Princess Diana remembered by brother Charles Spencer on 27th anniversary of her death

31 August 2024

Princess Diana has been remembered by her brother Charles Spencer on the 27th anniversary of her death.

Princess Diana has been remembered by her brother Charles Spencer on the 27th anniversary of her death

The royal was killed in a Paris car crash on 31 August aged 36, and her 60-year-old sibling, the 9th Earl Spencer, paid an emotional tribute to her on social media on Saturday. (31.08.24)

He shared an image that showed various photographs and newspaper clippings focusing on Diana – including an article about her christening and a snap of the late royal playing outside as a young girl.

But Charles refrained from including a caption on the moving post.

He is the youngest of five children born to John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd.

Charles grew up with his three older sisters – Sarah, the eldest, born in 1955, followed by Jane in 1957 and Diana in 1961.

He also had an older brother named John, who was born in 1960 but died just hours later.

Charles admitted after Diana’s death he was haunted by the feeling he could have done more to save her from her tragic end.

He told People: “You always think, God, I wish I could’ve protected her. It was just... it was devastating.

“I always felt intensely protective towards her.”

Charles famously gave the eulogy at Diana’s funeral on 6 September, 1997, at which Sir Elton John, 77, sang his now iconic version of ‘Candle in the Wind’.

He said he was acting as the “representative” of a “family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock”, before hailing Diana as the “very essence” of compassion, duty, style and beauty – and saying she was the “most hunted person of the modern age”.

Along with Charles’ online tribute, thousands of tourists and royal fans laid flowers and photos of Diana on Saturday at the gates of her former residence Kensington palace.

Diana was killed in the Paris tunnel crash alongside her partner Dodi Fayed, while her sons Prince William, then 15, and Harry, who was 12 at the time, were on holiday with their father, then Prince Charles at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.