The Truth About Princess Diana's Sister, Sarah Spencer

In season four of The Crown, we briefly meet Sarah Spencer, Princess Diana's older sister. Sarah's appearance in The Crown is pretty brief — she and Prince Charles date for a short period, until he meets her younger sister, who quickly takes center stage in the narrative (via Vanity Fair).

We, like many other viewers, were fascinated to learn about Princess Diana's older sister — but her short appearance left us with more questions than answers. Who was Sarah Spencer in real life? Did she and Prince Charles actually date before he married her sister? And what was her relationship with Princess Diana really like? 

Sarah has always been pretty private, but we have managed to uncover some little-known details about Princess Diana's older sister. It turns out, she's actually been a pretty important part of the royal family since the '70s — even if she didn't end up being the Spencer girl who married Prince Charles. Here's the truth about Sarah Spencer.

Despite growing up in one of Britain's oldest and wealthiest families, Sarah Spencer wasn't raised to live a completely carefree lifestyle. In fact, John Spencer encouraged all of his children to work for their own living as young adults. 

In the book Diana: The Portrait by Rosalind Coward, the girls' mother, Frances Shane Kydd, revealed that she purchased flats in London for each of her daughters. Sarah explained that, like Diana Spencer, she spent her late teens and early 20s working. "By the time I was nineteen I was living in London, holding down a very good job," Sarah recalled. "My father owned a house which I ran and I had tenants. I took money from them." She also paid the bills, got insurance coverage, and handled other related tasks.

Sarah went on to explain that Diana even worked for her as a cleaner, getting the same wages for her work as the other "dailies." It sounds like Sarah and her sisters were pretty self-sufficient young women, albeit privileged as well.

Just as Sarah Spencer's relationship with Prince Charles seemed to be becoming more serious, things came to an abrupt end. In The Crown, it seems as though Prince Charles's feelings for Sarah simply fizzled. However, it turns out, he actually broke things off with Sarah after she gave a shocking interview to the press. 

The interviewer spoke to The Mirror about his infamous 1978 interview with Sarah. He recalled that Sarah "was disarmingly frank about her boyfriend." The interview subsequently appeared in Woman's Own and contained some surprisingly frank statements. "Charles makes me laugh a lot," Sarah shared. "I really enjoy being with him." However, she added, "There is no chance of my marrying him. I'm not in love with him." She even said she wouldn't marry the royal "if he were the dustman or the King of England" (via Time). 

According to Express, Sarah also admitted that she'd had "thousands of boyfriends," and that she'd been saving press clippings about her and Prince Charles to show her grandchildren in the future. Apparently, Charles was furious, telling her, "You've just done something incredibly stupid," before ending things shortly thereafter.

Sarah Spencer eventually found a man that she did want to settle down with: Neil Edmuch McCorquodale, who she married in 1980. According to PopSugar, Sarah took his last name but retained her title, as he didn't have one, becoming Lady Sarah McCorquodale. The couple had three children: George, Celia, and Emily.

According to the book Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess by Sally Bedell Smith, Neil was a wealthy gentleman farmer. A friend of the Spencer family described Sarah's husband as "solid, very steady, private, quiet, with a good sense of humor." Smith noted that he was pretty much the "opposite of Sarah, who was ebullient and enterprising, with an unpredictable streak." 

By the sound of it, Neil was also pretty different from Prince Charles, who at the time, was frequently pictured in the tabloids parachuting topless or playing polo. In fact, he was even given the nickname "Action Man." Plus, the young prince was infamous for his long string of casual girlfriends (via Express). It sounds as though Sarah preferred to settle down with a man who lived at a slower pace!

Even though Princess Diana and Lady Sara McCorquodale came from the upper echelons of British society, they often shared clothes — like any pair of sisters might! As Town & Country reported, Sarah was seen in Princess Diana's old clothes on multiple occasions; seeing as most royals don't recycle outfits – it's a beauty rule the royals are forced to follow – it's not surprising Princess Diana gave some "old" clothes to her sister.

For example, in 1987, Sarah was pictured wearing a blue-and-white striped suit during a royal visit to the Spencer sisters' old school. Princess Diana had worn the same suit two years earlier during her second official tour of Australia. Then in 1993, Sarah wore a striking green-and-white midi dress during a royal visit to Nepal while she was acting as lady-in-waiting to Princess Diana. The royal had been pictured in the same dress seven years earlier during a tour of the Gulf states. 

There are plenty of other outfits that Princess Diana shared with her sister. And as she was famous for her fashion, we can't think of a better closet to borrow from!

Princess Diana's death in 1997 was one of the most tragic moments in royal history. As People reported, it left all of Britain "paralyzed with grief." A "royal watcher" spoke to People about how Lady Sarah McCorquodale was coping. "Sarah looks more tired, more drawn. She has aged," they said.

Years later, in the 2017 documentary Diana, 7 Days (via ABC News), Sarah opened up about her sister's death. "I think I felt shock, but I don't think I felt anything else. Just love and shock," she recalled. She went on to explain that she "put a barrier up" to her emotion at the time in order to deal with practicalities. She also felt angry at the media, who for two hours after the accident, reported that Princess Diana was expected to recover. "I have no idea why but it made me so angry," Sarah confessed. 

What did shock Sarah? One of the things we learned after Princess Diana's death was that she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. "She was religious in putting on her seatbelt," Sarah revealed. "Why didn't she put it on that night? I'll never know."

Lady Sarah McCorquodale was busy keeping the memory and legacy of her sister alive in the aftermath of her death. Sarah became the President of the "Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund," which was designed to provide funding for the charities and organizations that the late princess had been passionate about during her lifetime. By 1998, the fund had distributed $12.8 million to eight of Diana's "favorite causes," according to People.

However, the fund came under some public criticism when it accepted some "questionable" endorsements. In 2011, Express called the fund a "disaster." Apparently, the fund shelled out £12,000 on private flights, "complete with champagne and caviar" for two trustees. It was also revealed that roughly a third of the money had been wasted on administrative costs.

Regardless of what you may think of the fund itself, it's clear that Sarah was deeply passionate about honoring her sister's memory. Apparently, she was even commenting six hours a day in order to run the fund!

Aside from her duties with Princess Diana's will and the fund set up in her memory, Lady Sarah McCorquodale has kept busy with several other pursuits over the years. In The London Gazette, it was reported that Sarah had been appointed the High Sheriff of Lincolnshire for the year of 2009 by Her Majesty the Queen. While this may all sound a bit "Wild West," the role is more of a ceremonial one. By the sound of things, her duties consisted of visiting local charities and attending public events.

In 2010, Sarah also became a joint master of the Belvoir Hunt, according to The Telegraph. According to the Hunting Act of 2004, a hunt master is "responsible for the overall management and conduct of the hunt, in particular they are responsible for liaising with local farmers and landowners." Occasionally, the master of the hunt attends the hunt to oversee how things go. Sounds like a just the job for an established member of one of Britain's most elite families.