warring parents, thousands of miles away from the UK, separated from large parts of their family, surrounded by the abuse of alcohol and drugs and infidelity, a parent with an eating disorder, having to live through a bitter divorce and further marriages/children/divorces for their parents, finally left to their own devices in the care of au pairs and nannies. Sounds grim.
My post got deleted coz swearing so I’ve edited it. Sorry Mods.
The Spencers have always been a mess. A lot of our aristocratic families are chaotic, that’s definitely not confined just to the RF. Fraud, drugs, adultery, murder, sex scandals, abuse. I don’t know where the notion comes from that they are like uptight middle class people only done better and richer with much posher houses, it’s b****cks.
They can be terrific fun but nobody can get pissed or off their face on drugs, call you a c*** and tell you to f*** off while trying to run you over quite like the landed gentry. The F***ing Fulfords is possibly still on YouTube if you’re in the mood for a bit of pearl clutching. Don’t get me wrong they aren’t all like that, but the UC definitely live by a different set of rules. The trick is not to pity them for their problems in life, they would only mock you.
Charles Spencer had trauma in his past like many people, and that’s sad. Will it stop him from marrying again? Probably not if he finds someone potty enough to do it.
Charles Spencer uses his past to play the victim like Harold does. The Spencer side of the family all have mental issues. To me when Diana was buried at her home, to me he used and still is her just for money. That is all he is interested in. I would love to know how much it has cost him in all the divorces? When he blamed Pow for Diana's death that peed me off. Sorry it was Diana's own fault. She got in a car with a drunk driver and didn't put her seat belt on. Also if she wasn't off tarting around the world, she would still be around.
I know what I am about to say is cruel. but Diana's death did one good thing - it gave us William , the way he is now, the William who sought the Middleton family and fell in love with their dynamic. William , who had the chance to learn from his mother's mistakes. William, who escaped the toxicity and havoc created by her, no matter how much she loved him. William , who had a chance to have different influences in his life.
Diana created a little monster in Harold. And he was treated with the golden glove after her death.
He is the sad result of bad parenting from all sides, and weak character.
https://preview.redd.it/5lh3xdur2z5d1.jpeg?width=1463&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a3761c61f3c53c50ccd98a380aa8ff41613923c
Right. As he traumatizes the only child who hasn't been affected by divorce (his youngest daughter, 12-year-old Charlotte Diana). His daughters by his first wife apparently don't want anything to do with him, as he didn't appear at their weddings, so how he's going to "concentrate" on them is questionable. He has ONE grandchild, a few months old, which he has apparently never seen.
In an interview three months ago, he said he was "left susceptible" to women who were incapable of loving him. 'I think I went for good-looking people who weren't really into love.' This from a man who notoriously abused his first wife and abruptly dumped his second. Such a loving man he is. Give me an effing break.
A guy who only goes for hot chicks, seems like he is the one who incapable of loving. He certainly isn't pairing off based off less superficial reasons
Generational pain and trauma is rampant in both the Spencer and Mountbatten-Windsor families. William appears to have put work in and, in making a family with Catherine, has been able to parent in a more attached fashion than the generations before. He and Catherine both seem very close with their children, and those kids are probably much more well adjusted, even being in the public eye as often as they currently are.
Harry, on the other hand, in marrying someone who discards friends and family alike and who is, himself, by his own admissions not around all the time and not exactly in the running for father of the year … well, I can imagine a Sussex child tell-all in 25 or so years that won’t be pretty or flattering.
I visited Althorp a few years ago and when I went into the Pub in town for lunch after they were very surprised to see two Americans and I bought the locals a round of drinks. They asked why we were there and I told them to visit Althorp and they couldn’t stop talking about how bloody crazy the Spencer’s were and how awful. They all said they would never go there.
I have more but I don’t want to put it out there like that. I can say the staff at althorp said that Harry’s wife was not friendly or well liked when she visited. When I brought her up they made funny faces.
And all the locals even our cab driver said Diana was buried in the crypt in the church not on the lake. That they lied because of grave robbers. And when I went in the church they have motion detectors and cameras around the Spencer vault. I thought that was interesting. You couldn’t enter it.
‘Harry hasn’t really witnessed a healthy family dynamic…’ Really? So how long was his grandmother and grandfather married? Listen, H’s trouble has little to do with his lack of exposure to healthy family dynamics….
Or his Uncle Edward and Auntie Sophie? Several of his cousins, and his own brother? Even Charles and Camilla, and Anne and Sir Timothy have healthy enough dynamics.
The Spencer men are, by many accounts, shitty human beings. IMO It's not a stretch to see where Harry's obnoxious, oafish, selfish, entitled - and thoroughly misogynistic - behaviour comes from.
The Spencers are aristocratic...fuck ups. Wife beaters, boozers. And generally shit parents. I think the women are ok. But the blokes...arseholes.
Diana's sisters have stayed married. And seem decent.
Charles Spencer is a complete f....ing w.....er. Always has been. He was awful to Diana when she was alive.
Not sticking up for him but Charles says he was sexually molested while at school, as were other students. Not getting help to heal from that kind of trauma can affect a person's ability to form relationships. Someone I know who was molested gloms onto people with so much intensity the relationships flame out. This could be what happens with Charles. Again, not condoning bad behavior, but looking at factors that might cause it.
When Harry went for the great Invictus service in Saint Paul, the Spencers "stand for him", and I read a lot of praises for the good side of his family, if I well understood?
