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Who is Lady Jane Fellowes? Princess Diana's sister gave the only reading at the royal wedding

Diana, Princess of Wales watching tennis at Wimbledon with her sister, Jane  - PA Archive
Diana, Princess of Wales watching tennis at Wimbledon with her sister, Jane - PA Archive

More than two decades ago, the most riveting moment at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales was the tribute given by her younger brother, the 9th Earl Spencer. He offered a “pledge that we, your blood family,” would “do all we can” to help raise Prince William and Prince Harry “so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition,” but “can sing openly” as she had planned.

Not only were his pointed words an implicit rebuke to their father, Prince Charles, and the Royal family, they overshadowed the heart-rending poems read by Diana’s two older sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes. 

Today, Jane will have the stage to herself when she gives the only reading at the wedding of her nephew, Prince Harry, from the Song of Solomon, which stresses the strength and power of love. 

Yet her moment in the public spotlight will be an ordeal for Lady Fellowes, as she has been known since becoming a baroness when her husband Robert was made a life peer in 1999. At Diana’s funeral in Westminster Abbey, the wide brim of her black hat obscured her eyes, as if to lessen her visibility. “Jane is very private,” recalled a friend of the Spencer family six months later. “She loathes publicity. It causes her physical pain.” 

Today, Jane will have the stage to herself when she gives the only reading at the wedding of her nephew, Prince Harry

In 1997, she was a 40-year-old mother of two daughters and a son, and her husband had been the Queen’s private secretary and most senior adviser for seven years. Today, she is a 61-year old grandmother. Had Diana lived, she would be 56.

Growing up, Sarah and Diana were both outgoing and headstrong, while Jane was sensitive and quiet, intelligent and well-read. At their boarding school, West Heath, Jane passed 11 O-level exams to Sarah’s six and Diana’s nought. Jane and Diana “had remarkably similar voices, but character-wise, they were different,” said Felicity Clark, a former Vogue editor who knew the Spencer sisters.

Diana Princess of Wales with her sisters Lady Sarah Mccorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes in 1995 - Credit:  REX/Shutterstock
Diana Princess of Wales with her sisters Lady Sarah Mccorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes in 1995 Credit: REX/Shutterstock

Friends noted that Jane also shared Diana’s trait of holding her head down and looking up. In the family, Diana was “Duch,” Charles was “The Admiral,” Sarah was “Ginge,” but Jane’s temperament didn’t lend itself to nicknames.  

After graduating from West Heath, Jane spent six months studying art in Italy and completed a secretarial course before landing a job at Vogue, where Sarah was already working. While their younger brother Charles graduated from Eton and Oxford, the Spencer sisters didn’t attend university.

Instead, at age 21, Jane married a neighbor from Norfolk, 36-year-old Robert Fellowes, a son of the Queen’s land agent who managed her 20,000 acre Sandringham estate for nearly three decades. After graduating from Eton, Robert had served as an officer in the Scots Guards and then spent 14 years with the Allen Harvey and Ross Ltd. banking firm in the City. 

In the family, Diana was “Duch,” Charles was “The Admiral,” Sarah was “Ginge,” but Jane’s temperament didn’t lend itself to nicknames

Before their 1978 wedding at the Guards’ Chapel in London, with Diana as bridesmaid, Robert signed on as an Assistant Private Secretary at Buckingham Palace. They moved into the Old Barracks, a grace-and-favour house at Kensington Palace, and lived modestly. Jane was as unspoiled as she was un-grand: “Marks and Spencer all the way,” said a friend who knew her then. 

In July 1980, they had their first child almost at the moment when Lady Diana and Prince Charles were getting to know each other at an East Sussex house party weekend. When Charles went to join the Royal family at their Balmoral estate in Scotland shortly afterward, 19-year-old Diana followed. She was on hand to help Jane and Robert with their newborn, but during those days in the Highlands, her romance with the Prince of Wales blossomed. 

Diana (r) was bridesmaid for her sister's marriage to Robert Fellowes in 1978 - Credit: PA Archive
Diana (r) was bridesmaid for her sister's marriage to Robert Fellowes in 1978 Credit: PA Archive

The two sisters were close, and when Diana moved into Buckingham Palace after her engagement to Charles, Jane met her for lunch, took her shopping, and introduced her to four editors at Vogue who helped create a wardrobe fit for a princess. Diana’s family approved of the match, and when she expressed misgivings to her sisters two days before the wedding, they joked, “Well, bad luck Duch, your face is on the tea towels, so you’re too late to chicken out.” 

