Frances Shand Kidd -- Diana's mother dead
Terrymelin
Kidd (sp?).
Terry Ellsworth
LilyRoseMortem
LONDON (June 3) - The late Princess Diana's mother died on Thursday after a
long illness, her family said. Frances Shand Kydd was 68.
"Earl Spencer's mother passed away peacefully this morning after suffering from
a long illness. Now this is private time for the family to grieve," said a
spokesman for Diana's brother Earl Charles Spencer.
Shand Kydd, who lived in Scotland, was estranged from Diana at the time of her
death in 1997 and had not spoken to her daughter for months. But she told
biographers that she viewed the rift as temporary.
"Of course we argued. Who wants a wishy-washy mum," Shand Kydd told authors Max
Riddington and Gavan Naden.
06/03/04 11:30 ET
Brian Watson
"Terrymelin" <terry...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040603125354...@mb-m29.aol.com...
> SKY News is reporting the death of Princess Diana's mother -- Frances
Shand
> Kidd (sp?).
Hmm, fancy that.
This happens the day after the Archbishop of Canterbury (very publicly) is
shown on TV saying he can't see any reason why Charlie Boy oughtn't marry
Camilla Parker-Bowles.
--
Brian
"I'm convinced there's something spooky about death. Several times in my
life I have spotted old friends walking up the street or in a subway station
ahead of me. I run to catch up and say hi, but they melt into the crowd.
Within a few hours I get a phone call saying the person died just at the
time I saw him/her. There's a lot of stuff going on that we don't
understand." - MC57
Terrymelin
>shown on TV saying he can't see any reason why Charlie Boy oughtn't marry
>Camilla Parker-Bowles.
There would be absolutely no prohibition against Charles marrying because he is
now considered a widower in the eyes of the church. Whether he can marry a
woman who is divorced is another matter.
The current AofC doesn't seem to have any problem bending any rule or practice
of the church as long as it suits him.
Terry Ellsworth
April Cool
<terry...@aol.com> wrote:
> There would be absolutely no prohibition against Charles marrying
> because he is now considered a widower in the eyes of the church.
> Whether he can marry a woman who is divorced is another matter.
I have read that the fact of the divorce (even though it is now moot)
could still be held against Charles, given his (presumed) future
position as head of the church, since divorce is a serious sin. Anyone
else in Charles' circumstances, even a Roman Catholic, would be free to
marry again. Perhaps he should convert.
Brian Watson
"April Cool" <firsto...@fools.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:040620041154096775%firsto...@fools.com.invalid...
To Judaism? He's already pretty ecumenical, but I'd guess Hinduism or Islam
might be seen as going a bit far.
Ah, of course, a Buddhist! Perfect.
--
Brian
"Let's be grateful for our Fridays and face our Mondays with good humour."
Terrymelin
>> could still be held against Charles, given his (presumed) future
>> position as head of the church, since divorce is a serious sin. Anyone
>> else in Charles' circumstances, even a Roman Catholic, would be free to
>> marry again. Perhaps he should convert.
You would be wrong. In the eyes of the church there is no such thing as
divorce. Since Diana died, in the eyes of the Church, Charles is widower. Roman
Catholics are not permitted to marry again in church if they have been
divorced.
Terry Ellsworth
April Cool
<terry...@aol.com> wrote:
Nevertheless, some have argued that the fact of his divorce should
prevent Charles from heading the church. Whether this argument is
correct or not, I don't know. Common sense (as well as compassion)
would argue that the death of Diana renders the divorce moot.
A Roman Catholic who was married outside the church and then divorced
is free to marry in the church, even if not a widow.
Bob Feigel
<firsto...@fools.com.invalid> wrote:
>In article <20040604142251...@mb-m28.aol.com>, Terrymelin
><terry...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> >> I have read that the fact of the divorce (even though it is now moot)
>> >> could still be held against Charles, given his (presumed) future
>> >> position as head of the church, since divorce is a serious sin. Anyone
>> >> else in Charles' circumstances, even a Roman Catholic, would be free to
>> >> marry again. Perhaps he should convert.
>>
>> You would be wrong. In the eyes of the church there is no such thing
>> as divorce. Since Diana died, in the eyes of the Church, Charles is
>> widower. Roman Catholics are not permitted to marry again in church
>> if they have been divorced.