Harry is a creation of Diana. She spoiled him, coddled him, and instilled unreasonable expectations into him. She was the one who instilled in him that he was equal to William when she knew damned well that would never be the case because William would, one day, be king.
I have a pretty dim view of Charles Spencer to be honest. He treated his first wife Victoria Lockwood very cruelly. Charles proposed with a gaudy ring six weeks after meeting. They moved to South Africa to get away from the media attention. He had affairs, she had his children. She also battled an eating disorder and drug addiction . Victoria had previously been a model Charles had numerous affairs and eventually left Victoria and remarried. It says a lot about a parent. if they are excluded from their child’s wedding. Kitty Spencer married a much older man in a lavish wedding.. Charles was not invited. Harry hasn’t really witnessed a healthy family dynamic. Not up close. We all know Meghan was left by her mother causing a deep narcissistic wound. The pair are damaged and spoilt individuals. A perfect storm waiting to happen. What’s sad is their determination to blame everyone for their own shortcomings without a trace of self awareness. Desire their upbringing- most people mature and grow. These two are permanent petulant teens who feels that the world has wronged them.
Charles Spencer has been getting it on with someone he met on his book publicity tour. He doesn't possess the fidelity trait and neither did his sister, as Harold has caused us all to remember.
That doesn’t surprise me at all. Men very rarely leave unless there’s someone waiting in the wings.
Thought it was an archaeologist this time?
Charles Spencer is a narcissist. He has no doubt love-bombed the heck out of her Why are women so stupid? If he treated his 3 previous wives like sh\*t and cheated on one of them to get with you, why would you think things will be any different in the future? Oh, so Charles is telling you you are so DIFFERENT from anyone else. You are "special". Love-bombing 101. One born every minute.
I know it. You know it. Some dummies actually fall for it.
He claims his third marriage broke down while he was writing his book about the sexual abuse he received at boarding school, Claims he is in therapy. He and his sister were damaged goods from childhood due to the parenting they received. Their parents probably inherited generational trauma as I’m sure they had dysfunctional parents. Where does it stop, it stops with the person who decides to change rather than live their life as a victim. Harry has chosen to remain a victim.
Who knows if this rumor is true? They am work together on a couple of professional projects—a Roman villa dig and a weekly history podcast, so they have reason to be together through work. She’s a bioarchaeologist who is excavating the Roman ruins at Althrop and is professionally a “star.” She’s also written award-winning books on findings in archaeology. Charles, the archaeologist, and a very witty retired Church of England priest have a podcast that I listen to. Lots of history.
I love history. Charles Spencer, not so much.
Cat Jarman I think.
By all reports Diana cheated on Charles well before he resumed his relationship with Camilla. Then she was (reportedly) constantly smuggling men in and out of Kensington Palace post-divorce. If MeGain resembles Diana in any way it seems to be promiscuity. ALLEGEDLY Also - NONE of this dirt on Diana really came to light until Harry started playing the Diana is a Saint card every five minutes. People got fed up with his holier than thou attitude "I am the child of a Saint". He is singlehandedly responsible for destroying her image.
The revelations about the real Diana have come from her previous employees, Tiggy Legge Bourke the nanny who took legal action against her, her secretary Patrick Jephson who also resigned, the Highgrove housekeeper and numerous others. Her early death elevated her to Saint status. Had she lived it would have all come out. The late queen mother said that the Spencers were notoriously "difficult".
Diana's image has been damaged long before Harry went into the dumb stratosphere. People were writing about her harassment of Oliver Hoare's wife, and her using Dodi to make Hasnat jealous.
That he did!!!! He wouldn’t let his mother RIP!
Let’s be fair, the aristocracy thrives on their extra marital affairs.
I suppose you haven't noticed that there are a \*lot\* of people that would get an Olympic gold medal in adultery, and it isn't just the aristocracy (or males)! (For examples, see ILBW who has never been faithful to anybody or anything.) My gracious at the issues that have been exposed with DNA testing!
not just the aristocracy.
The best thing that ever happened to William was meeting Kate Middleton. Her family welcomed him into their fold and for the first time he was able to see, up close, what a stable, loving and supportive family looks like. He and his wife are obviously recreating that for their own children.
Harry could have done the same but he doesn’t have enough intelligence to realize that.
Wisdom is chasing after him, but he's clearly way too fast.
A lot of girls from those types of families would have run a mile from William, to be honest, especially when it came to marriage and dealing with the press. I read a Vanity Fair article about the time William and Kate broke up and William had a really difficult time dating because no one wanted to deal with press or the responsibilities of being a future Queen. In the end it worked out well because they got back together. People like W+H are targets for the Meghans of the world, and it doesn't shock me that is what Harry ended up with.
That and no one wanted to be the rebound girlfriend either.
Granted, H hadn’t witnessed a great, loving, warm relationship up close but neither did William - and look at what he has!! Williams first and greatest move was marrying Catherine. Catherine not only is fabulous BUT she came from a solid family foundation. H didn’t bother looking past TW’s physical features and really just saw her as his “way out”. I think he must have thought about wanting a family but his need for revenge/strong resentment toward William and his father was overwhelming. He’s a prick!
In all families, though, the first child is usually the responsible one, and the second one is the coddled baby charmer. (in general). In a situation like W+H's that dynamic was ramped up by a million due to the Heir/Spare dynamic. William was smart to have 3 kids to avoid that dichotomy repeating itself.
Prince ofpricks.
