The Spencer Family, Ancestry and Althorp 1: Ending Aug. 2023

[QueenElizabeth2Fan]

I had asked some Diana ancestry questions on this forum last year, the last time I’d been here.
I saw that a lot of them weren’t answered.

 

[Dman]

The 8th Earl Spencer, the WWII leading liberator-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...tish-army-unit-liberate-two-French-towns.html

 

[Moonmaiden23]

The Spencer genes are pretty strong...Charles Spencer is a virtual clone of his late father the 8th Earl.?

 

[eya]

Earl Spencer posted:

"The Spencer flag at half-mast at ⁦@AlthorpHouse⁩ today, marking the death of my father’s older sister (& only sibling) Anne, aged 99 1/2. An officer in the WRENS in World War 2, she was the mother of 3 sons and 2 daughters. Lady Anne Wake-Walker (née Spencer), 1920-2020"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1232311687648169991

 

[QueenElizabeth2Fan]

Who are famous royals or people (past and present) that Diana is related to?

 

[Alison H]

Like most of the aristocracy , she was descended from one (well, more than one) of Charles II's illegitimate children, so she was distantly related to all the British Royals, and therefore all the other Royal families into which British royals married.


Due to various marriages in the early 18th century, which I won't bore you with, one branch of the Spencer family became the Spencer Churchill family, so she was also related to Winston Churchill.


If you saw the Keira Knightley film about the Duchess of Devonshire - or even if you didn't! - the Spencers are related to the Dukes of Devonshire by various marriages over the years.

 

[eya]

Earl Spencer posted some beautiful pictures from Althorp House the last days!


"This morning at ⁦@AlthorpHouse " on 11 April

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVTPVOUXYAAh-DP?format=jpg&name=large


"The Round Oval at ⁦@AlthorpHouse this crisp spring morning"on 15 April

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVn_brsUcAAXbLw?format=jpg&name=large


"Black fallow bucks breakfasting together this morning, at ⁦@AlthorpHouse" in 16 April

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVtJ_G7WsAA-w1z?format=jpg&name=large


"Tim the Peacock looking rather fine this afternoon. Full plumage out, for the ladies."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EV0RjPxX0AMck7L?format=jpg&name=large

 

[Alouette]

Thanks for sharing, eya. Those are beautiful.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

Breathtaking! I love Althorp House.

 

[Durham]

Breathtaking! I love Althorp House.

Northamptonshire has other lovely country houses. Three of the finest are Boughton, Easton Neston & Castle Ashby.

The Gloucester's Barnwell Manor is also in the county. Another more modest manor house is Sulgrave, ancestal home of the Washingtons.

 

[An Ard Ri]

Northamptonshire has other lovely country houses. Three of the finest are Boughton, Easton Neston & Castle Ashby.

The Gloucester's Barnwell Manor is also in the county. Another more modest manor house is Sulgrave, ancestal home of the Washingtons.

Here's an article I found on Barnwell Manor.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-alice-had-to-leave-wonderland-1614055.html

 

[Durham]

Here's an article I found on Barnwell Manor.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-alice-had-to-leave-wonderland-1614055.html

Thank you for that. There's interesting information & photos about Barnwell in Princess Alice's memoirs as you probably already know. It was in her family of course. Nearby Boughton is one of the four enormous Montague Douglas Scott houses.

 

[An Ard Ri]

I wondered if the Gloucester's and the Spencer's ever mingled together pre Diana and Charles wedding?

 

[Durham]

I wondered if the Gloucester's and the Spencer's ever mingled together pre Diana and Charles wedding?

Good question. I don't know. They probably did as part of the county set. The older generations at least had the same sort of interests & upbringing. Birds of a feather & all that.

Both the old Duke of Gloucester & Earl Spencer were army men so they would have had that in common.

 

[An Ard Ri]

That's what I was thinking too being part of the country set and with dinners/receptions and so on,its quite possible.

 

[Durham]

That's what I was thinking too being part of the country set and with dinners/receptions and so on,its quite possible.

And hunting. Both the Gloucesters hunted.The big hunt in this part of the world was/is the Pytchley which the Spencers would have been involved with.

