Diana, Princess of Wales, (Diana Frances Spencer; was born 1 July

1961 and died in 31 August 1997. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Their sons, Princes William and Harry[2], are second and third in line to throne of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonwealth Realms. A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana remained the focus of worldwide media scrutiny before, during and after her marriage. This continued in the years following her death in a car crash and in the subsequent display of public mourning. Contemporary responses to Diana's life and legacy were mixed but popular interest with the Princess endures.

Royal descendent:
On her father's side, she was a descendant of King Charles II of England through four illegitimate sons

She was also a descendant of King James II of England through an illegitimate daughter, Henrietta FitzJames, by his mistress Arabella Churchill. On her mother's side, Diana was Irish and Scottish, as well as a descendant of American heiress Frances Work, her mother's grandmother and namesake, from whom the considerable Roche fortune was derived The Spencers had been close to the British Royal Family for centuries, rising in royal favour during the 1600s. Diana's maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a long-time friend and a lady-inwaiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Her father had served as an equerry to King George VI and to Queen Elizabeth II. In August 2009, the New England Historic Genealogical Society published Richard K. Evans's The Ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales, for Twelve Generations.

From her marriage in 1981 to her divorce in 1996 she was styled Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales. She was generally called "Princess Diana" by the media despite having no legal right to that particular honorific, as it is reserved for a princess by birthright rather than marriage.

Education:
Diana was first educated at Silfield School, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, then at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk, and at West Heath Girls' School (later reorganised as the The New School at West Heath) in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as a poor student, having attempted and failed all of her O-levels twice.[3] Her outstanding community spirit was recognised with an award from West Heath. In 1977, at the age of 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. At about that time, she first met her future husband, who was then dating her eldest sister, Lady Sarah. Diana reportedly excelled in swimming and diving, and longed to be a professional ballerina with the Royal Ballet. She studied ballet for a time, but then grew to 5'10", far too tall for the profession. Diana moved to London before she turned seventeen, living in her mother's flat, as her mother then spent most of the year in Scotland. Soon afterward an apartment was purchased for 50,000 as an 18th birthday present, at Coleherne Court in Earls Court. She lived there until 1981 with three flatmates. In London she took an advanced cooking course at her mother's suggestion, although she never became an adroit cook, and worked first as a dance instructor for youth, until a skiing accident caused her to miss three months of work. She then found employment as a playgroup (pre-preschool) assistant, did some cleaning work for her sister Sarah and several of her friends, and worked as a hostess at parties.

Engagement and wedding:Their engagement

became official on 24 February 1981, after Diana selected a large 30,000 ring consisting of 14

diamonds surrounding a sapphire, similar to her mother's engagement ring.[7] 20-yearold Diana became The Princess of Wales when she married Charles on 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral, which offered more seating than Westminster Abbey, generally used for royal nuptials. It was widely billed as a "fairytale wedding," watched by a global television audience of 750 million.[7][8] At the altar Diana accidentally reversed the order of Charles's names, saying Philip Charles Arthur George instead.[9] She omitted to say the word "obey," which caused a sensation at the time.[10] Diana wore a dress valued at 9000 with a 25-foot (8-metre) train.[11] The couple's wedding cake was created by Belgian pastry chef S. G. Sender, who was known as the "cakemaker to the kings."[12]

Children:
On 5 November 1981, Diana's first pregnancy was officially announced, and she frankly discussed her pregnancy with members of the press corps. In the private Lindo Wing of St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington on 21 June 1982, Diana gave birth to her and Prince Charles's first son and heir, William. Among some media, she decided to take William, still a baby, on her first major overseas visit to Australia and New Zealand, but the decision was popularly applauded. By her own admission, Diana had not initially intended to bring William until it was suggested by the Australian Prime Minister.[15] A second son, Harry, was born about two years after William on 15 September 1984.[16] Diana asserted that she and Prince Charles were closest during her pregnancy with "Harry", as the younger prince became known. She was aware their second child was a boy, but did not share the knowledge with anyone else, including Prince Charles, who was hoping for a girl although they had a god daughter by the name of Desire Ariadne Bouzane through family kinship. She was universally regarded as a devoted and demonstrative mother.[17] However, she rarely deferred to Prince Charles or to the Royal Family, and was often intransigent when it came to the children. She chose their first given names, defied the royal custom of circumcision, dismissed a royal family nanny and engaged one of her own choosing, in addition to selecting their schools and clothing, planning their outings and taking them to school herself as often as her schedule permitted. She also negotiated her public duties around their timetables.

