Princess Diana 's tragic death - 25 years ago today - sent shockwaves around the world and thousands of heartbroken admirers joined the royal family in mourning. The princess was only 36-years-old when she died, but she achieved incredible things in her short life including raising awareness for challenging issues including AIDS and landmines.
She also changed the royal family forever, with her personable approach to duties proving extremely popular with the public. Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles in a fairytale wedding at St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981 after just a handful of meetings. Their union had been one based on their similar aristocratic backgrounds, rather than their personalities or compatibility.
Even though Prince Charles is descended from centuries of royalty, it was actually Diana who was considered to be the more aristocratic of the two.
If you subscribe to the idea of the Six Degrees of Separation, you will believe that we are all only six of fewer social links away from each other. That number will certainly become smaller when you take the Royal Family into consideration.
For centuries, noble families were paired with other noble families in marriage to ensure a continuation of the line. The result of the hundreds of arranged marriages is that there are some very interesting familial links.
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Lady Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961 at Park House on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. She was the fourth of five children born to John Spencer, Earl Spencer and the Honourable Mrs Frances Shand Kydd.
The family were very close with the royals and Diana used to spend a lot of time playing with her future brothers-in-law, Princes Andrew and Edward at Sandringham House.
The Spencer family is historic and has been allied with the Royal Family for many hundreds of years. It was founded in the 15th century and can count links to monarchs such as Henry VIII and King George III.
King Charles II was well-known for having numerous illegitimate children - he acknowledged 12, but it is suspected there could be over 14. Of these illegitimate children, he had two - Henry Fitzroy (b. 1663) and Charles Lennox (b. 1672) - who are both distant relatives of Diana and the Spencer family.
Diana could also trace her lineage back to the likes of King James II and the famous Mary, Queen of Scots - a monarch whose life was marked by tragedy, politics and controversy.
Through this link she was also a distant cousin of her husband Prince Charles as they were both descendants of King Henry VII’s daughter, Margaret Tudor.
There were clearly huge links to many centuries of famous royals on Diana’s side, however, are they greater than the connections held by The Queen and Prince Charles?
Prince Charles is descended from an uninterrupted line of monarchy that stretches back over one thousand years.
It is very well-known that the Royal Family can trace their lineage back to the likes of William the Conqueror, but what about the English element of their ancestry and how direct is it?
Following the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the country was left without a direct and Protestant heir apparent which meant that her nearest living relative became King George I.
The new king was German through and through and spoke very little English. Given the now solidified ties between England and Germany, other members of minor German houses married into royalty, for example, Queen Victoria’s mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
The German links continued when Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha married Queen Victoria in 1840.
So even though Prince Charles is a descendant of many years of royalty, Diana, Princess of Wales had more English royal blood in her veins than that of her former husband or The Queen.
