An urn, with Diana’s name inscribed in marble on a Doric-style temple, on a private island in the middle of a lake within Althorp Gardens, is supposed to be the tomb of the People’s Princess. It is assumed, but it is not certain. No one has been able to verify it, and all kinds of legends circulate, such as the one that she is buried in the chapel of a small nearby church, and it has never been said so that she is not disturbed.
The Althorp house is in any case a place of pilgrimage, a mecca for Diana fans, and tomorrow it reopens its doors, as is the tradition in recent summers, when its residents (Count Spencer, his wife Karen Villeneuve and daughter Charlotte) go on vacation. The fabulous 16th-century stone mansion has many expenses, and visitors – who pay 31 euros per head – constitute a not inconsiderable, and highly controversial, source of income. Many think that the memory of the princess should not be marketed in this way.
Charles Spencer inherited Althorp in 1992, at the age of twenty-seven, after the death of his father. It is there that he grew up, along with his sisters Sarah (who for a time dated the current King Carlos III) and Diana. They were a privileged childhood and adolescence, but marked by the abandonment by his mother (who left with a lover) when they were little, a psychological blow that affected their personalities.
After Diana’s death in Paris in 1997, the image of a broken Charles Spencer went around the world. He became the great defender of the memory of the princess, and his harsh speech at her funeral was interpreted as a declaration of war on the Windsors. She acted as an intermediary so that her sister, once separated from Carlos, gave the controversial interview to the BBC in which she acknowledged having had lovers and denounced Camila’s presence “in a marriage in which there were three of us”, but later she said that was “tricked” with cunning and false documentary evidence by journalist Martin Bashir.
The imposing Althorp, a hundred kilometers north of London, was built by Sir John Spencer, a self-made stockbreeder. With the passage of time, the family managed to enter the circles of the aristocracy, and King Jaime I granted it its first noble title. He has held his power and influence for five centuries, and developed a family tree that includes artists, ministers, senior military officers and the Princess of Wales.
When built in 1508, Althorp was a ninety-room Tudor redbrick house with strong Italian influences, but two hundred years later it was remodeled and built the stone façade that dominates it today. Each of the rooms bears the name of a character who has left their mark on it, such as the painter John Wootton or Queen Mary, who stayed with George V in 1913. The external austerity contrasts with the opulence of its interior, which houses one of the best private collections of furniture in the country, paintings by Van Dyck and John de Critz, ceramics, porcelain and oriental pieces. The dining room mimics the Buckingham Palace Ballroom, and the billiards room is Victorian-inspired. The 50 square kilometer estate is in the middle of a lush forest with deer.
Those who pay the thirty euros will see many things, and perhaps even the ghost of Diana.
