戴安娜王妃生平简介 Diana, Princess of Wa...

海南师范大学外国语学院期末论文 戴安娜王妃生平简介 1. Introduction Reasons of the research Diana, Princess of Wales (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century. Her wedding to the Prince of Wales, held at St Paul's Cathedral, was televised and watched by a global audience of over 750 million people. After this marriage she received the courtesy titles Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Chester and Baroness of Renfrew. The marriage produced two sons: Princes William and Harry, currently second and third in line to the thrones of the 16 Commonwealth realms, respectively. Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to the Prince of Wales, Diana was born into an aristocratic English family with royal ancestry, and she remained the focus of worldwide media scrutiny during and after her marriage, which ended in divorce on 28 August 1996, including following her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997 and the subsequent display of public mourning a week later. Diana also received recognition for her charity work and for her support of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. From 1989, she was the president of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, 1.2. The writing structure This paper consists of four parts. The first part is a brief introduction of the purpose in this paper. The second part is a brief introduction of her life before marriage. The third part is t a brief introduction of her relationship with Charles including the divorce. The fourth part is a brief introduction of her life after divorcing with Charles. 2. Early life Diana Spencer was born in the late afternoon on 1 July 1961, in Sandringham, Norfolk. She was the third child of Viscount and Viscountess Althorp. The Spencer family is one of Great Britain's oldest and most important families, closely allied with the royal family for several generations. As the family was expecting a boy, no name was chosen for a week, until they settled on Diana Frances, after a Spencer ancestress and her mother. Diana was baptized at Sandringham church, with commoners as god parents. The desire for an heir added strain to the Spencers' marriage, and Lady Althorp was reportedly sent to Harley Street clinics in London to determine the cause of the "problem". The experience was described as "humiliating" by Charles Spencer, the current earl: "It was a dreadful time for my parents and probably the root of their divorce because I don't think they ever got over it." Diana grew up in Park House, which was situated near to the Sandringham estate. Diana's parents separated when she was only seven years of age. Her mother, Frances, had an affair with Peter Shand Kydd. She and her younger brother lived with their mother in London during their parents' separation, but during the Christmas holidays at the end of the year, Lord Althorp refused to let his estranged wife return with the children to London. Shortly afterward Lord Althorp won custody of Diana and her three siblings, with support from his mother-in-law, Frances Spencer's mother. She was first educated at Riddlesworth Hall, and later attended boarding school at The New School at West Heath. In 1973, Lord Althorp began a relationship with Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of Alexander McCorquodale and Barbara Cartland. Diana received the title of Lady after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975. Lord Spencer and Lady Dartmouth were married at Caxton Hall, London, on 14 July 1976. As Countess Spencer, Raine was unpopular with her stepdaughter Lady Diana. Lady Diana was often noted for her shyness while growing up, but she did take an interest in both music and dancing. She also had a great interest in children. After attending finishing school at the Institut Alpin Videmanette in Switzerland, she moved to London. She began working with children, eventually becoming a nursery teacher at the Young England School. Diana had apparently played with The Princes Andrew and Edward as a child while her family rented Park House, a property owned by Elizabeth II and situated on the Sandringham Estate. At the age of seven, Diana was sent to Riddlesworth Hall, an all-girls boarding school. While she was young, she attended a local public school. She did not shine academically, and was moved to West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as a poor student, having attempted and failed all of her O-levels twice. However, she showed a particular talent for music as an accomplished pianist. Her outstanding community spirit was recognized with an award from West Heath. In 1977, at the age of 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. Lady Diana moved to London before she turned 17, living in her mother's flat, as her mother then spent most of the year in Scotland. In London, she took an advanced cooking course at her mother's suggestion, although she never became an adroit cook, and worked as a dance instructor for youth, until a skiing accident caused her to miss three months of work. She then found employment as a playgroup assistant, did some cleaning work for her sister Sarah and several of her friends, and worked as a hostess at parties. Lady Diana also spent time working as a nanny for an American family living in London. 3. Relationship with the Prince of Wales 3.1. A brief introduction The Prince of Wales (Prince Charles) had previously been linked to Lady Diana's elder sister Lady Sarah, and in his early thirties he was under increasing pressure to marry. The Prince of Wales had known Lady Diana for several years, but he first took a serious interest in her as a potential bride during the summer of 1980, when they were guests at a country weekend, where she watched him play polo. The relationship developed as he invited her for a sailing weekend to Cowes aboard the royal yacht Britannia, followed by an invitation to Balmoral (the Royal Family's Scottish residence) to meet his family. Lady Diana was well received by Elizabeth II, by The Duke of Edinburgh, and by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. The couple subsequently courted in London. The prince proposed on 6 February 1981, and Lady Diana accepted, but their engagement was kept secret for the next few weeks. 3.2. Engagement and marriage Twenty-year-old Diana became The Princess of Wales when she married The Prince of Wales on 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral, which offered more seating than Westminster Abbey, generally used for royal nuptials. It was widely billed as a "fairytale wedding", watched by a global television audience of 750 million while 600,000 people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of Diana en route to the ceremony. At the altar Diana accidentally reversed the order of Charles's first two names, saying "Philip Charles" Arthur George instead. She did not say that she would "obey" him; that traditional vow was left out at the couple's request, which caused some comment at the time. Diana wore a dress valued at ￡9000 with a 25-foot (8-metre) train. 