Raine de Chambrun

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Raine de Chambrun
Born	September 9, 1929 (1929-09-09) (age 78)
Spouse	Gerald Legge (1947-1976) Edward Spencer (1976-1992) Jean-François Pineton de Chambrun (1993-1995)
Parents	Alexander McCorquodale Barbara Cartland

Raine de Chambrun (b. Raine McCorquodale on 9 September 1929) is a British socialite and politician, best known for having been Diana, Princess of Wales's stepmother and Barbara Cartland's daughter.

Through her three marriages, she has variously been known by various different titles:

• The Honourable Mrs Gerald Legge, Raine Viscountess Lewisham, the Countess of Dartmouth, and upon their divorce, Raine, Countess of Dartmouth;
• The Countess Spencer; and upon the death of the earl, Raine, Countess Spencer;
• Comtesse Jean-François de Chambrun; and upon their divorce, Raine de Chambrun.

Although she is formally Raine de Chambrun, upon her divorce from her third husband, she reverted to the title she is frequently referred to in the media, Raine, Countess Spencer(see discussion below,) possibly to retain a connection with the late Diana, Princess of Wales but more likely because Raine and the Earl Spencer had had a very happy marriage.

[edit] Biography

Raine McCorquodale was born as the only child of novelist Dame Barbara Cartland and her first husband, Alexander McCorquodale, an Army officer who was heir to a printing fortune.

Her first marriage, in 1947, was to the Hon. Gerald Humphry Legge, who succeeded to the courtesy title Viscount Lewisham and later became the 9th Earl of Dartmouth. They had four children:

• William Legge, 10th Earl of Dartmouth, born on 23 September 1949
• Hon. Rupert Legge, born on 1 January 1953
• Lady Charlotte, born on 16 July 1963. She married Don Alessandro Paternò Castello, 13th Duke of Carcaci
• Hon. Henry Legge, born on 28 December 1968. He married Cressida Hogg, the youngest daughter of Sir Christopher Hogg

During her first marriage, she served as a Conservative member of the Greater London Council, representing Richmond-upon-Thames. The Dartmouths were divorced in 1976.

Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, married secondly, at Caxton Hall, London, England, on 14 July, 1976, Edward Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer. Deeply unpopular with her stepchildren, who included the late Diana, Princess of Wales, she was ridiculed by them and other family members as "Acid Raine" and her time at Althorp, the Spencer family seat, — a period that saw the ancestral house operatically redecorated and numerous treasures sold — described as the "Raine of Terror". The Earl died in 1992, upon which event Diana and her brother allegedly put Raine's clothes into black rubbish bags and kicked them down the stairs, refusing to let her remove any furniture from the ancestral home without providing proof of purchase. The book also claims that on another occasion Diana herself pushed Raine down the stairs, after she and the Earl refused to acknowledge the Princess' mother, Frances Shand Kydd.^[1]

Earl Spencer, it was said, was putty in his new wife's hands. Yet he was clearly precious putty, for when, in 1978, he suffered a brain haemorrhage, it was Raine, seemingly by sheer force of personality, who kept him alive. For weeks she stayed at his bedside "not just willing him, but ordering him to get better", as one relative later put it. She even hired a vicar to exorcise the ghost of Johnny's father. For the next 14 years, until Johnny's death in 1992, Raine patiently nursed him. Whatever she had done to Althorp, she couldn't be faulted for the care she afforded its owner. Diana couldn't help but be grateful.

Raine married thirdly, in 1993, Count Jean-François Pineton de Chambrun, a descendant of the Marquis de La Fayette and a member of a prominent French family related to the presidential Roosevelts, ^[2] after a courtship of 33 days. A younger son of Jean-Pierre Pineton de Chambrun, marquis de Chambrun (a deaf biochemist-artist) and a great-grandson of Ohio heiress Maria Longworth Storer Nichols (the founder of Rookwood Pottery), he was previously married to Josalee Douglas, an American debutante, a first cousin of the late Princess Margaret's intimate friend Sharman Douglas.

[edit] The Countess' titles

Raine and Jean-François de Chambrun divorced in 1995, and the Countess reverted to her previous style: Raine, Countess Spencer. Whether this reversion to a previous style is legal is unknown at the present time, though it is not without precedent. Under the law, the individual is free to call himself whatever he wishes although aliases and titles cannot be used in any legal context without legal justification.(The Duchess of Cornwall chooses to be known by that title but is in law HRH. The Princess of Wales) In terms of precedent stretching back to the Middle Ages, female aristocratic titles by marriage tend to be retained upon remarriage unless a higher one is acquired through that later remarriage after widowhood. (For example, Edward IV's mother-in-law Jaquetta, widow of the Duke of Bedford, was always known as the Duchess of Bedford despite her remarriage to Sir Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers) True, a widow's legal right to use her dead husband's title probably ends with her remarriage, although the precise legal position is, as indicated above, unclear.

As Raine has now remarried (albeit divorced again) the most correct style is probably Comtesse Raine de Chambrun (in keeping with the styles used by divorced women). However in terms of precedent the Raine Spencer may call herself Raine, Countess of Spencer and Chambrun. As no such precedent has been set regarding divorce however, were the Countess to marry for a fourth time she would tend to loose the Chambrun title, while retaining that of Countess of Spencer (unless the new spouse happened to carry the even higher title of duke.)

The practice of retaining previous names is not uncommon among professional or public figures; the author Agatha Christie remained so to the public even after a divorce and remarriage. The same is true of the former MP Shirley Williams, and it is of course standard practice for actors, performers and writers to make up a public name altogether.

Thus by her preferred title, Raine Countess Spencer is a member of the board of directors of Harrods, the department store owned by the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, who died with Diana, Princess of Wales in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Media reports suggested that at the time of her death, Diana had reconciled with Raine, while her relationship with her mother, Frances, had been strained.^[3]

[edit] Footnotes