Robert Fellowes, a model of courtesy and discretion, tried to guide his sister-in-law after she and Charles moved into their own apartment at Kensington Palace. Jane devoted herself to her husband and children and got involved in the prestigious King’s Lynn Festival of summertime concerts, which was organized by her maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy in 1951. When the Fellowes family went on holiday to the Flete Estate on the Erme estuary in Devon, they invited Diana and her boys to stay.  

When the princess wanted to be told she was wonderful, Jane brought her down to earth. Diana viewed her sister’s well-meaning reaction as insufficiently sympathetic

But as Diana’s marriage unraveled and her distress intensified, her relations with her family became strained, and her siblings shifted in and out of favor. Jane had the benefit of proximity, but she was “of a different emotional kind,” said a friend of Diana’s. When the princess wanted to be told she was wonderful, Jane brought her down to earth. Diana viewed her sister’s well-meaning reaction as insufficiently sympathetic.  

A near-breaking point came in 1992 with the publication of Andrew Morton’s sensational book, Diana: Her True Story. Not only had the princess thoroughly cooperated with the author – even doing a series of soul-baring interviews – she denied her involvement to everyone in the Royal family, along with her brother-in-law. 

Prince Charles leaves the Salpetriere Hospital with Princess Diana's sisters Lady Jane Fellowes, centre, and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, far left after they came to collect Diana's body in Paris  - Credit: AP PHOTO/Laurent Rebours
Prince Charles leaves the Salpetriere Hospital with Princess Diana's sisters Lady Jane Fellowes, centre, and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, far left after they came to collect Diana's body in Paris Credit: AP PHOTO/Laurent Rebours

Robert Fellowes was thrown into an impossible situation: advising the Queen on how to navigate her son’s marital minefield while coping with Jane’s understandable upset over Diana’s behavior. “I don’t think he ever would have done anything to harm Diana,” said Patsy King, an older Spencer cousin. “He was very fond of her, but she didn’t trust him and lied to him, which was very silly.” 

In the aftermath, Jane receded and Sarah moved to the fore, becoming Diana’s lady-in-waiting and accompanying her on overseas trips. Sarah shared one distinctive connection with her younger sister, having briefly dated the Prince of Wales herself before he met Diana. Sarah was jolly and efficient, with a quick wit that helped pull Diana out of her dark moods. But after Diana’s divorce from Prince Charles in 1996, she, too, slipped into the background. Sarah had her own family to raise in Lincolnshire, where she was busy on assorted local committees. 

Harry in particular benefited from his level-headed aunt, who has been as loyal as she has been affectionate

Diana’s relationship with her younger brother, Charles, was the most fraught in her final year. They fell out when she needed a country retreat, and he declined to offer her the house she wanted, causing what Earl Spencer later called a “brief but bitter silence.” When she died, they were on speaking terms, but he was far away, living in South Africa. 

Of Diana’s three siblings, Jane took the most prominent role in fulfilling Charles Spencer’s funeral pledge. When William and Harry were in boarding school at Ludgrove and Eton, Jane cheered them on as they played football and other games. Through her attentiveness and by her example, she was a stalwart force for both princes. Harry in particular benefited from his level-headed aunt, who has been as loyal as she has been affectionate. 

Lady Sarah McCorquodale (left), Lady Jane Fellowes and their brother Earl Spencer at the opening of a fountain built in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, in London's Hyde Park in 2004 - Credit: PA/Fiona Hanson
Lady Sarah McCorquodale (left), Lady Jane Fellowes and their brother Earl Spencer at the opening of a fountain built in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, in London's Hyde Park in 2004 Credit: PA/Fiona Hanson

The two princes also grew close to the three Fellowes children, Laura, a novelist; Alexander, an investment banker; and Eleanor, who trains probation officers. Two years ago, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge chose Laura, who writes under the name Mave Fellowes, as a godmother to Princess Charlotte. 

In her reading today, Lady Fellowes will carry out Harry’s wish to “celebrate the memory” of his mother. With her silver hair and unfussy style, she will also evoke the passage of time. This public occasion will be happy but no less discomfiting for her. She will read before a global audience of several billion because she loves Harry, and he loves her.

Sally Bedell Smith is the author of Charles: The Misunderstood Prince (Michael Joseph)