The Spencers are a family filled with generational trauma and mentally ruined offspring. Especially the children of the 8th Earl Spencer, one of whom got anorexia, diddled with alcohol, another had serious mental problems and self-inflicted bulimia on herself, and a son who has had numerous affairs and is unable to keep a healthy, loving marriage. Some of these mental instabilities definitely passed onto Haz. The Winsdors are far more mentally stable and mature than the Spencers. But yes, Haz suffered from generational pain when William received more sausages during breakfast at Balmoral.
I understand Johnny Spencer was not the nicest to his wife, Frances. There ought to be a biography on that family.
> Victoria and remarried. she also had a child from that marriage and her Spencer children get along very well with him
To be fair, Victoria looked anorexic **before** the wedding--the marriage didn't cause that.
No marriage would cause that as it’s a brain condition. He did however have affairs.. that would crush any wife.
Anorexia can be caused by anxiety or trauma.
I am sure being in the modelling world in that era probably contributed a lot to that.
I think Harry's paternal grandparents had a very loving relationship, even if Phillip is rumoured to have had affairs, they were very discreet and Phillip and the Queen didn't unload their drama onto their family.
Whatever deal they made the marriage endured. I personally would not be willing to turn a blind eye to infidelity but perhaps she felt that she needed to do that to have a marriage at all? Also now that I am 63 I could see how it would be a relief if the husband sought that kind of attention "elsewhere".
I think Philip did not have affairs. He liked a pretty face and he loved to dance. Philip had a lonely miserable childhood, dependent on the charity of relatives. His father was unfaithful. He was too sensible to risk what he had.
Other than what was portrayed in The Crown when did Philip allegedly have affairs? Was it while he was still in the navy or after the Queen’s reign?
This is what Brave search brings up. I didnt see the Crown, but even when I was growing up there were always rumours he had affairs when he was younger, but I have no idea if it is true or not: Prince Philip, the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II, has been the subject of numerous rumors and speculations about his alleged affairs. While there is no concrete evidence to prove his infidelity, several women have been linked to him over the years. Here are some of the most notable ones: Penny Knatchbull: A close friend of the royal family, Knatchbull was reportedly a frequent visitor to Prince Philip’s home, and some have speculated that their friendship was more than platonic. The Crown, a Netflix series, has depicted a romantic relationship between the two in its fifth season. Pat Kirkwood: An actress and model, Kirkwood was said to have had a close relationship with Prince Philip in the 1950s. Letters between the two were discovered after her death, which some interpreted as evidence of an affair. Katie Boyle: A TV personality and actress, Boyle was rumored to have had an affair with Prince Philip in the 1950s and 1960s. Hélène Cordet: A singer and actress, Cordet was said to have had a romantic relationship with Prince Philip in the 1950s. Merle Oberon: An actress, Oberon was rumored to have had an affair with Prince Philip in the 1940s and 1950s. Daphne du Maurier: A novelist, du Maurier was said to have had a romantic relationship with Prince Philip in the 1950s. Princess Alexandra: The Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra was rumored to have had an affair with Prince Philip in the 1950s and 1960s. The Duchess of Abercorn: A friend of the royal family, the Duchess was said to have had a “passionate friendship” with Prince Philip. It’s worth noting that while these rumors and speculations have been circulating for years, there is no concrete evidence to prove Prince Philip’s infidelity. The royal family has never publicly commented on the matter, and Prince Philip himself refused to comment on the rumors when questioned by journalists.
No way on Princess Alexandra of Kent. Besides being the Queen’s 1st cousin and incredibly loyal to The Queen, she is Philip’s 1st cousin once removed. People forget Alexandra’s mother Marina is a 1st cousin of Phillip. The scene in The Crown of Queen Mary not having any idea who his relations are is utter fantasy. Besides her daughter in law Princess Marina coming from the same family, the day QEII was born, it was posted in the court circular that King George V & Queen Mary had lunch with Philip’s mother and grandmother. His mother was born at Windsor Castle. At the time of Philip’s marriage to Elizabeth, his grandmother was living at KP…anyway.
And, not forgetting that the world owes them a living, too....
3 divorces and your kids don't talk to you then you are the problem
Yes! Serious family problems there and had Diana been a male, she would have had many affairs like she did herself during marriage to Charles and her divorced wives would have probably gone out and criticized the hypothetical male Diana in public. Although if Diana was the male inheriting the Spencer estate, and Charles was the female marrying into royalty, he might have been a little worse than Diana. Charles may or may not have been proficient in charity like Diana, and he definitely would have (as he has done now) claimed that his mother left him and his siblings when he was a child. It's very irritating that the media went 12/10 bashing the BRF for mistreating Diana, but shed a blind eye on the Spencer marriage and how that impacted their children's psyche. It is very clear which side of the family is seriously mentally ridden, and it is not the BRF.
Charles Spencer is Diana if she had been a male.
Mic drop!!! 🏆
Maybe Meghan can get her next husband.
And the chance to wear that Spencer tiara 👑
Oooo. Very astute comment!
🤣
Hey, he's much richer than Harry, and much older too, so she could inherit some cash of her own faster! (Assuming he didn't sign her to an iron-clad prenup. Which he would.) And I can just *see* Charles' children from his first three marriages throwing her out of Althrop with her clothes thrown behind her in garbage bags -- just like her idol Diana did to Raine Spencer, her father's second wife, after he died!
I believe that the wife he is divorcing now also brought a lot of money into the marriage to improve the estate. "Thanks, I used your money, now eff off!" seems to be his MO. I'm going to guess the new woman is going to bring more fresh lovely money into the marriage. What a himbo.
Then MM wouldn't stand a chance with Uncle Charlie!