Charity work:
Though in 1983 she confided in Premier of Newfoundland Brian Peckford: "I am finding it very difficult to cope with the pressures of being Princess of Wales, but I am learning to cope,"[18] from the mid1980s, the Princess of Wales became increasingly associated with numerous charities. As Princess of Wales she was expected to visit hospitals, schools, etc., in the 20thcentury model of royal patronage. Diana developed an intense interest in serious illnesses and health-related matters outside the purview of traditional royal involvement, including AIDS and leprosy. In addition, the Princess patronised charities and organisations working with the homeless, youth, drug addicts and the elderly. From 1989, she was President of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. During her final year, Diana lent highly visible support to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a campaign that went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 after her death.[19]

Problems and separation:

During the early 1990s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first suppressed, then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise. The chronology of the break-up[20] identifies reported difficulties between Charles and Diana as early as 1985. During 1986, Prince Charles turned again to his former girlfriend, Camilla Shand, who had become Camilla Parker-Bowles,

wife of Andrew Parker-Bowles. This affair was exposed in May 1992 with the publication of Diana: Her True Story, by Andrew Morton. The book, which also laid bare Diana's allegedly suicidal unhappiness, caused a media storm. This publication was followed during 1992 and 1993 by leaked tapes of telephone conversations which negatively reflected on both the royal antagonists. Transcripts of taped intimate conversations between Diana and James Gilbey were published by the Sun newspaper in Britain in August 1992. The article's title, "Squidgygate", referenced Gilbey's affectionate nickname for Diana. Next to surface, in November 1992, were the leaked "Camillagate" tapes, intimate exchanges between Charles and Camilla, published in Today and the Mirror newspapers. In the meantime, rumours had begun to surface about Diana's relationship with Major James Hewitt, her former riding instructor. These would be brought into the open by the publication in 1994 of Princess in Love. In December 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the Wales's "amicable separation" to the House of Commons,.[21] and the full Camillagate transcript was published a month later in the newspapers, in January 1993. On 3 December 1993, Diana announced her withdrawal from public life.[22] Charles sought public understanding via a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby on 29 June 1994. In this he confirmed his own extramarital affair with Camilla, saying that he had only rekindled their association in 1986, after his marriage to the Princess of Wales had "irretrievably broken down."[23][24] While she blamed Camilla Parker-Bowles for her marital troubles, Diana at some point began to believe Charles had other affairs. In October 1993 Diana wrote to a friend that she believed her husband was now in love with Tiggy LeggeBourke and wanted to marry her.[25] Legge-Bourke had been hired by Prince Charles as a young companion for his sons while they were in his care, and Diana was extremely resentful of Legge-Bourke and her relationship with the young princes.

Divorce:
Diane was interviewed in a BBC Panorama interview[26] with journalist Martin Bashir, broadcast on 20 November 1995. In it, Diana asserted of Hewitt, "Yes, I loved him. Yes, I adored him." Of Camilla, she claimed "There were three of us in this marriage." For herself, she said "I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts." On Charles's suitability for kingship, she said: "Because I know the character I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don't know whether he could adapt to that." In December 1995, the Queen asked Charles and Diana for "an early divorce," as a direct result of Diana's

Panorama interview. On 20 December 1995, Buckingham Palace publicly announced the Queen had sent letters to Charles and Diana advising them to divorce. The Queen's move was backed by the Prime Minister and by senior Privy Councillors, and, according to the BBC, was decided after two weeks of talks. Prince Charles immediately agreed with the suggestion. In February Diana announced her agreement after negotiations with Prince Charles and representatives of Queen, irritating Buckingham Palace by issuing her own announcement of a divorce agreement and its terms.The divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.

