Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 1, 2017 7:08:06 GMT -5
Brother Reveals Four Attempts to Break into Princess Diana’s Tomb
Count Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, reports that on four occasions, people have attempted to steal his sister’s body. She is buried on an island on the grounds of Althorp, the family’s Northamptonshire estate.
He told Radio 4’s Today program: “We have had four attempted break-ins towards her body in the last 20 years. I am very glad that we have seen all of them off. There are some odd people out there. Keeping her right here [at Althorp] is the safest place.”
Spencer did not speculate on the motives of those who attempted to gain access to the tomb. If it wasn’t out of a morbid devotion to the dead Royal or for financial gain, it is possible some of the attempted break-ins were perpetrated by eccentric fans trying to investigate conspiracy theories that Diana was not actually buried on the island in the lake. There have been persistent rumors, none backed by credible evidence, that Diana was quietly buried at a secret location, or cremated and her ashes interred in the family chapel at the church of St. Mary the Virgin with St. John in the nearby village of Great Brington. Diana, her brother insisted, never wanted to be cremated.
Spencer, who gave the eulogy at Diana’s funeral, also claimed he was “lied to” about Princes William and Prince Harry’s wanting to walk behind their mother’s coffin. “I had been a passionate advocate for William and Harry not to have to walk behind their mother’s body. I thought it was a bizarre and cruel thing for them to be asked to do. I was liaising with some courtier at Buckingham Palace and he mentioned it, and I went ‘Of course they are not going to do that,’ and he said ‘Well it’s been decided.’ I did feel she [Diana] would have wanted me to speak for her in that particular regard,” he continued. “I said ‘She just wouldn’t want them to do this.’ There was lots of embarrassed coughing at the other end and various other conversations, and then eventually I was lied to and told they wanted to do it, which of course they didn’t. But I didn’t realize that.”
In June, Prince Harry, who was 12 at the time of his mother’s death, revealed how harrowing the experience of walking behind his mother’s coffin. “I think no child in the world should be asked to do so in any circumstances,” he said. “I do not think this would be possible nowadays.”
Sources: Adam Lusher, The Independent, July 26, 2017, and Nilgum Salim, StockNewsUSA, July 27, 2017.