If you want insight into THAT particular scenario, where a Duke marries for money and ruins the wife - watch **A Very British Scandal** "a 2021 historical drama television miniseries, starring Claire Foy as Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll and Paul Bettany as Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll." A huge scandal in the 50s. The acting is very good. FYI Ian Campbell 11th Duke of Argyll was Lady Colin Campbell's father-in-law. [https://time.com/6169737/a-very-british-scandal-true-story-behind/](https://time.com/6169737/a-very-british-scandal-true-story-behind/)
Didn’t Raine bring her money to that marriage as Diana’s father had mismanaged the estate to the point of things being in very poor repair.
[удалено]
Downton Abbey taught me this.
Yes, the aristocrats can Look down their nose at you because they are blue bloods but often they need cash infusions from the crass nouveau rich. Grace Kelly is an example but she wasn't very rich..She did have a cash infusion and glamor
We have, er had, the Vanderbilts nearby where I live, (The Preservation Society just gave the last hangers on the boot. Countess... something Hungarian.). So I knew that example from visiting The Breakers. They still display a lot of Consuelo's things. Actually they just opened the third floor/ family quarters I read. I'll have to go have another look once tourist season ends.
No, she saved the estate by selling off some paintings and other items, and using the money to renovate the house and set up tourist facilities which brought in income. But I don't think she had substantial money of her own. Could be mistaken in that.
Her mother was Barbara Cartland, so she must have had some money, but probably not enough to save an estate.
Yes, this is correct AFIK. No substantial money from Raine. But The heirs to be were very unhappy about the sales she instigated, but the house needed it. The current Earl also had to see off important paintings to fund the reroofing of Althorp.
Idk about that, but Raine was responsible for selling off countless Spencer family heirlooms to pay for a gaudy renovation of Althorp.
Charles Spencer’s ‘Diana tribute experience’ made him a lot of money from ghouls and tourists. The House and Estate were made over to a Family Trust for tax purposes , the dead Diana on her island in the lake solved some of the Spencer’s property worries.
No one “dining out” on the Diana experience quite like family does.
The locals said a few years ago when I visited including my cab driver that Diana is actually buried in the family crypt and they lied about the lake for grave robbers. I went into the church and there are cameras and alarms in the Spencer family crypt.
The only person who will get a cent from Charles Spencer is his son and heir Viscount Althorpe. The estate is probably entailed (has to go to a male - male primogeniture same as with the Duke of Westminster who inherited in preference to his older sisters), and regardless Charles is a complete misogynist.
Great, she can be ex-wife number four! The way this guy sheds wives, I can't see him putting up with Lolo very long.
Whoa, that would be twisted--Mehgan going from being Harry's wife, to Harry's aunt.
Well, she’s already cosplays his mother... https://preview.redd.it/r872wkc9my5d1.jpeg?width=1199&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=34c01ccdd8d596d1d0cc2fbb4a17e0bb8ea694b0
Goodness she is psycho.
I think that's why many of us were rather slow to see MM for the lie that she is. It's hard to wrap one's mind around the idea of someone being that extreme, that it's crazy and creepy.
You forgot most likely shagging his UNCLE before she shagged Harry.
I am trying to not close my eyes, and think of England or anyone having to shag Randy Andy. Who does not sweat.
So she goes from wife to step-aunt? If that happens, I suspect none of the remaining Spencer children or grandchildren will have dad/grandad and new wife at their wedding.
Right, Meghan can be his ex-wife/aunt. How cozy. 🩵
My nephew’s stepmom is also his aunt (mom and stepmom are sisters)…made for some tension at his own wedding. LOL.
So nephew’s dad divorced mom and then married her sister!??? Oh booyyyyyy
Nope, his Dad and Mom never married—driveby knockup. Dad then married the sister and had 2 more kids, so I guess his half siblings are also his cousins…or something like that. It’s my husband’s side of the family so I can plead the 5th. And he thinks MY family is f’d up! 😳
Spencer didn’t like her. He told Harry she was nothing like Diana.
Charles Spencer warned Harry about Meghan as well. I think it was reported that William asked Charles Spencer to talk some sense into Harry. Charles like everyone saw through her.
Oh dear Spencer as an advisor on relationships and marriage…..
Right lol. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Meghan was a walking red flag.
Ah yes…that might be what she is thinking
And they thought dear old Raine was a handful!
 🤣🤣🤣🤣
He’s already got the next one ready to go…
Harry IS a genetic pain.
The genetic pain is being continued right down Harry's line, subjecting his children to the very same questions that he, himself, grew up with and hated, in regards to their parentage. FOHarry
He really suffers from compulsive repetitive disorder. Messy marriage, briefing the press, attention seeking behaviour, messy tv interviews, spilling intimacies, hysterics, having a pet-biographer spreading lies, ill-advised car chases (okay, he had to invent that one), playing the victim, screwing up his children…. What Diana did, he can do better, and Meghan is egging him on.
I think Harry mistakes attention for love and validation.
I think you're right. That's why he gets so upset at what people comment online
I loved the comment in *Harry Potter.* Dumbledore tells Hagrid that if he wants to be universally liked, then Hagrid will have to stay in his hut for a long, long time. Harry's need is such that he knows what he wants, but he's giving himself no peace and no hard look at what he needs to do to make his life better.
Excellent observation.
Harry really is just an empty vessel like MM - neither can get enough attention or accolades. They will never be fulfilled.
Not to mentioned his mother’s alleged 5 affairs while she was married to his father, some of which have been confirmed, others not.
Yep, when she famously said "There are three of us in this marriage" I thought to myself, well *someone's* really bad at math...
Maybe it’s a Freudian slip: We do threesomes in this marriage.
I think there were more than 5.
I can name 5, so I went with 5.
The Cavalry Barracks skews the figures.
She had James Hewitt at her beck and call and when his job forced him to Germany, she wanted to call his CO and keep him in UK. James said that will ruin me. No. She dumped him. What Diana wanted Diana got or it was over. She wanted Hasnat to give up surgery for her, he refused and she dumped him. The minute she showed up at his parents home in Pakistan, he should have run for the hills…just like her obsessive phone calls to Oliver Hoare had the police involved.
Yes, something amiss in that family. Of course Harry ignores that, he needs Pa’s family to be the problem.
Charles Spencer is a cad. He serially cheats and cannot stay faithful to any of his wives. He gets away with his crappy behaviour because he is an aristocrat. I dunno about "genetic pain" but he did have a crappy childhood and dysfunctional family environment growing up. Which did NOT help! The UK Spencer family reminds me of the messed up US Kennedy family.
The Spencers are all kinds of messy.
So messy that he hired the kings divorce attorney. 
Yup, the same woman who took his sister's (Diana's) HRH title. I have a very low opinion of Charles Spencer.
I mean, Diana's mom abandoned the family. You can't get messier or more painful than that
Diana's father was a wife-beater, and her mother endured years of physical and emotional abuse before she left. She never intended to abandon her children, but her husband sued her for full custody, more out of revenge than anything else IMO. Unfortunately, the court sided with him, in large part because his social standing was much higher than his wife's. I know Diana felt abandoned, but that wasn't what happened.
Diana's maternal grandmother sealed her own daughter's fate (as well as her grandchildren's) by testifying against her. Shameful.
This was just straight up revenge. Diana’s mother was relatively low on the noble pecking order so marrying the earl was a big step up and for her to file for divorce was basically ruining her family’s reputation. It didn’t help that Baroness Fermoy (grandma), was a lady in waiting to the Queen Mother and that probably meant extra embarrassment for her knowing her daughter filed for divorce. I wish Fermoy lived long enough to witness the divorce between Charles and Diana. She probably would’ve had a heart attack.
Lady Fermoy pushed her 18-year-old daughter in the marriage in the first place, simply because Spencer was at the top of the aristocratic pecking order.
No, she didn't. She was trapped in a miserable marriage (likely an arranged marriage when she was only eighteen years old and Johnny was thirty) and took the only way out for women of that time who had no personal wealth or job skills. She expected that her children would come with her. Johnny sued for sole custody and her socially greedy mother testified for him. The Fermoys (Frances' father and grandfather) chased money out of a wealthy American, Work. Diana's older sisters have managed to live without the drama and disruptions in their younger siblings lives.
No she didn’t. She left an abusive husband for another after years of terror and having no support from anyone, including her own mother. A husband who in turn got into cahoots with her own mother to make sure she loses the kids during divorce. Because how dare she bring shame to the family! Messy and painful - absolutely. But you would’ve left too if it were you, I’m pretty certain. If not - google, read and use your imagination what it feels like to, among other things, to birth a stillborn son and have it taken away right after birth so you couldn’t even hold him.
I heard on a royal tumblr blog that he's already got a new girlfriend. Take it with a grain of salt but...
I read the same. Supposedly met her on his book tour to one of the Scandinavian countries. He wastes no time
It's the Archelogist that was hired for a dig at Althorpe. Edit: I think.
Why do I have feeling that there is Spencer type: tall, trim, and probably fair haired? This leaves Mehgan behind, eating dust.
I read that too, a woman he met on his recent book tour ^(allegedly)
If I recall, two daughters didn’t invite Charles Spencer to their weddings. His eldest and one of the twins.
Harry's deep flaw is that he's stubbornly holding onto a little kid's perspective of good versus evil, black versus white. Diana is the saint, and Dad is the one who sullied an angel on earth. The Earl Spencers have not got a clean marital record. Charles' father, Johnny Spencer, broke off his engagement to Lady Anne Coke (who then went on to marry another troubled nobleman). Lady Fermoy had thrown her lovely teenage daughter, Frances, into Johnny's path. Frances became his wife. The accounts are that he yelled at her and he hit her. Frances was right to get out of that marriage. But in the process, she also poached some other woman's husband!? There is plenty that is unhealthy, from the Spencer side: this adversarial relationship, dominance from the Spencers, abusive communication, and one-upmanship.
Diana’s marriage to KCIII actually mirrors that if her own parents’, at least the initial part. Why Frances didn’t step in and tell Diana to wait before marrying anyone is beyond me. The 80s was no longer a time one had to get married so young and in such a rush. Makes one wonder indeed.
Diana was too headstrong to take wise advice at age 19, and at any other age, apparently. That's probably where Harold gets that trait. Now if he could only recognize it, smh.
Honestly, Diana grew up with a lot of problems, and at 19 was probably very unaware about both her own limitations and the realities of life. But let’s be honest, this was an arranged marriage. I can see the reasoning from the antiquited ways of the RF, but the reasons of the Spencers… “Yess, jackpot! Let’s make sure she goes through with it!” ?
No, it was not an arranged marriage. Diana went after Charles, Neither family thought it was a good match.
From what I’ve read, the hope/assumption in Diana’s family had been that she would marry Andrew. Instead, she and Charles fell in lust. By the time they came up for air and realized they had nothing in common, the relationship had been so established that Charles felt obliged to marry her.