Life after divorce:

After the divorce, Diana retained her double apartment on the north side of Kensington Palace, which she had shared with Prince Charles since the first year of their marriage, and it remained her home until her death. Diana dated the respected heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, from Jhelum, Pakistan, who was called "the love of her life" after her death by many of her closest friends,[34] for almost two years, before Khan ended the relationship.[35][36] Khan was intensely private and the relationship was conducted in secrecy, with Diana lying to members of the press who questioned her about it. Khan was from a traditional Pakistani family who expected him to marry from a related Muslim clan, and although Diana expressed willingness to convert to Islam, their differences, not only religion, became too much for Khan. According to Khan's testimonial at the inquest for her death, it was Diana herself, not Khan, who ended their relationship in a late-night meeting in Hyde Park, which adjoins the grounds of Kensington Palace, in June 1997. Within a month Diana had begun dating Dodi Al-Fayed, son of her host that summer, Mohamed Al-Fayed. Diana had considered taking her sons that summer on a holiday to the Hamptons on Long Island, New York, but security officials had prevented it. After deciding against a trip to Thailand, she accepted Fayed's invitation to join his family on the south of France, where his compound and large security detail would not cause concern to the Royal

Protection squad. Mohamed Al-Fayed bought a multi-million pound yacht on which to entertain the princess and her sons.

Death:
On 31 August 1997, Diana perished in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris along with her then boyfriend, Dodi Al-Fayed and the acting security manager of the Htel Ritz Paris, Henri Paul, who was their chauffeur. An estimated 2.5 billion people watched the princess's funeral.[41] Conspiracy theories and inquest: The initial French judicial investigation concluded that the accident was caused by Henri Paul's drunken loss of control.[42] From February 1999, Dodi's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed (the owner of the Paris Ritz, for which Paul had worked) maintained that the crash had been planned,[43] accusing the MI6 as well as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.[44] Inquests in London during 2004 and 2007 [45] finally attributed the accident to grossly negligent driving by Henri Paul and the pursuing paparazzi.[46] The following day Mr. Al-Fayed announced he would end his 10-year campaign for the sake of the late Princess of Wales' children. Tribute, funeral, and burial: The sudden and unexpected passing of a very popular royal figure brought statements from senior figures worldwide and many tributes by members of the public. People left public offerings of flowers, candles, cards and personal messages outside Kensington Palace for many months. Diana's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 6 September 1997. The previous day Queen Elizabeth II had paid tribute to her in a live television broadcast.[47] Her sons, the Princes William and Harry, walked in the funeral procession behind her coffin, along with the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Edinburgh, and with Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer. Memorials

The first of two memorials to Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al-Fayed Princess Diana doll Innocent Victims", the second of two memorials in Harrods

Immediately after her death, many sites around the world became briefly ad hoc memorials to Diana, where the public left flowers and other tributes. The largest was outside the gates of Kensington Palace. Permanent memorials include: The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Gardens in Regent Centre Gardens Kirkintilloch y The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, London opened by Queen Elizabeth II. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens, London. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, a circular path between Kensington Gardens, Green Park, Hyde Park and St James's Park, London
y

y y

In addition, there are two memorials inside Harrods department store, owned by Dodi Al-Fayed's father Mohamed Al-Fayed, in London. The first memorial consists of photos of the two behind a pyramid-shaped display that holds a wine glass still smudged with lipstick from Diana's last dinner as well as an 'engagement' ring Dodi purchased the day before they died.[48] The second, unveiled in 2005 and titled "Innocent Victims", is a bronze statue of the two dancing on a beach beneath the wings of an albatross.[49] There is an unofficial memorial in Paris, Place de l'Alma: it is the flame of liberty, erected here in 1989.