Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes

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Cynthia Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes (born 11 February 1957) is the second daughter and second child of Edward Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, and his first wife, Frances Shand Kydd (formerly the Honourable Frances Burke Roche). Diana, Princess of Wales was her younger sister. She was born The Honourable Cynthia Jane Spencer. Her title changed to The Lady Cynthia Jane Spencer in 1975, when her grandfather died and her father became the 8th Earl Spencer. She has always used her middle name of Jane (just as her elder sister also uses a middle name).

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[edit] Education

Like her sisters, Lady Fellowes was educated at West Heath boarding school near Sevenoaks in Kent. Sources say she was an excellent student, achieving the status of school Prefect and passing a good number of A-level exams. To paraphrase Andrew Morton Lady Fellowes acquired a "hatful" of O-level and A-level exams1. She was apparently the most academically gifted of the three sisters, or at least, the one most successful at taking and passing exams.

[edit] Family

Lady Fellowes is married to Lord Fellowes (b. 1941).[1] Her husband was previously Robert Fellowes, Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II. (Lord Fellowes was granted a Life Peerage as Baron Fellowes, of Shotesham in the County of Norfolk[2] in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 1999, after first being knighted as Sir Robert Fellowes. Lady Fellowes is distantly related to her husband.

Robert Fellowes and Lady Jane Spencer were married in March 1978 at Westminster Abbey when Lord Fellowes was an Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen[3]. The then-Lady Diana Spencer was a bridesmaid.

Lord and Lady Fellowes have three children, who all bear the style of The Honourable since June 1999 as the children of a Life Peer:

  • The Honourable Laura Jane Fellowes (born 19 July 1980)
  • The Honourable Alexander Robert Fellowes (born 23 March 1983)
  • The Honourable Eleanor Ruth Fellowes (born 20 August 1985)

These children are first cousins of Prince William and Prince Harry on the maternal side, and according to some news reports, are close friends of their royal cousins.

Lady Diana Spencer came up to Scotland in the summer of 1980 to help her sister with her new baby (Laura Jane Fellowes, above), and during that time, was allegedly courted by the Prince of Wales.

[edit] Relationship between Lady Fellowes and Diana, Princess of Wales

According to Diana's butler Paul Burrell, Lady Fellowes's husband's job caused tremendous strain in their relationship. Burrell insisted that by the time of Diana's death they had not even spoken in a number of years. On the other hand, Diana's childhood nanny, Mary Clarke2, author of a memoir about the nanny's experience raising Diana and her siblings, claims that the relations between the Baroness and Diana were not as bitter as Burrell and others have said or assumed. It is not clear when their relationship deteriorated (if it did), but the sisters were neighbors on the Kensington Palace estate, with Diana living at Numbers 8 and 9, and Lady Jane living at a house called the Old Barracks3. According to many witnesses at the hospital in Paris, when Lady Jane was there to escort Diana's body back to England, she was very upset and needed to be assisted into a chair after seeing Diana's body. Some pointed to this as her feeling of guilt over their relationship, while some have said it was just a natural reaction to the sadness of the moment.

Both Diana's sisters went to Paris with her former husband to escort the body back for the funeral, and both sisters played a part in the ceremony. Since Diana's death, Lord and Lady Fellowes have led a largely private life along with their three children.

[edit] Quotes

"I'm afraid that's it, she's dead." according to a 1998 interview with brother Lord Spencer, when she broke the news to him Diana had died.


[edit] References and Sources

Printed Sources

Online Sources

  • Paul Theroff "Marlborough" webpage showing the descendants of the Spencer-Churchills and Spencers [4]
  • Yvonne Demoskoff "Royal Private Secretaries" Usenet group alt.talk.royalty, 22 March 2003.[5]


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