>>
>> Terry Ellsworth
>
>A Roman Catholic who was married outside the church and then divorced
>is free to marry in the church, even if not a widow.
Hummm ... that's not what our priest and friend, Father Michael
Wooller told us while we were taking 'instruction' before our
conversion to Catholicism. We'd been married in a civil ceremony and
asked about getting married in church.
My wife was widowed when her first husband died, but my first wife and
I had a civil wedding, and because we'd been divorced I would have to
apply to some official body within the church for a 'dispensation'.
Father Mike said that, considering the circumstances, there was every
chance the dispensation would be granted, but I had to get one
nevertheless (ironically, my first wife was a Catholic and she
divorced me). But that had nothing to do with my needing that
dispensation before Anne and I were allowed to have a church wedding.
Perhaps this rule (policy?) differs from country to country? b
"When weaving nets, all threads count." - Charlie Chan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
April Cool
<b...@surfwriter.net.not> wrote:
Perhaps it does. I'd thought some rules were universal (like that
one), but now that you say things are different where you are, I find
that I really don't know. I know that there are different rules even
among U.S. dioceses. Requirements concerning waiting periods,
religious instruction, etc., sometimes differ wildly.
Bob Feigel
BTW - if all we'd wanted to do is repeat our vows in church (I think
it was referred to as a "Celebration of Marriage Vows," then no
problem. It was only because we were talking about having an official
church wedding that the subject came up.
BTW2 - when I first took instruction at St Monica's (Santa Monica, CA)
back in 1959-60, the waiting period was two years. Unfortunately, my
parents found out. Both sets came down on me like a ton of rabid
anti-Catholicism and I gave into the onslaught. By the time I told my
wife I'd like to give it another go 35 or so years later, asked her if
she'd mind, and discovered that she'd been thinking along the same
lines for some time, the period had shrunk to six months (one hour a
week). Maybe California still differs from New Zealand on this. b
Terrymelin
>>is free to marry in the church, even if not a widow.
>
Not true either. A Roman Catholic we know was married as a Presbyterian,
divorced, and then wanted to marry a Roman Catholic. He had to get an annulment
to do so.
Terry Ellsworth
Michael Rhodes
Frances Ruth Burke Roche: born 20 January 1936; married 1954 Viscount
Althorp (succeeded 1975 as eighth Earl Spencer, died 1992; one son,
two daughters, and one son and one daughter deceased; marriage
dissolved 1969), 1969 Peter Shand Kydd (marriage dissolved 1990); died
Seil, Argyllshire 3 June 2004.
Frances Shand Kydd was the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the
grandmother of Prince William and Prince Harry. She was thrust into
unexpected prominence in the middle and later years of her life, being
otherwise rather unknown to the general public.
In the early 1920s it was made clear to George V that there must be a
revised attitude to marriages into the Royal Family. Following the
First World War, the idea of princesses from foreign houses was less
attractive as a prospect and, of course, the idea of a German princess
unacceptable. This paved the way for the marriage of Lady Elizabeth
Bowes-Lyon to the Duke of York (who was to become King George VI).
This marriage was supremely successful, and the satisfactory dilution
of royal blood with richly aristocratic stock appealed to those who
felt that there had been too many cousinly unions.
The wedding of the present Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer
appeared to fulfil the same demands. The Spencers were a
long-established aristocratic family and the genealogists were able to
trace descent from various Stuart kings. In a sense the theory was
good, if the reality less so.
It was also noted that both the bride's grandmothers and four of her
great-aunts had served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. One of
these was Ruth Lady Fermoy, widow of the fourth Lord Fermoy and the
mother of Diana's mother Frances Roche. Frances was born in Norfolk in
1936, her birth exactly coinciding with the death of King George V, in
the "Big House" at Sandringham. In a stalwart moment, Queen Mary
deflected her own grief by sending an enquiry about Ruth Fermoy's
baby, born that day. This story was told to Queen Mary's biographer,
James Pope-Hennessy, as a "signal instance of Queen Mary's
self-control and consideration for others". The teller was Captain Sir
William Fellowes, the Land Agent at Sandringham, whose son Robert was
to marry Diana's sister, Lady Jane Spencer, and to become the Queen's
Private Secretary. The links appeared close and the omens good.
In 1954 Frances married the then Viscount Althorp in Westminster
Abbey. Two daughters, Sarah and Jane, were born and then a son, John,
who died the same day, in January 1960. Diana was the next daughter,
born the following year, and Charles, the present Earl Spencer, was
born in 1964.
