Charles Spencer, Princess Diana’s younger brother, delivered her eulogy in 1997

Charles Spencer attends the UK premiere of “Dancing At The Vatican” on February 5, 2020 in London, England. ; Princess Diana in Argentina. . Photo: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty

Charles Spencer may have been Princess Diana’s younger brother — but the 9th Earl Spencer has always felt “intensely protective” of his late sister.

Though Charles grew up with three older siblings — Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes and the future people’s princess — he was closest with Diana, who was three years his senior. Sarah and Jane, who were nine and seven years older than Charles, were away at boarding school for most of his childhood. That left Diana and Charles in the care of their father, John Spencer, who received custody of the children following his 1969 divorce from their mother, Frances Shand Kydd.

“Diana and I had two older sisters who were away at school, so she and I were very much in it together and I did talk to her about it,” Charles told The Sunday Times about their parents’ split. “Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity. Not her fault, she couldn’t do it.”

As a result, the bond between Diana and Charles was strong throughout their childhood — and remained that way as they became adults, despite tabloid rumors to the contrary. When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, it was Charles who stood at the pulpit of Westminster Abbey and delivered her eulogy.

Following her death, Charles revealed to PEOPLE that he was haunted by thoughts that there was something more he could have done to save his older sister.

“You always think, God, I wish I could’ve protected her. It was just … it was devastating,” he told PEOPLE in 2017. “I always felt … intensely protective towards her.”

In the decades since Diana’s tragic death, Charles has continued to protect his older sister’s memory — becoming an outspoken defender of her legacy and champion of her causes.

From his traumatic upbringing to his tireless devotion to Diana, here is everything to know about Princess Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer.

He is Princess Diana’s younger sibling

Lady Diana Spencer and her brother Charles Spencer in 1968.PA Images/Getty

Born on May 20, 1964, in London, Charles Edward Maurice Spencer is the youngest of five children born to John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd. He grew up with his three older sisters: Sarah, the eldest, born in 1955, followed by Jane in 1957 and Diana in 1961. Charles also had an older brother named John, who was born in 1960 but died just hours later — making Charles the only son and the heir to the earldom.

Though Charles never met his late brother, he honored his memory in May 2022 by having his tombstone restored. Charles shared before and after photos of the restoration on Instagram, along with a touching tribute to his older brother.

“Looking as it should, now,” Charles wrote alongside two photos of the grave. “I never knew my older brother, John, and live 100 miles from his grave — but, seeing it last summer, realised serious action was required. Thank you, BB, for making it look as it should.”

His parents divorced when he was a toddler

charles spencer/instagram

Charles’ parents, John and Frances, divorced in 1969 when Charles was just 3 years old. John was awarded full custody of his four children — but while Sarah and Jane attended boarding school, Diana and Charles lived at Althorp (the 500-year-old Spencer family estate) in Northamptonshire, England with their father.

The split was particularly “tough on Diana,” Charles previously told PEOPLE.

“While she [Frances] was packing her stuff to leave, she promised Diana [then aged 5] she’d come back to see her. Diana used to wait on the doorstep for her, but she never came,” he told The Sunday Times.

Charles also had his own issues as a result of his parents’ divorce, telling The Sunday Times that he’d been “in and out of therapy for 20 years” and had done “a lot of very profound work on my unhappy childhood.”

But “coming out the other side has been good,” he shared.

He has said there are “many myths” about his childhood with Diana

Diana Spencer and Charles Spencer.Hulton Archive/Getty

In 2017, Charles shared with PEOPLE that there are “many myths” about his upbringing — especially regarding his late sister, Diana.

“First of all, none of us ever called her ‘Di’ at home. In fact, there are so many myths from our childhood that are just so ridiculous. That’s one of them,” Charles told PEOPLE.

He continued, “I just think she was never shy, but she was canny about people and she was reserved to start with. And she would take a judgment of somebody before reacting to them. So, that’s not shy … that’s actually quite clever.”

Charles also described Princess Diana as “incredibly brave,” sharing an example from their childhood when he and his sisters were catching lobsters while visiting their mother in Scotland.

“We pulled up [a pot] and there was a really massive conger eel,” he said. “It was black and it had teeth was very long and it was flapping around the boat. And Diana just got a pen knife out and just dealt with it. It was hand-to-hand and she just got stuck in. This thing was really a creature from the deep. And she just dealt with it.”

He revealed he was sexually abused as a child while in boarding school

Charles Spencer.Charles Spencer Instagram

In March 2024, Charles revealed that he was sexually abused as a child while a student at Maidwell Hall, one of Britain’s most prestigious boarding schools. He provided more details on the physical, verbal and sexual abuse he experienced at the school in his memoir A Very Private School. He described how, at the age of 11, he was groomed and sexually abused by a 19 or 20-year-old assistant matron at the boarding school.

“[She] seemed to have an unofficial hierarchy among her prey: We learned, from our secret conversations, that she chose one of us each term to share her bed and would use him for intercourse … She added me to the second rank of her victims: those she intimately touched,” Charles wrote.

He added, “The effect of what she did to me was profound and immediate, awakening in me basic desires that had no place in one so young.”

And although Charles was incredibly close with his sister Diana growing up, neither she nor his other sisters knew of the abuse that he endured. When he did finally tell his sisters, Lady Jane and Lady Sarah, it wasn’t until the end of 2022 — and they were both “stunned and appalled,” Charles told PEOPLE.

He is a father of seven — and a grandfather

Earl Spencer with his children Amelia, Eliza, Kitty and Louis at the official opening of the Princess of Wales Memorial Playground and Walk in Kensington Gardens.Ken Goff/Getty

Charles, who has been married and divorced three times, is the father of seven children.

He and his first wife, Victoria Lockwood, share four children: daughters Lady Kitty Eleanor Spencer, Lady Eliza Victoria Spencer and Lady Katya Amelia Spencer and son Louis Spencer, Viscount Althorp.

His second marriage to Caroline Freud resulted in two more children: a son, the Honourable Edmund Spencer, and a daughter, Lady Lara Spencer. But after six years of marriage, Charles and Freud separated in 2007 and eventually divorced.

Charles married for the third time in 2011 to Canadian philanthropist Karen Spencer (née Gordon). His six children were all present at the nuptials, which were held at Althorp Estate. The couple went on to welcome one child together, a daughter named Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer — after Charles’ late sister Princess Diana.

In June 2024, after 13 years of marriage, Charles and Karen announced their decision to divorce.

“It is immensely sad. I wish Karen every happiness in the future,” he told the Mail on Sunday, who also reported that the dad of seven is reportedly “becoming close to” Norwegian archaeologist Dr. Cat Jarman following the split.

Charles’ eldest daughter, Kitty, married Michael Lewis in Italy in 2021. In March 2024, Kitty revealed that she and her husband had welcomed a daughter, making Charles a first-time grandparent. One of his other daughters, Amelia, is also married: She wed Greg Mallett, her boyfriend of 11 years, in March 2023.

He delivered Princess Diana’s eulogy

The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales at Westminster Abbey in London on September 6, 1997.Colin Davey/Getty

At Princess Diana’s funeral on Sept. 6, 1997, Charles stood in front of the thousands of gathered mourners (and the millions watching on television worldwide) to deliver her heart-wrenching eulogy.

Serving as “the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock,” Charles paid tribute to his late sister as the “very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty.” But he also took the opportunity to condemn the treatment Diana had received from the tabloid media, describing her as “the most hunted person of the modern age.”

Charles previously told PEOPLE that the now iconic line “summed up so much of the anger I felt toward those who had done that to her.” In addition to the anger he felt, Charles also described the experience as physically and emotionally draining.

“In the final paragraph I had run out of energy, almost out of oxygen,” he shared with PEOPLE. “I had to punch each syllable out of the base of my stomach.”

He has written nine books

Lord Charles Spencer poses with a copy of his book “Killers of the King : The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I” at the British American Business Council Los Angeles Distinguished Speaker Series special book signing event on March 3, 2015 in Santa Monica, California.Amanda Edwards/WireImage

Charles is a renowned historian and best-selling author who has written nine books over the course of his career. In addition to his 2024 memoir, A Very Private School, Charles is the author of eight other non-fiction books — focusing much of his work on British history. Three of his books were Sunday Times bestsellers: Killers of the King, The White Ship and Blenheim: Battle for Europe (which was also shortlisted for History Book of the Year at the 2005 National Book Awards).

“It is a compulsion,” Charles said in a 2017 interview about his writing. “It’s hard work, it’s solitary, and it’s sometimes exasperating. But, at the end of the day, holding a new book that you’ve written remains one of life’s more thrilling experiences.”

In addition to his writing, Charles, who studied at Oxford, has also worked as a journalist and broadcaster.

He lives at his family’s 500-year-old estate Althorp

Lord Charles Spencer looks on during the Northamptonshire CCC photocall held at Althorp House on March 30, 2011.David Rogers/Getty

When Charles’ father John died in 1992, Charles became the 9th Earl Spencer and inherited Althorp, his family’s 500-year-old estate in Northamptonshire, England. It was built in 1508 and has housed 19 generations of the Spencer family — including Charles and his sister Diana.

Althorp is also the final resting place of Princess Diana, who is buried at Oval Lake Grave — a small, secluded island found on the property’s 550 acres. Charles selected that location, as opposed to the family vault at St. Mary the Virgin church in Great Brington, due to concerns over public safety and privacy. He also oversaw a multimillion-dollar renovation of the burial site in 2016.

“We all agreed that, with its beauty and tranquility, this was the place for Diana to be,” he wrote in his 1998 book, Althorp: The Story of an English House.

He helps keep Diana’s memory and legacy alive

Charles Spencer at the BBC America BAFTA Los Angeles TV Tea Party 2017 on September 16, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. ; Diana, Princess of Wales during a state visit to Edmonton, Alberta.Amanda Edwards/WireImage ; Bettmann

Charles’ powerful bond with his sister Diana remains strong, even decades after her 1997 death. Though his older sisters rarely speak about Diana publicly, he regularly shares photographs from their childhood and memories of his late sister on his social media, commemorating events like her birthday, All Souls’ Day and the anniversary of her death.

Outside of social media, Charles speaks often about Diana and how her memory lives on today — especially in her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, with whom he remains close.

“I love seeing the sort of uncomplicated way that they deal with people, and put them at their ease,” he told PEOPLE in 2017. “It’s so easy to connect the dots between them and their mother.

He continued, “I love the fact that there’s still such veneration inside her immediate family for what she was, and what she meant. I think that’s fantastic.”

The Earl Spencer also visits his sister’s grave frequently throughout the year. “Every landmark day, such as birthday, Mother’s Day, I always take flowers,” he told Good Morning Britain in 2021. “I do go a lot, and it’s an oasis of calm, and it’s a lovely place to go.”