Inside the stormy relationship between Diana’s mother and grandmother,
Princess Diana’s grandmother’s turbulent relationship with her daughter saw the family members clash in a courtroom.
Like many families up and down the country, the Spencers were no stranger to their fair share of family drama.
Indeed, it has been well-documented that Diana and her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, had a testy relationship throughout their life with periods of reconciliation followed by long spells where the pair did not speak to one another.
But it was Frances’ relationship with her own mother – Lady Fermoy – which was the most volatile.
Lady Fermoy died in 1993 following a short illness. During her 84 year life, the former friend and confidante to the Queen Mother never got on well with her own daughter.
In his bestselling biographer about Princess Diana, Andrew Morton revealed how Lady Fermoy spoke so negatively about Frances that it left a lasting legacy on how the Palace saw Diana’s mother.
Speaking to Morton, Diana said: ‘She [Lady Fermoy] feeds the Royal Family with hideous comments about my mother, about her running away and leaving the children.
‘Whenever I mention my mother’s name within the Royal Family, which I barely do, they come on me like a ton of bricks’.
Lady Fermoy’s ‘real hatchet job’ against Frances meant that her own son-in-law – Prince Charles – wouldn’t talk to her, according to Diana.
The details of their quarrels are not known but in a very public spat Lady Fermoy spoke out against her own daughter during Frances’ bitter divorce from John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer
In 1969, Lady Fermoy testified against her own daughter in court which led to Diana’s father being granted custody of the future princess and her siblings.
Diana told Morton that the details of the family drama were never truly revealed to the Princes of Wales.
‘The four of us never knew what happened and we don’t actually want to know’, she said.
Born in 1908, Lady Fermoy rose to become an influential figure at court as a friend and confidante of the last Queen Mother, whose outlook had a profound influence on the future Princess of Wales.
It has been suggested that Lady Fermoy was among those conniving to bring about a dynastically beneficial but inappropriate marriage between her granddaughter and the future King – although this is something she denied.
Diana’s own testy relationship with her mother has also been well documented.
A particularly sour point in their relationship started around the time of what should have been one of their happiest memories together – Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles in July 1981.
Morton revealed how Diana felt ‘let down terribly’ by Frances on her wedding day.
‘She kept crying and being all valiant and saying that she couldn’t cope with the pressure, I tended to think I was the one under pressure because I was the bride’ Diana told Morton.
Diana goes on to claim that her mother drove her ‘mad’ during her engagement and Frances was left ‘hurt’ when she was not included in preparations for the big day.
She even makes the shocking allegation that the stress of the wedding led her mother to begin taking the anxiety medication valium which she was on ‘ever since’.
After the wedding, Diana said the pair didn’t speak to each other for three to four years.
Despite this, Frances was spotted at Mary’s Hospital following the birth of Prince William in June 1982 with the new grandmother reportedly relieved that Diana would not have to endure the pressure of producing a male heir.
Frances bitter split with Diana’s father in 1969 had a profound on the future princess.
After the four children were left in the care of their father after a fierce custody battle when Diana was seven, Charles Spencer – Diana’s younger brother – recalled that ‘Diana used to wait on the doorstep for her, but she never came.’
He said : ‘While she was packing her stuff to leave, she promised Diana she’d come back to see her.
‘Our father was a quiet, constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity… she couldn’t do it. She was in love with someone else, infatuated really.’
Despite her own troubled mother-daughter relationship, by all accounts Frances had a good relationship with her royal grandchildren.
William and Harry reportedly enjoyed their visits to Frances home on the rugged and isolated Seil Island off the coast of Scotland which provided a welcome break from royal life for the young princes.
However, Diana’s status as one of the most famous women in the world drew a further wedge between the mother and daughter.
After divorcing John Spencer, Frances married wallpaper tycoon Peter Shand Kydd.
By the late 1980s Frances’ second marriage had began to deteriorate and she in part blamed Diana for the break-up.
Peter allegedly felt overshadowed by his more famous wife after Diana’s skyrocketed the popularity of the Spencers.
In its obituary for Frances, The Guardian wrote about why Peter divorced her in 1990.
‘I think the pressure of it all was overwhelming and, finally, impossible for Peter. They didn’t want him. They wanted me. I became Diana’s mum, and not his wife,’ Frances is quoted as saying.
After Diana separated from Charles in 1992, Frances is reported to have not approved of her later relationships.
Diana’s former butler – Paul Burrell – claimed that she voiced disapproval of Diana’s relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and businessman Gulu Lalvani during a particularly tetchy phone call.
Frances tendency to be loose-lipped with members of the press left a damning final legacy in her relationship with Diana.
This came after Frances said in an interview months before her daughter’s death that it was ‘absolutely wonderful’ she had been stripped of her HRH title after her divorce from the then Prince Charles, which caused Diana to never speak to her mother again.