The Althorps lived for some time at Park House, Sandringham, on the
Royal Family's estate and the young children were often in the company
of their royal counterparts. There seemed no reason to suppose that
family life would not continue in happy mode, but then Frances eloped
with Peter Shand Kydd, whom she later married.
There was an unpleasant court case in 1968 in which Lord Althorp
obtained custody of his children, and it was noted that Lady Fermoy
took his side against her daughter, whom she considered to be a
bolter. Thereafter the young Spencer children had a disorganised
upbringing. This was further complicated when their father inherited
the earldom and the estate of Althorp in 1975, and soon afterwards
married Lady Dartmouth (Raine, the daughter of Barbara Cartland).
Frances Shand Kydd retired into private life, but was propelled into
the public eye when the press began to focus on Diana as a potential
royal bride in the autumn of 1980. As the press hounded Diana on her
daily peregrinations to the kindergarten where she worked, Shand Kydd
took the unusual step of writing to The Times to appeal for some
respite in the media pursuit.
She was happy when the engagement was announced in February 1981 and
took a full part in the highly popular wedding at St Paul's Cathedral
that July, sitting with her former husband, Earl Spencer, opposite the
Royal Family, and returning to Buckingham Palace seated beside the
Duke of Edinburgh.
It would be wrong to suppose that the Wales marriage was unhappy or
doomed from the start. That it later collapsed slowly, publicly and
with great unhappiness on all sides is a matter of record. It did not
appear that Diana had ever been able to turn to either her mother or
maternal grandmother for the kind of support she might have expected.
The media focused on Frances Shand Kydd again at the time of Diana's
death in 1997. By this time she was leading a remote life, her second
husband having left her, and she had adopted the Roman Catholic faith.
At Diana's funeral in Westminster Abbey she appeared a lonely figure,
as she had done the previous evening at a Catholic service in
Westminster Cathedral, accompanied by another Catholic convert, the
Duchess of Kent.
It was harder for her to escape media attention following this
tragedy. It was inevitable that the media would press for supposed
grievances and occasionally these were voiced, whether accurately or
not is uncertain. She spent her last years in isolation on the isle of
Seil, near Oban, and involved herself in charity work.
Her last prominent appearance was when she came to London to serve as
a prosecution witness in a court case against Diana's butler Paul
Burrell in the autumn of 2002. So much out of the public eye had she
been for so long, that it was a surprise to many to find that she had
become an old lady with white hair, walking lamely on a stick,
supported by her daughter Sarah.
It was impossible not to sympathise with her, frail in health, when
she was asked to declare how long the estrangement with her daughter
Diana had been. Shand Kydd admitted she had had no contact with Diana
for four months before her daughter died. This had no relevance to the
case in hand, but was an example of the courts being unable to resist
digging pruriently into such matters - having her there and under oath
in the witness box.
Equally pathetic was what followed, a burglary at her house while she
was known to be in London, more sordid details of arguments and
bitterness revealed in the tabloid press frenzy that followed the
collapse of the Burrell case and a car accident a few weeks later
marking the decline. She became a concern to her family, and her last
years were lived out in the aftermath of her daughter's death.
Hugo Vickers
Michael Rhodes
> The Indepemdent obit.of Mrs Shand Kydd by Hugo Vickers
>
> Frances Ruth Burke Roche: born 20 January 1936; married 1954 Viscount
> Althorp (succeeded 1975 as eighth Earl Spencer, died 1992; one son,
> two daughters, and one son and one daughter deceased; marriage
> dissolved 1969), 1969 Peter Shand Kydd (marriage dissolved 1990); died
> Seil, Argyllshire 3 June 2004.
The Express (June 5) says that Prince William will be at the funeral
in Scotland, and that Prince Harry is flying back from Africa to be
present. The Prince of Wales will not go to the funeral of his former
mother-in-law.
-- Michael.
Bill Schenley
From Saturday's Guardian:
It's in the nature of being an heir to the throne that you
can only be successful if someone snuffs it, but the life of
the Prince of Wales has been unusually circumscribed by
deaths.
For years after his separation from Diana, the wisdom of the
media palace-creepers was that he would be able to marry Mrs
Parker Bowles only when his grandmother, who was seen to be
the marital moralist among the monarchists, was in the
vault. But when his ancient gran was predeceased by his
young ex-wife, the revised calculation of the Buck House
pundits was that Charles and Camilla would now only be able
to wed when not only was the Queen Mother dead but the
public cult of Diana had died down.