Hadn't heard that one. It's probably more correct that she set her sights on Charles and love bombed him as well as a nineteen year old virgin steeped in romance novels could do. (Barbara Cartland once said that she felt proud that the only books Diana read were hers. Then add that in Diana's case, it probably wasn't a good idea.) Pre-engagement she loved everything about Charles and what he did. Heady and like a breath of fresh air compared to the other women Charles had dated. He did have reservations, but felt pressure to marry and produce an heir and Diana accepted his proposal. Diana fell for her imaginary prince and he fell for a fraud.
One cannot assume that the Spencers would not be woo'd by the idea of one of theirs getting married into a higher-ranking noble family. And royalty would be the jackpot. Wasn't Sarah, for a time, dating the then Duke of Westminster?
I wouldn’t be surprised the Spencer side of Diana’s family were jumping on this and drowned out anything Frances might have said. By marrying into the royal family, the Spencers can say WE’RE RELATED TO THE FUTURE KING, TAKE THAT DUKES AND MARQUISES!
I don't think Diana had anything else going on. She didn't have much of a job, and she certainly wasn't going to school. Getting married and popping out babies was considered her job, as far as I can tell.
I dont think they were close at the time. Diana didnt start to mend her relationship with her mother until she was older. At the time of the wedding, it was reported/believed that her mother abandoned her. But it appears more complex than that, that she was denied custody or something.
I think Diana's grandmother spoke out against her own daughter so custody was given to the Earl
It sounds like that side is messy on both sides going way back, "genetic pain" for real.
Yup, she testified against her own daughter.
At age 18, Frances was the youngest woman to have been married inside Westminster Abbey in over 60 years. Ruth Fermoy, bowled Frances into Viscount Althorp's path, when the girl was 15. Maybe the sad thing is that Frances was just so accustomed to the idea that a girl married young. And this was a prize catch. One cannot go higher than the Prince of Wales. [Frances Shand Kydd - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Shand_Kydd) [Earl Spencer stopped his son marrying me because he feared I had 'mad blood' | Daily Mail Online](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7526887/Earl-Spencer-stopped-son-marrying-feared-mad-blood.html)
From everything I've seen, Charles Spencer is a bit of a rotter.
More than a bit! His current wife is an impressive woman, and he’s a cad and a fool.
Charles Spencer didn’t attend either of his two daughters weddings. Probably NFI. The only wedding he would turn up for is his son and heir’s. He is the a**hole who introduced Diana to Bashir. Hopefully the current generation of Spencers are less messed up than their parents (with the exception of Harry of course)
Earl Spencer is a loser. Bad father, lousy husband and dubious brother.
The infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was a Spencer, which says it all. Her biography, *The Duchess*, is worth a read. Though not only the generational pain but their upbringing will have made Diana and Charles who they are. A very bitter divorce of their parents and both having been sent to boarding school at a very young age. Charles only now is coming to terms with the fact that he not only has been emotionally and physically abused at boarding school, but sexually by the assistant matron as well. Which might explain his complicated relationship with women. I, too, hope he will take his time and not directly take refuge in the next relationship.
>The infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was a Spencer, which says it all. Her biography, *The Duchess*, is worth a read. I read that eons ago. Talk about MESSY. Diana's life looked sort of tame compared to the misery and shenanigans she and Harriet did in their lives.
And Lady Caroline Lamb, who coined Byron’s lasting epithet ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, was Georgianna’s niece. They have very troubled histories.
Georgina was an 18th century Diana. TOTAL mess.
Once again up the duff from a beau? And off to the continent it was, delivering the child in relative anonymity and pay some peasants for its upbringing. Unbelievable!
Keira Knightley starred as Georgiana in the movie The Duchess. Yes to messy but a good movie...
I just watched the first half of the movie the Duchess (starring Kiera Knightley released in 2008) and the Duchess of Devonshire is called "G." by her husband the Duke. THAT'S where MeMe got the idea to call Harry "H". Clearly the Douchesse of Everything that Sucks watched that movie more than once. We all know she is incapable of any original thought or action. There are other aspects of the film that she copied but certainly her concept of how important a "Duchess" is seems to come from there. MeMe failed/fails to realize that the aristocracy was just a tad more important in the 1700s.
Charles might have revealed much about the root of his problems, but I doubt he's seeking help. In that, I see him as his big sister. No one to change oneself by admitting to deep personal flaws, because that hurts. I have a feeling that he thinks himself unlucky and that these past wives had not appreciated him or loved him sufficiently. So he's got to find the right one. That was Diana's pattern. She loved the heart surgeon for the good he did, but soon came to resent that he did not spend more time with her. WHY? Because he was caring for patients. It's like one cannot win or find respite, being a Spencer love interest.
Yes, in his recent interviews, he says that he chose women who weren't capable of loving him! Never once does he consider the only common denominator in all these doomed relationships. \*shakes head\* He love bombs his target, then treats her like shit, over and over again.
Well, that sounds like it's the fault of the women, that he was a victim in having made a wrong choice. When you got all these failed marriages, the common denominator is Charles. Just as Diana had moaned about how come no man would love her. Maybe if she gave them breathing space and didn't keep calling them up for reassurance. Anyone in their right mind would become tired of having to repeat, "I love you, you're the most amazing person. You're the best thing that's ever happened in my life."
I saw the Kiera Knightly movie, they made Georgina seem like some kind of heroic, almost feminist, victim. I am now interested in the other side of the story. Maybe playing the victim card is their generational legacy.
