Motherhood
On 1 June 1954, Shand Kydd married John Spencer, Viscount Althorp (later the 8th Earl Spencer) at Westminster Abbey. They had five children:
- Lady Sarah McCorquodale (19 March 1955), who married Neil Edmund McCorquodale, a nephew of Raine, Countess Spencer
- Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes (11 February 1957), who married Baron Fellowes.
- The Honourable John Spencer, who died within 10 hours after his birth on 12 January 1960
- Diana, Princess of Wales (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales
- Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (20 May 1964), who married Victoria Lockwood, then Caroline Freud (née Hutton) (the latter formerly the wife of Matthew Freud)
The British media made comparisons between the lives of Shand Kydd and Diana because they were both inexperienced young women who were thrust into the spotlight by marriage to much older men in higher stations. Her marriage to Viscount Althorp was not a happy one and, in 1967, she left to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune whom she had met the year before. Subsequently, she was named "the other woman" in Janet Shand Kydd's divorce action against her husband.
A former official officer of Diana, Princess of Wales considered the inquest claims of a rift between Frances and the Princess to be "nonsense". This officer released letters about a strong and loving relationship that existed between Frances and her daughter. Diana had saved her mother from drowning and thought of her as her "best chum".
Read more about this topic: Frances Shand Kydd
Famous quotes containing the word motherhood:
“At first, it must be remembered, that [women] can never accomplish anything until they put womanhood ahead of wifehood, and make motherhood the highest office on the social scale.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, pp. 24-5 (January 1870)
“It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“With a generous endowment of motherhood provided by legislation, with all laws against voluntary motherhood and education in its methods repealed, with the feminist ideal of education accepted in home and school, and with all special barriers removed in every field of human activity, there is no reason why woman should not become almost a human thing. It will be time enough then to consider whether she has a soul.”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)