Countess Raine Spencer and her step-daughter, Princess Diana

I am not a royalist so it may have seemed strange watching Channel 4’s documentary Princess Diana’s Wick­ed Step-mother. This film, about Raine Spencer (1929-2016) and her relationship with the Princess of Wales, featured an in-depth in­sight into Raine’s life, and inter­views with the countess’ friends and staff members.

Raine McCorquodale was born in Newbury Berkshire in 1929, only child of romance novelist Barbara Cartland and army officer Alex­ander McCorquodale. Raine became an immaculately dressed figure at an early age, and after the war at 18, she was a leading debut­ante in Lond­on’s high society. A year later, in 1948, she married Gerald Legge future Earl of Dartmouth.

The new wife was determined to have a more creative life than being just a housewife looking after children. So in 1954 she stood as a Conservative councillor in London. At 23, Raine began in the St George’s Ward in Knightsbridge, the youngest member ever in the West­minster City Council. While Raine was largely known as a soc­ial­ite within London’s high society, she had also embark­ed upon a career in politics at an early age.

Raine had ambitions to become an MP, attempting to become the Con­servative candidate for Richmond in 1966. Instead in 1967 she was elected to the Greater London Council as councillor where she ran a successful campaign against plans to redev­el­op the Tate Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. She was also a key figure in prev­ent­ing a disastrous redevelopment plan for Covent Garden. By 1972, Lady Dartmouth resigned from the Greater London Council, although she continued to work on public bodies like the English Tourist Board and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Earl John and Countess Raine Spencer at Althorp

In 1973, while having been married for 25 years of marriage to the Earl of Dartmouth, Raine embarked on a relationship with future earl John Spencer, having met him on an architectural heritage committee. Three years passed until Raine divorced her first husband and married Spencer. He had already div­orc­ed Diana’s mother Frances who, also in 1976, married wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd. Naturally the Spencers’ actions frequently caused mention in the British and foreign press, and not always pleasantly.

The newly married Countess Raine Spencer immediately moved into Althorp in Northamps, the family seat of Earl Spencer.  Architect Henry Holland made extensive changes to modernise Althorp from 1788 on, and the grand hall entrance to the house was described as the noblest Georgian room in the county. By 1976 Althorp presented Raine with a long term and serious renov­at­ion project. She was badly criticised for her taste, but husband supported her all the way. As expected, the step­children greatly disliked Raine.

Althorp Park, Northamps

Was the home of the young Diana Spencer

Later the home of Earl and Countess Spencer

In 1978 Earl Spencer suffered a brain haemorrhage. His rec­overy was slow and risky, but he totally cred­ited his survival to Raine’s close and loving attention.

In the months before & after the 1981 wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, the media followed both royal spouses and analysed every aspect of the couple’s lives. Particular focus was placed upon the young teenage girl. As we increasingly read in the newspapers back then, the quality of Diana’s relationship with Prince Charles were not as tender as she hoped. None­theless, years later when she experien­ced the miseries of divorce first-hand, it was the stepmother she had previously disliked who clearly was becoming the trusted friend.

In 1992, Lord Spencer the 8th Earl passed away at 68, having suffer­ed a heart at­t­ack. Diana was bereft. Charles the 9th Earl simply insisted Raine mov­­­ed out of Althorp immediately after her husband’s funeral. And so she did.

Raine married a third time, to the French Count Jean-Francois de Chambrun. When Raine divorced this husband, three years later, she decided to revert back to her Countess Spencer title. Three marriages, three times an aristocrat! Remember that aristocracy was something mum Barbara Cartland had never achieved.

In 1996, the owner of the very classy Harrods shop, Mohamed al Fay­ed, appointed Raine a director of Harrods International. She loved the job, and loved dealing with the customers. Then she acted as a roving ambassador, and she spent some time at the company’s airport properties too. Plus there were trips to China, Russia, Monaco and Egypt. [Visitors to Harrods can visit Raine’s lasting connection to the Spencers for themselves. Note that her cash register in the basement was only 100 metres from the shop’s recent memorial to Diana and Mohamed’s son Dodi Al-Fayed].

 Countess Raine and Princess Diana

In the five years before Diana’s horrible death in 1997, the prin­cess and her stepmother formed a close bond. Perhaps with Diana’s own imminent divorce, she found herself treated very badly by the Royal Family, much like Raine had been with the Spencers. In the book The Queen and Di: The Untold Story (2000), Ingrid Seward des­cribed how the two women had regular lunches together and spoke on the telephone daily. Raine became Diana’s most trusted confidante dur­ing a very tough time in the Royal Family.