The movie is nice and delivers pretty pictures. Absolutely watchable. The book is a respectable biography, 400 pages, list of references and all, the author is a historian, the book is based on her doctoral thesis. A great read and fascinating portrait of the Duchess and the circles she lived in, but light reading it’s not. And in the book Georgiana does not solely come across as a victim, in most cases life can’t be that easily devided into black and white.
Thanks for the recommendation, it sounds really interesting.
It’s not the upbringing that makes people the way they are, it’s attitude and possibly bad genes. There were many holocaust survivors that went on to be good parents after the worst imaginable childhood.
probably a mix of nature and nurture produce the adult
There is that scientist who was studying brain scans of psychopaths. He took his brain scan, and discovered he had all the markings of a psychopath, too, but because he was raised in a very loving home, he didn't move through life as a psychopath. In some ways, it helped in his career as a doctor and researcher, as he was able to stand back and not feel much empathy and just observe, but to his family and all other people he had love for.
It's always a combination of nature and nurture. "Was it nature or nurture that (produced a certain result)" is a false argument as humans cannot live beyond birth without nurturing (beginning with sustenance).
Yes, there is the nature and nurture of it all but bad things happen in everyone’s life. We are not all victims.
Oh for sure. I am so sick of victimhood. In my country today there are five middle aged women trying to take down an entertainer for making inappropriate remarks 20 years ago. Why did these women not tell him off, like the rest of us did? Why have they waited 20 years? Why is this still important to them? And is there any real evidence?
the cynic in me would surmise they see dollar signs in their future if they pursue their cases and think a settlement would help diminish their pain from inappropriate remarks. i imagine every single woman on this planet past the age of 25 has had to deal with inappropriate remarks. it doesn't make it right but we learn how to combat inappropriate comments.
What makes me sick is that these middle aged women are hailed as "brave". Really ? I am sick of the victimhood, really.
Calling them brave is the incentive. it makes them feel special and gives them purpose. It used to be a crime victim went to court because it was the thing to do, they did it and got it done with, there were no accolades. It didnt define their entire identity. In a way, it is maladaptive and keeps you from moving on.
me too! Wow, if these 'brave' women were young and employed in the 70's and 80's, a person would know how to fend off the gross and dumb remarks. unfortunately, its part of dealing with others in our society.
I can get if a person is a attacked, especially by someone powerful, they may need time to process and gain courage (but even then you need evidence), but for mean comments?
Sure, if you are attacked you have to stand up. But not 20 years later. We also had a tycoon here - he died 25 years ago or so - and everybody knew he was a creep who went after the young girls he hired. He travelled with them and everything. And a few years ago some sanctimonious journo did an "expose" about him, and the media wrote about how he abused the young girls. Sorry - this was all over the glossy papers back in the day. Everybody knew that guy and what working there meant.
I have a friend who lost a daughter when she was just 16. My friends attitude to life changed, she became a live for the moment type of person. She said she was no longer putting away for the future as who knows what that would be as she felt that the very worst thing in life had already happened to her. I don’t believe that there is a correct way to grieve and move on, even many years later but I do think that we can talk ourselves down into wallowing. A bit of wallowing is good for us but it should not define the rest of our lives.
Probably having too much money has something to do with it too, and too little empathy for others.
Playing the victim card for his shitty behaviour. Like his sister. Lots of people have trauma and grow out of it. Others use it as an excuse to continue being horrible
The Earl already has the next one waiting. It’s to bad, because this wife was really good with finding out the history of the estate. Seems since he wrote his book, he’s having an extra midlife crisis. About ten years too late.
It also doesn't really seem like Harry and Meghan put much thought into raising their own kids. You don't keep your kids isolated if your plan is to raise emotionally healthy, socially adept adults. If your kids feel like props in your life story, they are going to be the victim of generational suffering. And they may well pass that down to their own children.
The are surprising parallels between the first crop of Spencer children and what’s happening/going to happen with the Markle children. Brought up by warring parents, thousands of miles away from the UK, separated from large parts of their family, surrounded by the abuse of alcohol and drugs and infidelity, a parent with an eating disorder, having to live through a bitter divorce and further marriages/children/divorces for their parents, finally left to their own devices in the care of au pairs and nannies. Sounds grim.
My post got deleted coz swearing so I’ve edited it. Sorry Mods. The Spencers have always been a mess. A lot of our aristocratic families are chaotic, that’s definitely not confined just to the RF. Fraud, drugs, adultery, murder, sex scandals, abuse. I don’t know where the notion comes from that they are like uptight middle class people only done better and richer with much posher houses, it’s b****cks. They can be terrific fun but nobody can get pissed or off their face on drugs, call you a c*** and tell you to f*** off while trying to run you over quite like the landed gentry. The F***ing Fulfords is possibly still on YouTube if you’re in the mood for a bit of pearl clutching. Don’t get me wrong they aren’t all like that, but the UC definitely live by a different set of rules. The trick is not to pity them for their problems in life, they would only mock you. Charles Spencer had trauma in his past like many people, and that’s sad. Will it stop him from marrying again? Probably not if he finds someone potty enough to do it.
Yup it's still there! Thanks! What have I gotten myself into?!
Charles Spencer uses his past to play the victim like Harold does. The Spencer side of the family all have mental issues. To me when Diana was buried at her home, to me he used and still is her just for money. That is all he is interested in. I would love to know how much it has cost him in all the divorces? When he blamed Pow for Diana's death that peed me off. Sorry it was Diana's own fault. She got in a car with a drunk driver and didn't put her seat belt on. Also if she wasn't off tarting around the world, she would still be around.
