This is the weirdest story. The late Princess Diana only had one brother, her younger brother Charles Spencer, who inherited the family’s grand Althorp estate. The estate could not have been inherited by Diana or her two older sisters, because the British aristocracy still operates by the ancient, sexist laws of male primogeniture, where the firstborn SON inherits everything. There have been a handful of exceptions where aristocrats’ daughters inherit their fathers’ properties, titles and/or estates, but that’s usually when there are no male heirs, and even then, I think the Queen basically has to approve it. Anyway, Charles Spencer has been the Earl Spencer for decades now. He’s on his third wife, and he has seven children combined through three marriages. And Althorp is still going to his firstborn SON, not his any of his oldest daughters. That’s the law. But the Earl Spencer and the Daily Mail makes it sound like Charles is making a choice to leave everything to his son. That’s… not the case?
Earl Spencer, the younger brother of Princess Diana, has revealed his plans to leave the family’s Althorp estate to his son, rather than his eldest daughter, Kitty. The journalist and broadcaster, who has been married three times, has seven children aged between 28 and seven. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, it was revealed he is likely to follow the practice of male primogeniture, in which titles, as well as stately homes, are inherited by the eldest son.
For Earl Spencer, this means sprawling Althorp, in Northamptonshire, will likely be passed on to drama student Viscount Louis Spencer, 25, rather than to any of his three older daughters, Lady Kitty, 28, and twins Lady Eliza and Lady Amelia, 27.
‘Is it any fairer that the eldest child gets it instead of the eldest male?,’ he asked, reasoning: ‘Whatever you say is a selection.’
However Earl Spencer, who is also father to Hon Edmund, 15, Lady Lara, 13 and seven-year-old Lady Charlotte, admitted it was far from certain that any of his children would want to take up the responsibility of maintaining the family estate.
‘You have to hope that something has bedded down when their turn comes,’ he said.
The Earl Spencer and Princess Diana’s father was the first one to really turn Althorp into any kind of consistently profitable estate – he did so by opening the place up for tours, and even rentals. Charles has done the same, and even more so – people pay to stay in Althorp for all sorts of things, and I’m pretty sure that Charles lives in South Africa most of the time now and just lets Althorp be operated by staff. Anyway, this was weird, right? The Earl Spencer doesn’t have a choice about who inherits Althorp. He’s making it sound like he does. Of course his son Louis will inherit.
This is his oldest child, Lady Kitty Spencer. She’s a model and people always talk about how she looks like Diana. Except… not really?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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