Frances Shand Kydd

She was born Frances Ruth Roche at Park House, on the royal estate at Sandringham, Norfolk, on 20 January 1936.[1][2] Coincidentally, her birth coincided with the death of King George V on the very same day. Her father was Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy, a friend of King George VI and the elder son of the American heiress Frances Ellen Work and her first husband, the 3rd Baron Fermoy.[2] Her mother, Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, a daughter of William Smith Gill, was a confidante and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother).[3] Since birth, she held the style of The Honourable as the daughter of a baron.

On 1 June 1954, she married John Spencer, Viscount Althorp (later the 8th Earl Spencer), at Westminster Abbey.[2] Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family attended the wedding ceremony.[4] She was 18 years old and became the youngest woman wed in Westminster Abbey in the last five decades.[4]

They had five children:

• Lady Sarah McCorquodale (born 19 March 1955), who married Neil Edmund McCorquodale, a 2nd cousin once removed of Raine, Countess Spencer.
• Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes (born 11 February 1957), who married Robert Fellowes, Baron Fellowes, then Private Secretary to the Sovereign.
• The Honourable John Spencer, who died 10 hours after his birth on 12 January 1960.
• Diana, Princess of Wales (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales.
• Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (born 20 May 1964), who married firstly Victoria Lockwood, secondly Caroline Freud (née Hutton and former wife of Matthew Freud), and thirdly and presently, Karen Villeneuve.

Ardencaple house

Her marriage to Viscount Althorp was not a happy one and, in 1967, she left him to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune in Australia, who she had met the year before. His half-brother was the former champion amateur jockey William Shand Kydd (1937–2014), who was the brother-in-law of John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan.

Subsequently, she was named "the other woman" in Janet Shand Kydd's divorce action against her husband.[2]

Frances and Peter Shand Kydd were married on 2 May 1969 and lived on the Scottish island of Seil, where they bought an 18th-century farmhouse called Ardencaple,[5] 10 kilometres from Oban. She divided her time between London, Seil and another sheep farm in Yass, New South Wales. Although she lived a quiet life, she was forced into public view following the engagement of her daughter Diana to Prince Charles on 24 February 1981.[6]

On 14 July 1976, the 8th Earl Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, daughter of the novelist Dame Barbara Cartland. He eventually won a bitter custody battle over his children.[7] Shand Kydd and her second husband separated in June 1988, after he left her for a younger woman.[3] She blamed the pressure of media attention for the breakdown of the marriage.

In 1996, she was banned from driving after being convicted of drunk-driving,[8] but denied she had a problem with alcohol. She and Diana quarrelled in May 1997, after she told Hello! magazine that Diana was happy to lose her style of "Royal Highness" following her controversial divorce from Prince Charles. She was reportedly not on speaking terms with her daughter by the time of Diana's death.[9][10][11]

She spent her later years in solitude on Seil.[12] She became a Roman Catholic and devoted herself to Catholic charities.[2] She eventually became involved with the Handicapped Children's Trust, the Royal National Mission for Deep Sea Fishermen, the Mallaig and Northwest Fishermen's Association, and the National Search and Rescue Dogs Association.[3]

In October 2002, when Shand Kydd left her Scottish home to give testimony at the trial of Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, burglars targeted her house and stole her jewellery.[13]

Frances died at her home in Scotland at the age of 68 on 3 June 2004, following a long illness that included Parkinson's disease and brain cancer.[14][15] Her funeral at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Oban on 10 June was attended by her children and grandchildren, including Princes William (who gave a reading) and Harry.[16][17] Their father, her former son-in-law, Charles, Prince of Wales, did not attend because he was travelling to Washington to lead the British delegation at the state funeral of the former US President Ronald Reagan the following day. Frances was buried in the local graveyard on the outskirts of Oban in Argyll.

In 2004, Maxine Riddington published a biographical book about her, entitled Frances: The Remarkable Story of Princess Diana's Mother.[18]

• Althorp House
• Visit Scotland, Isle of Seil page