As Charles Spencer turns 60, how he delivered excoriating eulogy at Princess Diana’s 1997 funeral before revealing his own childhood trauma in recent memoir – and is still close to nephew Prince Harry

His cheerful embrace with Prince Harry earlier this month showed just how close he is to at least one of the sons of his late sister. 

Charles Spencer, the brother of Princess Diana, warmly greeted his nephew at St Paul’s Cathedral when the Duke of Sussex made a flying visit to Britain for the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games.

Earl Spencer, who turns 60 today, has remained close to Harry amid his rift with King Charles and Prince William, who both chose not to attend the memorial service.

The historian’s recent memoir, A Very Private School, revealed the horrifying sexual and physical abuse he suffered at boarding school. 

The process of writing the book was so traumatic that he had to seek mental health treatment to cope with the years of trauma that the process unlocked. 

Keen royal watchers will be well aware that Harry has remained close to his mother’s side of the family since her tragic death in 1997.

Perhaps it Earl Spencer’s own frosty relations with the royal family, as heavily implied by his inflammatory speech at Princess Diana’s funeral, that allow the pair to get on so well.

The Earl was born on May 20, 1964 to parents John Spencer and Frances Roche.

Due to close familial connections with royalty, Earl Spencer was baptised at Westminster Abbey and Queen Elizabeth II was one of his godmothers.

He grew up at Park House in Sandringham with his three older sisters – Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Diana Spencer.

As he and Diana were less than three years apart in age, the pair grew close throughout their childhood years – a bond that only solidified during their parents’ tumultuous divorce in the late 1960s.

Their mother, Frances, moved out of the family home to be with wallpaper tycoon Peter Shand Kydd in 1969 but Diana would wait on the doorstep for her to come back and visit.

Earl Spencer told Hello magazine that Diana was ‘always very protective over him’.

‘My mother [Frances] left home when we were young – I was two or three, and Diana would have been five or six – so we were very much in it together.’

Their tight sibling bond is revealed in the opening moments of Earl Spencer’s memoir.

He details his first day at Silfield – a school in Norfolk that he and Diana attended together before being sent off to separate boarding schools.

According to their former teacher, young Diana ‘just wouldn’t settle’ in class until she knew her younger brother was okay.

She was given permission to check in on her brother before she returned to class proclaiming: ‘Thank you, Charles seems to be doing fine!’

But Earl Spencer’s heartbreaking new memoir primarily focuses on his years at Maidwell Hall in Northamptonshire, where he was sent at the age of eight.

The book details the physical and sexual abuse he endured at the elite boarding school at the hands of the teachers as well as the assistant matron.

Maidwell Hall apologised to Earl Spencer and referred themselves to the Local Authority Designated Officer to ensure the disclosures were handled sensitively.

A spokesman for the school said: ‘It has been very sobering to read about the experiences the young Charles Spencer, and some of his contemporaries, had at the School, and we are sorry that this was their experience. 

‘It is difficult to read about practices which were, sadly, sometimes believed to be normal and acceptable at that time.’

After leaving Maidwell Hall, Earl Spencer was educated at Eton College before accepting a place at the University of Oxford to study modern history.

While studying at the university he declined an offer to join the infamous Bullingdon Club alongside future prime ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson. 

Upon his father’s death in 1992, Charles, who was 27 at the time, inherited his title and the family’s ancestral seat in Northamptonshire – Althorp House.

After the death of his beloved sister Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997, Earl Spencer joined Prince Phillip, Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry as they followed her coffin to Westminster Abbey.

The Earl delivered a controversial eulogy at the funeral in which he took swipes at both the British media and the royal family.

Addressing his late sister, he said: ‘…on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.

‘We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role but we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead.

‘I know you would have expected nothing less from us.’

An ITV documentary, Diana: The Day Britain Cried, which aired in 2017, revealed Earl Spencer’s eviscerating speech was, unsurprisingly, received poorly by the Royal Family , who did not even applaud at the end.

Martin Neary, Westminster Abbey’s musical director, told the documentary: ‘I felt a great sympathy for what she had suffered but at the same time I was shocked by some of things which were said.

‘The princes actually applauded at the end, although the senior members of the Royal Family did not.’

