The other day, Princess Diana’s aunt, Mary Roche, died.
Princess Diana’s aunt, Mary Roche, has died in Britain. She was 88 years old. So Princes Harry and William could theoretically meet at the funeral of a close relative. However, no statements have yet been received. The Daily Mail writes about it.
Princess Diana’s mother, Frances Ruth Shand Kydd, was the daughter of Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy. Her first marriage to John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, by whom she had five children, was an unhappy one. Her husband beat her, so when the youngest child was three years old, Frances left her husband and went to her lover, Peter Shand Kidd, a businessman from Australia. Diana’s mother passed away in 2004. Princes William and Harry were at her funeral.
Frances had a brother Edmund and a sister Mary. The women were friendly. Also, Mary Roche was one of the few who was skeptical about Diana’s decision to marry Prince Charles.
She noticed that her niece looked “unhappy” at her 1981 pre-wedding reception at Buckingham Palace, while others claimed the future Princess of Wales was happy.
“I just remember how unhappy she was with this reception,” she later admitted.
Mary later said that she considered her 20-year-old niece incompatible with the future King Charles, who was then 33 years old.
“They were at very different stages of development. Diana was young and had limited life experience, and Prince Charles was already a great thinker. He read a lot. They were probably very different people,” Diana’s aunt said.
Mary Roche (in blue dress) was not a very public person
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Diana’s death was not the only tragedy that Mary experienced. Her first ex-husband, Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, was killed by the IRA in a Brighton hotel bombing in 1984. He was the son of the former co-owner of The Daily Telegraph, Homer Berry, 1st Viscount Kemsley.
Mary married and divorced twice more. Her sister Frances, Diana’s mother, died in 2004 at the age of 68. Their brother Edmund, who inherited the title of Baron Fermoy, shot himself in 1984, after a long depression. In marriages, Mary gave birth to four children.
But the hope that the death of a relative will reconcile the princes is extremely small. It is still unclear if Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be attending King Carl’s coronation in May.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex confirmed that they had received an invitation to the coronation, but did not specify whether they would attend.
The coronation, which should be seen by millions of people in the UK and possibly billions of people around the world, will take place on May 6 – the same day that Archie, son of Harry, will be four years old.
Earlier it became known that Frogmore Cottage, where Harry and Meghan lived before Megzit, is no longer their residence. The king kicked them out of the estate.
