Prince William and Prince Harry’s aunt Lady Sarah McCorquodale was hospitalized “for a long time” after a horsebacking riding accident.
The eldest sister of Princess Diana, is “still riding” at 70 years old, but had a “really bad fall last month,” Charles Spencer revealed during a recent appearance on the “Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth” podcast.
“I think, [she] was quite a handful as a patient, because the lead doctor said to my brother-in-law, ‘She’s quite a character isn’t she?’” