Imagining Queen Elizabeth II married to Lady Diana’s father seems like a pure series scenario. However, this is the story that the Spencer family brings to the surface today: in her youth, Elizabeth would have considered marrying Edward John Spencer, future Earl Spencer. A hypothesis that would completely shake up the lineage known to the British.
This dizzying idea appears in the memoirs of Charles Spencer, Diana’s younger brother, which comes out this fall. He recounts that a romance would have united his father and the future sovereign, before being brutally stopped. At this stage, no document confirms this story. The question therefore remains: thwarted love or family romance?
An aborted romance between Elizabeth II and Edward John Spencer?
In this book, Count Charles Spencer claims that as a teenager, his father Edward John Spencer formed a romantic relationship with the young Princess Elizabeth. Coming from a large aristocratic family, he rubbed shoulders with the Crown on the Sandringham estate. According to the earl’s account, Lord Mountbatten summoned his father to tell him that Elizabeth was not a suitable match. Spencer even imagines that, without this clarification, his sister Diana and the current King Charles III would never have been born.
The book does not stop with this revelation. Charles Spencer also settles old scores with the monarchy, especially with the current Charles III. He assures, for example, that on the eve of the funeral, the Prince of Wales told him about Diana: “Don’t worry, we will have forgotten her quite quickly”. The supposed romance between Elizabeth and her father is thus added to a long list of grievances against the Windsors.
A father very close to the Crown, a queen already taken
To judge this story, we must remember who Edward John Spencer was. Born in 1924, he fought during the war then returned to court life. In the early 1950s, he worked at court with King George VI, then Elizabeth II. His family then lived as close as possible to the Windsors.
Elizabeth’s timeline, however, complicates the idea of a real marriage plan. The princess married Philip in November 1947, at the age of 21, and gave birth to Charles in 1948 then Anne in 1950. When Spencer officially became her squire, she was already a young mother observed closely. No contemporary testimony suggests that she considered another husband.
Royal idyll or family romance: what other voices say
The great biographers of the sovereign have never spoken of an affair with Diana’s father. The diaries of Alathea Fitzalan Howard, Elizabeth’s childhood friend, on the contrary, describe a young woman entirely focused on Philip. For many historians, Charles Spencer’s story seems more like a family embellishment. Above all, it highlights the ancient intertwining of the destinies of Spencer and Windsor.
Buckingham Palace reacted to the good leaves in a press release. The palace underlines that “the pain of fraternal mourning can obscure reason, affect judgment and color memory”. The court does not deny point by point, but urges caution. Lacking other sources, the idea that Elizabeth II considered marrying Edward John Spencer remains a pretty what if, not an established fact.