3.3. Children On 5 November 1981, the Princess' first pregnancy was officially announced, and she frankly discussed her pregnancy with members of the press corps. In the private Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, on 21 June 1982, the Princess gave birth to her and the Prince's first son and heir, William Arthur Philip Louis. Amidst some media criticism, she decided to take William, still a baby, on her first major tours of Australia and New Zealand, but the decision was popularly applauded. By her own admission, the Princess of Wales had not initially intended to take William until it was suggested by Malcolm Fraser, the Australian prime minister. A second son, Henry Charles Albert David, was born two years after William, on 15 September 1984. The Princess asserted she and the Prince were closest during her pregnancy with "Harry". She was aware their second child was a boy, but did not share the knowledge with anyone else, including the Prince of Wales. Even her harshest critics agree that the Princess of Wales was a devoted, imaginative and demonstrative mother. She rarely deferred to the Prince or to the Royal Family, and was often intransigent when it came to the children. She chose their first given names, dismissed a royal family nanny and engaged one of her own choosing, selected their schools and clothing, planned their outings and took them to school herself as often as her schedule permitted. She also negotiated her public duties around their timetables. 3.4. Problems and separation During the early 1990s, the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales fell apart, an event at first suppressed, then sensationalized, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise. The chronology of the break-up identifies reported difficulties between the Prince and Princess as early as 1985. The Princess of Wales began an affair with Major James Hewitt, and the Prince of Wales returned to his former girlfriend, Camilla Shand. These affairs were exposed in May 1992 with the publication of Diana: Her True Story, by Andrew Morton. This publication was followed during 1992 and 1993 by leaked tapes of telephone conversations which negatively reflected on both the royal antagonists. The next to surface, in November 1992, were the leaked "Camilla gate" tapes, intimate exchanges between the Prince of Wales and Camilla, published in Today and the Mirror newspapers. In the meantime, rumors had begun to surface about the Princess of Wales' relationship with James Hewitt, her former riding instructor. These would be brought into the open by the publication in 1994 of Princess in Love. In December 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the Wales' "amicable separation" to the House of Commons, and the full Camilla gate transcript was published a month later in the newspapers, in January 1993. On 3 December 1993, the Princess of Wales announced her withdrawal from public life. The Prince of Wales sought public understanding via a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby on 29 June 1994. In this he confirmed his own extramarital affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, saying that he had only rekindled their association in 1986, after his marriage to the Princess had "irretrievably broken down". 3.5. Divorce In December 1995, the Queen asked the Prince and Princess of Wales for "an early divorce", as a direct result of the Princess' Panorama interview. On 20 December 1995, Buckingham Palace publicly announced the Queen had sent letters to the Prince and Princess of Wales advising them to divorce. The Queen's move was backed by the Prime Minister and by senior Privy Counsellors, and, according to the BBC, was decided after two weeks of talks. The Prince immediately agreed with the suggestion. In February, the Princess announced her agreement after negotiations with the Prince and representatives of the Queen, irritating Buckingham Palace by issuing her own announcement of a divorce agreement and its terms. The divorce was finalized on 28 August 1996. Diana received a lump sum settlement of around ￡17 million along with a clause standard in royal divorces preventing her from discussing the details. Buckingham Palace stated Diana was still a member of the Royal Family, as she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne. This was confirmed by the Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, after a pre-hearing on 8 January 2007: "I am satisfied that at her death, Diana, Princess of Wales continued to be considered as a member of the Royal Household." This appears to have been confirmed in the High Court judicial review matter of Al Fayed & Ors v Butler-Sloss. In that case, three High Court judges accepted submissions that the "very name ‘Coroner to the Queen's Household’ gave the appearance of partiality in the context of inquests into the deaths of two people, one of whom was a member of the Family and the other was not." 4. Personal life after divorce 4.1. A brief introduction After the divorce, Diana retained her double apartment on the north side of Kensington Palace, which she had shared with the Prince of Wales since the first year of their marriage, and it remained her home until her death. Diana dated the respected heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, from Jhelum, Pakistan, who was called "the love of her life" after her death by many of her closest friends, for almost two years, before Khan ended the relationship. Khan was intensely private and the relationship was conducted in secrecy, with Diana lying to members of the press who questioned her about it. Khan was from a traditional Pakistani family who expected him to marry from a related Muslim clan, and their differences, which were not just religious, became too much for Khan. According to Khan's testimonial at the inquest for her death, it was Diana herself, not Khan, who ended their relationship in a late-night meeting in Hyde Park, which adjoins the grounds of Kensington Palace, in June 1997. 4.2. Death On 31 August 1997, Diana was fatally injured in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, which also caused the death of her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, acting security manager of the H?tel Ritz Paris. Millions of people watched her funeral. The initial French judicial investigation concluded the accident was caused by Henri Paul's drunken loss of control. From February 1999, Dodi's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed (the owner of the Paris Ritz, for which Paul had worked) maintained the crash had been planned, accusing MI6 as well as The Duke of Edinburgh.[56] Inquests in London during 2004 and 2007attributed the accident to grossly negligent driving by Henri Paul and to the pursuing paparazzi. The following day Al-Fayed announced he would end his 10-year campaign for the sake of the late princess' children. 4.3. Tribute, funeral, and burial Her coffin was transported on a gun carriage. The sudden and unexpected death of an extraordinarily popular royal figure brought statements from senior figures worldwide and many tributes by members of the public. People left public offerings of flowers, candles, cards and personal messages outside Kensington Palace for many months. Diana's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 6 September 1997. The previous day Queen Elizabeth II had paid tribute to her in a live television broadcast. Her sons, the Princes William and Harry, walked in the funeral procession behind her coffin, along with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, and with Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer. Lord Spencer said of his sister, "She proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic." 5. Conclusion Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected. And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom. Fundamentally she had not changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school and endured those long train journeys between our parents' homes with me at weekends. There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own, and only, explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest is this—a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role. But we, like you, recognize the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead.