The world remembers John Spencer as the man who, overcoming illness, proudly walked his daughter, Lady Diana Spencer, down the aisle at St Paul’s Cathedral. That July day in 1981, watched by 750 million viewers, cemented his image in the public’s eyes. However, for his own family, the legacy of the 8th Earl Spencer was far more complicated and painful. He was known as an old-school gentleman—courteous, witty, and incredibly generous. Yet it was precisely this last trait that ultimately cast a dark shadow over his children’s future and the family estate Althorp, whose history spans five centuries.
An Unequal Marriage and ‘Acid Raine’
Among friends, he was called Johnny. His first marriage to Diana’s mother ended in a high-profile divorce, after which he was granted custody of their four children. Several years later, he found happiness again with Raine, a woman of aristocratic background whose mother was a famous romance novelist. For Diana and her siblings, this union was a true disaster. They immediately nicknamed their stepmother ‘acid Raine,’ seeing her as a calculating schemer who had bewitched their father and was squandering their inheritance. Nevertheless, those who knew the couple spoke of a deep and passionate attachment, so strong that the spouses would sometimes interrupt their long chauffeured Rolls-Royce journeys for an hour or two in a roadside motel.
The Mystery of the Missing Millions
A real storm erupted in 1992, when Lord Spencer died of a heart attack at the age of 68. His son Charles inherited the title and the historic estate. However, the financial fortune, estimated at a staggering £200 million, seemed to vanish into thin air. All eyes immediately turned to the grieving widow. Despite years of devoted care for her husband, suspicions only grew stronger. Reports emerged of a heated argument in the hospital room on the day of his death, which ended with the earl shouting: “Get out! Leave me, go away!” In the days leading up to his death, Lord Spencer wrote his wife a huge number of checks, emptying two checkbooks. Raine also strictly controlled access to her husband, allowing his children to visit their father only in her presence. The family lawyer was deeply concerned about such large money transfers. When preparing his will, the lawyer, in Raine’s presence, directly asked the earl whether he truly wanted to leave his wife such a vast sum. Spencer’s answer was firm: “If I could leave her even more, I would.”
Selling off his legacy and living large
According to the will, Raine inherited six million pounds, a luxurious house in London’s Mayfair district, country estates, the famous Rolls-Royce, and countless jewels. His daughters, including the Princess of Wales, each received only ten thousand pounds. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. What happened to the rest of the fortune? The answer lay in the systematic plundering of the family estate. For years, Johnny and Raine sold off priceless treasures from Althorp. Eleven Van Dyck paintings vanished almost overnight, along with many other works of art the family had collected over 500 years. Diana’s brother, Charles, later recalled how valuables were smuggled out of the estate through the back door in laundry baskets and sent to London art dealers. These sales, sometimes in secret, brought in millions that went straight into Lord Spencer’s pocket. Once a frugal man, under Raine’s influence he became an extravagant spender. The couple immersed themselves in luxury, buying houses, cars, jewelry, and traveling the world. Once, while passing through Sussex, John spontaneously bought a Spanish-style villa right on the beach, intending it to be a summer residence for Diana and her sons, William and Harry. However, the princess and her children visited it only once.
Reconciliation, death, and an unresolved mystery
Less than a year after her husband’s death, Raine remarried. Her new husband was the French Count Jean-François de Chambrun, whom she had known for only 25 days. The marriage was short-lived and turned out to be very costly for Raine: she paid off her new husband’s large debts, after which their union fell apart. When Raine, who regained her title of Countess Spencer after the divorce, died in 2016 at the age of 87, her estate was valued at £5.8 million. This amount almost exactly matched what she had officially received from John Spencer 24 years earlier. It is clear that she had lived off this fortune all those years. She did not leave a cent to her stepchildren. Charles Spencer never forgave his stepmother. However, Diana, a few years before her death, found the strength to reconcile. It is reported that she thanked Raine for taking care of her father, acknowledging that he loved her. Their reconciliation was marked by a photograph from a lunch together that made the front pages of newspapers everywhere. Yet, the mystery of the missing millions remains an unresolved chapter in the history of the Spencer family.
