In the first part of our serialisation of his new book on Saturday, Robert Lacey – a distinguished royal historian and adviser to TV’s The Crown – told how Harry and Meghan’s behaviour left the Royal Family ‘hopping’ mad. Today, he reveals how William feared Harry was rushing into marriage and that the Queen suggested … Read more
BBC journalist Martin Bashir misled Princess Diana‘s brother Earl Spencer to secure her 1995 bombshell Panorama interview, sources claim. Nearly 23 million tuned in to witness the Princess of Wales tell Bashir, ‘There were three people in the marriage,’ a reference to Camilla Parker Bowles. But Bashir engineered the scoop of the century by showing … Read more
She married rock aristocracy in Bob Geldof, but Paula Yates could have become a genuine countess — and the sister-in-law of Princess Diana, to boot. A close friend of Yates tells me that Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, long before inheriting the title, became infatuated with the television presenter and even asked her to marry him . … Read more
Being a younger son in an aristocratic family can be hard to take. But for a twin brother, it’s even more galling. Due to being born just a few minutes later, Martin Janson has had to watch his brother Alistair become the 25th Earl of Sutherland and inherit the bewitching Dunrobin Castle, with its 120,000 … Read more
HISTORY THE WHITE SHIP by Charles Spencer (William Collins £25, 352 pp) On a cold but clear November night in 1120, almost exactly 900 years ago, a ship sailed out of Barfleur harbour on the Normandy coast, bound for Southampton. Everyone on board was cheerfully drunk but perfectly optimistic. The tide had turned and was with … Read more
An aristocrat has lost a battle with his stepmother over plans to build a visitor attraction at the castle linked to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Colin Campbell, the seventh Earl of Cawdor, was enraged after his Czech stepmother, the dowager duchess Lady Angelika Cawdor, applied to build an events, exhibition and banqueting venue in the garden of … Read more
It’s a startling move by Allen Bathurst, who succeeded as 9th Earl on his father ‘Barmy’ Bathurst’s death in 2011 He was cut out of his ‘callous’ stepmother’s £33 million will and this week suffered the indignity of seeing her beneficiaries sell some of the family treasures worth nearly £2 million at Christie’s. But, far from … Read more
Pioneering black British actor Earl Cameron who appeared in Doctor Who and Thunderball dies aged 102 Cameron was among the first black actors to forge a successful acting career in Britain The actor’s first major role came in 1951 in the film Pool of London He also starred in the James Bond film Thunderball as … Read more
You pair of hawkers: Furious Earl accuses interior design pair who inherited most of £33m family fortune of flogging his history – including a £300,000 tiara – in £2m auction Gloria Wesley left most of her £33m fortune to a pair of interior designers The two men are now selling many of the Dowager Countess … Read more
The Earl of Cardigan has made up with his son who sold the family’s 16th century mansion. David Brudenell-Bruce, 67, said he forgave Viscount Savernake after the 38-year-old sold Tottenham House in Wiltshire in 2008. Lord Cardigan had been removed from running the stunning Savernake Forest Estate after he moved to the US and got … Read more