Princess Charlotte’s very special connection to Princess Diana’s family

Princess Charlotte has a very special connection to her late grandmother Princess Diana’s family, the Spencers. Diana was tragically killed in 1997 and never had the chance to meet her grandchildren

Princess Charlotte has a special connection with her late grandmother

Prince William has worked to keep his late mother’s memory alive for his three children. And his daughter Princess Charlotte in particular holds a special connection to Princess Diana and her family.

When it came to naming their second-born child in 2015, William and wife Kate Middleton chose to honour his mum by giving Charlotte the middle name Diana. Their decision forever bonded their little girl with the Spencer clan. Charles Spencer, the younger brother of Princess Diana, is a father of seven. And in 2012, he announced that his youngest daughter, whom he shares with third wife Karen, had been named Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer, in honour of the aunt she never met.

Princess Charlotte was born on 2 May 2015. Her full name is Charlotte Elizabeth Diana in a sweet nod to both her grandmother, and great grandmother, the late Queen. Notably, Charlotte is also considered the female diminutive of Charles – the name of William’s father the King. William and Kate shared a sweet insight into the way they honour the late Princess Diana on Mother’s Day in 2021. A post shared on the Kensington Royal Instagram account showed three homemade cards that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis had made for their late grandmother.

Princess Charlotte decorated her pink card with a colourful heart, stickers and a sweet note saying that her father was missing his mother. “Dear Granny Diana, I am thinking of you on Mother’s Day. I love you very much,” the young princess wrote. “Papa is missing you. Lots of love Charlotte.”

Prince George also penned a sweet message in his card, writing, “Happy happy Mothers Day. I love you very much and think of you always. Sending lots of love from George.” Little Louis, meanwhile, painted a love heart for his grandmother and added stickers to his card, as well as writing his name. In the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, Prince William confirmed he is “constantly talking about Granny Diana” with the children.

“We’ve got more photos up ’round the house now of her, and we talk about her a bit and stuff,” he said. “It’s hard because obviously Catherine didn’t know her, so she cannot really provide that — that level of detail,” he said. “So, I do [when] regularly putting George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her and just try and remind them that there are two grandmothers, there were two grandmothers in their lives, and so it’s important that they know who she was and that she existed.”

William also joked that Diana would have taken to being a grandmother a little too well. “She’d be a nightmare grandmother, absolute nightmare,” he quipped. “She’d love the children to bits, but she’d be an absolute nightmare. She’d come and go and she’d come in probably at bath time, cause an amazing amount of scene, bubbles everywhere, bathwater all over the place and — and then leave.”