 

[An Ard Ri]

Althorp House was illuminated in Red as part of the #LightItInRed lighting action campaign on Monday night, 6th of July.Lord Spencer posed for photos in front of the Spencer family seat.

https://www.hellomagazine.com/homes...s-diana-former-home-gets-incredible-makeover/

 

[princeofitaly]

I read that an ancestor of Princess Diana was the popular Eleanor Nell Gwyn. How are the two women related?

 

[Gawin]

I read that an ancestor of Princess Diana was the popular Eleanor Nell Gwyn. How are the two women related?

Nope, the two women were not related.

But Diana was a descendant of Charles II by two of his other mistresses: Barbara Villiers and Louise de Kérouaille.

She was also a descendant of a third, Lucy Walter, but while Charles fathered Lucy's son he probably wasn't the father of her daughter, who was Diana's ancestor.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

Sarah Ferguson is also a direct descendant of Lucy Walter and Charles II.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

The Reynolds Drawing Room at Althorp House in 1905
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/514606022

 

[Blog Real]

Princess Diana's genealogy.
https://c7.quickcachr.fotos.sapo.pt/i/G851771eb/22255092_Zqyif.jpeg

 

[eya]

"500 years ago today, Sir John Spencer died. He bought the land at Althorp for grazing his sheep, built Althorp House in 1508, and was knighted by Henry VIII in 1519. He died on 14 April 1522, and this is his tomb."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQSiTUWWYAAwYrD?format=jpg&name=900x900

https://twitter.com/x/status/1514513829098627076

 

[Rayal]

Sir John Spencer's tomb in the Spencer Chapel, Great Brington church

A lady took this video of the Great Brington Church inside. We all must visit it some day:

 

[CyrilVladisla]

There is a Prince of Wales Bedroom in Althorp House.
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales visited Althorp House.

 

[SirGyamfi1]

The Spencer genes are pretty strong...Charles Spencer is a virtual clone of his late father the 8th Earl.?

Charles Spencer also looks like Cynthia Burke Roche

 

[An Ard Ri]

The church of St Mary the Virgin with St John more commonly known as Great Brington, St Mary's Church houses many of the Spencer Family tombs.

https://www.britainexpress.com/counties/northants/churches/great-brington.htm

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-mary-virgin-st-john-great-brington

 

[SirGyamfi1]

OK. I'm not really that much into tracing family trees and such but you might find this interesting.

Recently I posted about Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy who's wife was Lady Ruth Fermoy, a good friend of the Queen Mum. Going back one step furthur, we have American socialite Frances Work who married James, 3rd Baron Fermoy who's oldest son was Maurice. So that makes her Diana's great grandmother.

Another interesting tidbit is that Harry and William, having Frances Work Roche as a great great grandmother, through this lineage they also have Oliver Platt, an American actor who shares the same great great grandmother.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Ellen_Work

https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-ch...cess+diana&via=6317+james+boothby+burke+roche

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Platt

So, this kind of shows that should Harry and Meghan Markle get engaged and married, he wouldn't be the first in his family tree to have married an American.

QEQM herself has American ancestry from a family that came to the USA before the Work family came to the USA, so it’s not just from Diana he has American ancestry. Plus the Queen has ties to the Washington family and the Spencer’s do as well because they lived nearby Sulgrave Manor

 

[An Ard Ri]

Earl Spencer gave an exclusive tour of the 500 year old Spencer family chapel at the church of St Mary the Virgin in Great Brington.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

England didn't recognize the concept of morganatic marriages. A commoner who married a royal became a royal and any children born from that marriage were entitled to inherit the royal parent's titles. For example, when George III's brother William Henry Duke of Gloucester married Maria Walpole, the illegitimate daughter of an Earl's son, she became HRH the Duchess of Gloucester, and their children were Princess Sophia and Prince William. William inherited his father's title and married his cousin Princess Mary, daughter of George III. Despite the fact that Maria was a commoner, and the marriage was opposed by George III, the marriage was considered equal, not morganatic.

Your main point is quite right, but the former Maria Walpole was no longer a commoner when she married the Duke of Gloucester. She was the dowager Countess Waldegrave, having become a peeress in virtue of her first marriage to the Earl Waldegrave.