Lady Diana Spencer, Duchess of Bedford (1710-1735)

[Princess B]

I was surprised to see no topics about Lady Diana Spencer.


Like Diana, Princess of Wales she was a prospect for the then Prince of Wales, Frederick.

Her grandmother the Duchess of Marlborough, Sarah Churchill who was a close friend of Queen Anne encouraged this proposal.

Lady Diana Spencer then married Duke of Bedford, John Russell.

[Elspeth]

In case anyone is wondering, this is the lady Princess B is talking about:

Amazon.com: The First Lady Diana: The Life of Lady Diana Spencer, 1710-1735: Victoria Massey: Books

Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is yet another case where Sarah Duchess of Marlborough was trying to be the power behind the throne, many years after her domination of Queen Anne.

[Jo of Palatine]

Quen Anne had been long dead then. And at that time the Hanovers had comfortably settled into Britain while their possessions in Germany were at risk from their neighbors, notbaly the Prussians. So it would have made politically absolutely no sense to marry the Prince of Wales to a mere British nobleman's daughter when he could have a Saxe-princess to keep the Prussians in check. It's wishful thinking IMHo from people delighted by the coincidence that there ever was a chance that the first Diana Spencer could have become the Princess of Wales.

[Avicenna]

This is a portrait of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, together with her granddaughter Lady Diana Spencer. Painted by Maria Verelst following the death of the Duke of Marlborough. Source: The Favourite by Ophelia Field, a book on Sarah.

[Avicenna]

According to Ophelia Field the story of Sarah, trying to arrange an engagement was reported by Horace Walpole. However, he had reasons to invent it. First of all to point out Sarah's ambition and second to show that his father, Robert, had prevented it. There is obviously no other proof to it. Though the PoW 's visit to Windsor castle in September 1730 happened to take place at the same time when Sarah and Diana spent some time at the Lodge. And there were occasions for them to meet, after all Diana was invited to some royal events.

As a sidenote there was gossip back then that Henrietta, the forth daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, had an affair with the PoW.

[Princess B]

wow..these are some things i never read about
ver interesting though

[QUEENECE29]

Lady Diana Spencer (1710-1735)
Lady Diana Spencer (1961-1997)

two royal lady, two short life... interesting

[loyal_queen]

not really lol

[Grace Angel]

Maybe Diana was an unlucky name in the Spencer family- like the name Alexandra was unlucky among the Romanovs. In the Romanov family, three Alexandra's, daughters of Tsar Paul and Tsar Nicholas I and Alexander II died young in childhod or early adulthood, and then there was the obviously the last Tsarina Alexandra murdered in Ekatrinburg.

[Vasillisos Markos]

Were there more than two Diana Spencers?

[Nathalie Cox]

Interesting. I didn't know of the existence of this Lady Diana Spencer. And, as someone mentioned above, they both had short lifes.

[Zonk]

According to Wikipedia, in the direct line of Earl Spencers...it doesn't look like there was another Lady Diana Spencer.

Now, it also doesn't give out information for any other male siblings (those who didn't become Earl Spencer). So its possible a younger brother or cousin had a daughter that they named Diana. Its interesting to note that several of them had daughters with the name of Sarah and Lavinia.

[Marsel]

There were actually at least 2 Lady Diana Spencers in the Spencer line (not counting Diana, Princess of Wales):

1) Lady Diana Spencer (1710-1735), the daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland and Lady Anne Churchill (daughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough). This thread is dedicated to her. She had indeed been considered a possible wife for the Prince of Wales (mainly from the financial perspective - she had quite an impressive dowry), however George II voiced strong opposition to the union and, well, it never happened. She instead married John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford and became Duchess of Bedford. She is indeed not in the direct line of ancestors of the Earl of Spencer, as she was the youngest daughter and child of the 3rd Earl of Sunderland.
This Diana was the sister of John Spencer, who was the father of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer (which makes her a great-great-great-------great Aunt of the current Earl Spencer).

2) Lady Diana Spencer (1734–1808), the daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough and Honourable Elizabeth Trevor. She was the aunt of the aforementioned Lady Diana Spencer (she was the sister of 3rd Duke of Marlborough, 5th Earl of Sunderland, the second son of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland - the father of the other Lady Diana; she was thus the aunt of John, 1st Earl Spencer). She was lady of the bedchamber to Queen Charlotte. Lady Diana was married twice: firstly, to Frederick, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke (the marriage was annulled on the grounds of adultery, causing a huge scandal at the time and requiring an Act of Parliament for the annulment) and secondly (just two days after the annulment of her first marriage) to Topham Beauclerk. She had issue from both marriages. Both of her marriages were rather unhappy. One of Lady Diana's closest friends was Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. She was quite a gifted artist and created illustrations for several noted books of the time.

She actually may be an ancestress of the current Spencers through the Poyntz line (Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was also from that line): although the 5th Earl Spencer (who was the son of Georgiana Poyntz and 4th Earl Spencer) died childless, I think there were other marriages between the Poyntz and Spencer families (or at least, the Spencers married the descendants of the Poyntz family).

[HM Queen Catherine]

In addition to Marcel's post.. there was at least one other.

Diana Spencer (1735-1743), daughter of the Hon. John Spencer and Lady Georgiana Carteret. She was the younger sister of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer. Unfortunately, she didn't survive to adulthood so there is little mention of her. She was only eight years old when she died.

As far as I know, those are the only three Diana Spencers (above and Marcel's post).. other than the late Princess of Wales, of course, who makes the fourth.