Earl Spencer later said that he had rehearsed the inflammatory speech, writing in The Guardian: ‘I read it to Diana’s coffin, in the chapel at St James’s Palace, and at the conclusion heard a whisper that sounded like satisfaction in that sad, sad, place.’

The Earl has also claimed he was lied to about his sister’s funeral procession. 

In 2017, he said he had been told by royal officials that his nephews wanted to walk behind Diana’s coffin in the funeral procession, after he had raised concerns about it.

Describing the moment as the ‘most horrifying half hour of my life’, he revealed he still has nightmares about the ‘harrowing’ experience.

However he acknowledged that the walk would have been ‘a million times worse’ for William and Harry.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme, he slammed the insistence that the boys follow the coffin as a ‘very bizarre and cruel thing’.

He added: ‘Eventually I was lied to and told they wanted to do it, which of course they didn’t but I didn’t realise that.’

Diana is buried on a small island at Althorp. 

The original plan was for Diana to be buried in her family vault at a nearby church but this was changed by Earl Spencer as he wanted her grave to be inaccessible to the public and a place for her sons to mourn in peace.

In Spare, Harry detailed doing just that. He described rowing wife Meghan across the lake to visit his mother’s grave for the first time with her.

His uncle was on hand to give the boat ‘a little push’ when it got stuck in the mud.

Harry wrote: ‘I led Meg up the path, around a hedge, through the labyrinth. There it was, looming: the grayish white oval stone. No visit to this place was ever easy, but this one… Twenty-fifth anniversary. And Meg’s first time. At long last I was bringing the girl of my dreams home to meet mum.

‘We hesitated, hugging, and then I went first. I placed flowers on the grave. Meg gave me a moment, and I spoke to my mother in my head, told her I missed her, asked her for guidance and clarity. 

‘Feeling that Meg might also want a moment, I went around the hedge, scanned the pond. When I came back, Meg was kneeling, eyes shut, palms against the stone. 

‘I asked, as we walked back to the boat, what she’d prayed for. Clarity, she said. And guidance.’

Earl Spencer also opened an exhibition at the family estate featuring more than 150 of Diana’s personal objects, including her wedding dress.

Speaking to the Guardian in 2002, Earl Spencer took further swipes at the royal family over the frequency in which he saw his nephews.

He did not reveal how often he saw William and Harry but said: ‘What I can say is that they may not be encouraged to stay in touch with their mother’s side of the family.’

At the time, a spokesperson for St James’s Palace declined to comment on what was a ‘private family matter’.

Neither Earl Spencer, nor his sisters, were invited to the coronation of King Charles last May.

At the time, a friend of the Earl told the Independent: ‘What’s galling is that Earl Spencer may well have turned down the invitation for obvious historic reasons, but this brutal exclusion left no option for any elegant diplomacy.’

Earl Spencer has been married three times – his first wife was model Victoria Lockwood, who he proposed to after a whirlwind six-week romance.

The pair had four children – Lady Kitty, twins Lady Amelia and Lady Eliza and Louis, Viscount Althorp – whom they moved to South Africa in an attempt to give them more privacy.

The couple separated in 1997 – the same year that his sister died.

During their divorce hearing, it was claimed that Earl Spencer had described himself in a letter as having been ‘vicious, cruel and a bully’ towards Victoria.

She also accused Earl Spencer of cheating on her with other women – an accusation he has denied.

Earl Spencer and his second wife Caroline had two children – Edmund and Lara Spencer – but their marriage also ended in acrimony.

His divorce settlement with Caroline, who walked away with a £5.65 million payout, left the Earl unhappy due to his belief that he had overpaid.

Expecting to pay £4.5 million, Earl Spencer blamed his lawyer Sir Nicholas Mostyn for costing him the extra £1 million. 

Earl Spencer is now married to Canadian-born former model Karen Gordon and together they have revamped Althorp House and welcomed a daughter, Lady Charlotte Diana.

Karen reportedly had a bouncy castle installed in the dining room for Charlotte, who was recently seen doing an Easter egg hunt on horseback while wearing her pyjamas.

Earl Spencer has seven children in total but has seemingly distant relationships with the older ones.

When Lady Kitty Spencer was married in a lavish ceremony in Rome, he was noticeably absent.

The Earl did not attend his daughter Amelia’s wedding in South Africa either.