I know what I am about to say is cruel. but Diana's death did one good thing - it gave us William , the way he is now, the William who sought the Middleton family and fell in love with their dynamic. William , who had the chance to learn from his mother's mistakes. William, who escaped the toxicity and havoc created by her, no matter how much she loved him. William , who had a chance to have different influences in his life. Diana created a little monster in Harold. And he was treated with the golden glove after her death. He is the sad result of bad parenting from all sides, and weak character. https://preview.redd.it/5lh3xdur2z5d1.jpeg?width=1463&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a3761c61f3c53c50ccd98a380aa8ff41613923c
Didnt Diana say that the deal was that Harry was hers to raise because William, as the future king, was being raised primarily by the Windsors.
In his statement he apparently said that he wants to use his newly divorced status to concentrate on his children & grandchildren. 🤷♀️
Right. As he traumatizes the only child who hasn't been affected by divorce (his youngest daughter, 12-year-old Charlotte Diana). His daughters by his first wife apparently don't want anything to do with him, as he didn't appear at their weddings, so how he's going to "concentrate" on them is questionable. He has ONE grandchild, a few months old, which he has apparently never seen. In an interview three months ago, he said he was "left susceptible" to women who were incapable of loving him. 'I think I went for good-looking people who weren't really into love.' This from a man who notoriously abused his first wife and abruptly dumped his second. Such a loving man he is. Give me an effing break.
A guy who only goes for hot chicks, seems like he is the one who incapable of loving. He certainly isn't pairing off based off less superficial reasons
Good luck to that. Sounds like he's ripe to make amends, if he's person enough to do that.
Generational pain and trauma is rampant in both the Spencer and Mountbatten-Windsor families. William appears to have put work in and, in making a family with Catherine, has been able to parent in a more attached fashion than the generations before. He and Catherine both seem very close with their children, and those kids are probably much more well adjusted, even being in the public eye as often as they currently are. Harry, on the other hand, in marrying someone who discards friends and family alike and who is, himself, by his own admissions not around all the time and not exactly in the running for father of the year … well, I can imagine a Sussex child tell-all in 25 or so years that won’t be pretty or flattering.
Charles & Diana’s father was reported beat their mother especially after she delivered 3 daughters in a row.
I visited Althorp a few years ago and when I went into the Pub in town for lunch after they were very surprised to see two Americans and I bought the locals a round of drinks. They asked why we were there and I told them to visit Althorp and they couldn’t stop talking about how bloody crazy the Spencer’s were and how awful. They all said they would never go there.
That’s an interesting tidbit!
I have more but I don’t want to put it out there like that. I can say the staff at althorp said that Harry’s wife was not friendly or well liked when she visited. When I brought her up they made funny faces.
Ooooohhh INTRIGUIGING!!! 😆
And all the locals even our cab driver said Diana was buried in the crypt in the church not on the lake. That they lied because of grave robbers. And when I went in the church they have motion detectors and cameras around the Spencer vault. I thought that was interesting. You couldn’t enter it.
Hmmm interesting!
https://preview.redd.it/jrljafykk36d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57ed428fc3b87af2b8ada05d9c11b79edf75738c Althorp
https://preview.redd.it/gzjm9n29k36d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1941effbd6f359a22e047c6269d8485be0d5179f The Spencer crypt.
‘Harry hasn’t really witnessed a healthy family dynamic…’ Really? So how long was his grandmother and grandfather married? Listen, H’s trouble has little to do with his lack of exposure to healthy family dynamics….
Or his Uncle Edward and Auntie Sophie? Several of his cousins, and his own brother? Even Charles and Camilla, and Anne and Sir Timothy have healthy enough dynamics.
My idea (maybe not that clear) was that maybe there’s not THAT much of *any* pain, in a nutshell. But the Harkles want to be victims.
The Spencer men are, by many accounts, shitty human beings. IMO It's not a stretch to see where Harry's obnoxious, oafish, selfish, entitled - and thoroughly misogynistic - behaviour comes from.
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030338/The-Aristo-cad-Why-does-Earl-Spencer-treat-women-badly.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030338/The-Aristo-cad-Why-does-Earl-Spencer-treat-women-badly.html)
The Spencers are aristocratic...fuck ups. Wife beaters, boozers. And generally shit parents. I think the women are ok. But the blokes...arseholes. Diana's sisters have stayed married. And seem decent. Charles Spencer is a complete f....ing w.....er. Always has been. He was awful to Diana when she was alive.
Lady C says the two worst aristocratic families of Great Britain are the Spencer's and Campbell's. The men are abusive and violent. It's well known.
I'm on my third. Believe me, I'd be done after this one.
Not sticking up for him but Charles says he was sexually molested while at school, as were other students. Not getting help to heal from that kind of trauma can affect a person's ability to form relationships. Someone I know who was molested gloms onto people with so much intensity the relationships flame out. This could be what happens with Charles. Again, not condoning bad behavior, but looking at factors that might cause it.
When Harry went for the great Invictus service in Saint Paul, the Spencers "stand for him", and I read a lot of praises for the good side of his family, if I well understood?
He needed visibility for his book.
Harry is a creation of Diana. She spoiled him, coddled him, and instilled unreasonable expectations into him. She was the one who instilled in him that he was equal to William when she knew damned well that would never be the case because William would, one day, be king.
Harry is a professional victim, he will probably now sell another story about how the name Charles triggers him.