Prince Harry’s forgotten family who hosted secret UK trip and publicly stood by him

Since dramatically quitting his royal role and leaving the UK, Prince Harry has maintained a seemingly frosty relationship with his royal relatives.

But when it comes to his mother Princess Diana’s side of the family, it appears to be an altogether different story. It has been revealed that last week, Harry made an under-the-radar trip to Britain, where he reportedly spent time with his Spencer aunts, uncles and cousins as they paid their last respects to the late Lord Robert Fellowes, who died in July aged 82.

Both Harry and estranged brother Prince William attended a memorial service for their uncle Lord Fellowes, who was the late husband of their aunt Lady Jane Fellowes, an older sister of Diana. It was the first time in over a year that the two brothers attended the same event – although onlookers and others at the memorial said they kept their distance and didn’t speak to each other.

Now it has been reported that during his UK visit, Harry stayed with his uncle Earl Spencer, the younger brother of Diana, at Althorp, the Spencer family’s ancestral home. The Spencers are said to have remained close to Harry, taking part in several very public shows of support for him, and here we take a look at who they are…

Head of the family

The current head of the Spencer family and holding the title of Earl Spencer is Diana’s younger brother Charles. He is the custodian of the family’s Althorp estate in Northamptonshire, where he is said to have hosted his nephew Harry during his time in the UK last week.

Father-of-seven Charles, who recently split from his third wife Karen, counts the late Queen as one of his godparents. He is believed to have been extremely close to Diana – delivering a blistering yet moving eulogy at her funeral in Westminster Abbey in 1997, where he publicly pledged to protect William and Harry.

He said at the time: “We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. ‘We, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.”

“We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role but we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us.”

Both Harry and William invited him to Kensington Palace in 2021 when they unveiled a state of their mother in the palace gardens and last year when he released his memoir, Spare, Harry thanked his uncle in the acknowlegments. He also attended Harry’s service at St Paul’s Cathedral for the 10th anniversary for the Invictus Games back in May and posted on social media how he was proud to attend wearing his late father, and Harry’s grandfather, John Spencer’s Royal Scots Greys regimental cufflinks.

Now PEOPLE magazine has reported that on Harry’s UK trip, he stayed with his uncle at Althorp. Diana is buried on an island in the middle of Althorp estate’s Round Oval Lake. In his memoir Spare, Harry recalls visiting his mother’s final resting place and also taking his wife Meghan Markle there on the 25th anniversary of her death.

Beloved aunts

Other Spencer relatives that Harry would have more than likely have seen on his recent UK trip are his aunts Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale.

Lady Jane, who recently became a widow upon the death of her husband Robert in July, has three children Laura, Alexander and Eleanor – and gave readings at the funeral of her sister as well as at Harry’s wedding in 2018. In 2019, she attended the christening of Harry’s son Prince Archie’s and was also at the unveiling of a statue of Diana in July 2021. It was reported she also attended Princess Lilibet’s christening in Montecito last March and was with her younger brother Earl Spencer in May at Harry’s Invictus service at St Paul’s in May.

His other aunt is the oldest Spencer sibling Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who briefly dated King Charles as a teenager, years before Diana married him in 1981. She married Neil McCorquodale in 1980 and they have three children – Emily, George and Celia.

Diana was said to be close to Sarah and she sometimes accompanied her on engagements as a lady-in-waiting. After Diana’s death, she accompanied the then Prince of Wales alongside her other sister Jane to bring the princess back to the UK.

In Spare, Harry movingly writes about how Lady Sarah gave both William and Harry a lock of Diana’s hair each that she had clipped from her sister after she died in order to give to her nephews. She also joined Jane in supporting Harry by attending his graduation from the Army Air Corps pilots course during his time in he military.

Fashion muse cousin

Among the most well-known of the current crop of Spencers is Diana’s niece and William and Harry’s younger cousin, Lady Kitty Spencer.

The 33-year-old hit the headlines in July 2021 when she married wealthy businessman Michael Lewis, 64, in a stunning three-day wedding in Italy. She wore a series of gowns by Dolce & Gabbana with her main dress, which had an intricate floral lace design, a high neck, long sleeves and puffed shoulders, reportedly taking six months to create.

The couple exchanged their vows in front of celebrity guests that included singer Pixie Lott, and Idris Elba’s wife Sabrina at the Villa Aldobrandini in Rome. Earlier this year, she revealed she had welcomed a daughter called Athena.

Kitty is Earl Spencer’s oldest child and grew up in South Africa with her mother Victoria, her dad’s former wife. She read psychology at the University of Cape Town and has modelled for brands including Dolce & Gabbana, of which she has been a muse, and Bvlgari. She also scored invites to the wedding of her cousins William and Harry and her Instagram account shows her at fashion shows in cities such as London and Milan.

Although the monarchy has now changed to put sons and daughters on an equal footing in terms of ascending to the throne, British primogeniture law has not been changed to peers such as dukes and earls. So her father Earl Spencer’s title will go to his eldest son Louis rather than Lady Kitty.

Glamorous twins

Sometimes joining their sister Kitty at events and parties are twins Lady Eliza and Lady Amelia Spencer. They were born in 1992 and grew up in South Africa and were just five when their late aunt Diana died.

In 2021, they gave a rare joint interview in Tatler where they shared fond memories of their “incredibly warm, maternal and loving” aunt. Speaking about Diana’s death in 1997, Eliza said: “As a child, I realised the enormity of the loss for my father and family. It was only later that I came to understand the significance of the loss of her as a figure in the world. We always just knew her as our aunt. Growing up in South Africa, I really had very little idea of how significant she was in the world until I was much older.”

Curiously, Amelia didn’t attend cousin Harry wedding to Meghan in 2018, but Eliza was there. Both twins are models and are represented by Storm Management. Last year, Amelia married her long-term boyfriend Greg Mallett in a mountain-top ceremony in Cape Town surrounded by her siblings. Earlier this year, the twins turned out to support older cousin William at a fund-raiser for the London Air Ambulance.

Prince Harry-lite

Another member of the Spencer family is Kitty, Amelia and Eliza’s younger brother Louis, who was once dubbed ‘the world’s most eligible bachelor’ as well as ‘ Prince Harry lite’. He is a fair few years younger than his royal cousins William and Harry but in the past, it has been reported that he is close to them.

Louis, 30, is said to be ‘super private’ but he played a starring role in sister Kitty’s wedding, as he walked her down the aisle. He graduated with a First from ArtsEd, an independent performing arts school based in Chiswick, and signed to talent agency Tavistock Wood.