Both those conditions now apply and, indeed, another death
this week - of Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd - should
have put even more distance between the prince and his first
marriage. And yet, mysteriously, the consensus, as
represented by those papers that have declared themselves
marriage guidance counsellors to Charles and Camilla, is
that the marriage remains problematic.
One article yesterday suggested that, despite having now
overcome the gran and Diana challenges that media moralists
set him during the past decade, Charles still needed yet one
more death before he could put a deposit on the top hat at
Moss Bros. Reportedly, his mother can still not reconcile
herself to having a divorced daughter-in-law. So a marriage
might now only be possible when she is gone as well.
Given the longevity of the female Windsor line, this raises
the prospect of an octogenarian Charles paying three rapid
trips to a cathedral: for a royal funeral, a royal wedding
and then his coronation, unless Andrew Parker Bowles were to
go first, in which case C & C, as they were designated on
the cufflinks found by Diana on her honeymoon, would finally
be theologically free to swap rings.
These increasingly bizarre scenarios, in which the royal
couple finally clink Zimmers at the altar rail in St Paul's
shortly before returning there for their obsequies, show how
ridiculous the situation is. In a culture in which the hot
question around weddings long ago shifted to whether men
should marry men or women women, it can surely be only a
small percentage of the population that still cares if two
people in late middle age can have a second heterosexual
union.
The three interest groups that continue to resist the idea
of a second Mrs Wales are monarchistic Anglicans, the
rightwing press and die-hard Dianarites. The latter are led
by Paul Burrell, who claimed on the radio this week that he
had been forced to add a new chapter to his bestselling
memoirs when he read in a lifestyle magazine that the Queen
Mum's old place at Clarence House had been given a Ł10m
makeover for Mrs Parker Bowles. Yet response to the sore
butler's media appearances suggests that the Dianarites have
increasingly less power to block her ex-husband's route up
the aisle.
As for the religious objection, it has been pointed out that
by resisting the idea of a marriage, conservative clerics
are encouraging a situation in which Britain would have its
first king to live openly in what used to be called sin.
Admittedly, this may not be a contradiction. It may be the
aim of the CofE's evangelical wing to prevent Charles from
becoming king at all because they consider him an
irredeemable adulterer and prone to pseudo-Buddhist
spoutings.
But, if their hope is to bypass Charles, then it proves
again the flaw in monarchism, which is that it demands a
gamble on unknown quantities. How can they know that Prince
William, when the moment came, would not be divorced or
co-habiting? The recent history of marriages - particularly
royal ones - suggests that CofE believers in the monarchy
are going to need an adjustment to the rules on the king's
ring finger if they want both institutions to survive.
With both the current and last archbishops of Canterbury
apparently supporting a wedding, the final obstacle is the
press, but this opposition is probably practical rather than
moralistic. Currently in a long-enforced gap between royal
marriages and scandals, they are compensating with the
flamed-up scandal of a possible remarriage. But the wedding
itself, if announced, would become a much better story.
The biggest problem is the suggestion from some Canterbury
sources that the CofE would most easily tolerate a quiet
ceremony: something like Princess Anne's second vows in a
remote kirk. It's madness, though, to think that Charles and
Camilla have a Gretna Green option. Their nuptials and the
guest list would have the world's news desks in turmoil. So
the biggest obstacle to a Charles and Camilla marriage is
not theological, but editorial.
Waterlou4
herself to having a divorced daughter-in-law. <<
It's more than just that, IMO. Remember, HM is the granddaughter of Queen
Mary, who was nearly fanatical about preserving the monarchy.
>>Given the longevity of the female Windsor line, this raises
the prospect of an octogenarian Charles paying three rapid
trips to a cathedral: for a royal funeral, a royal wedding
and then his coronation, unless Andrew Parker Bowles were to
go first, in which case C & C, as they were designated on
the cufflinks found by Diana on her honeymoon, would finally
be theologically free to swap rings.<<
If I were Andrew P-B, I would be looking out my rear-view mirror quite a lot.
>>So the biggest obstacle to a Charles and Camilla marriage is not theological,
but editorial.<<
Nonsense. It's the public.
>>Dianarites<< Great word!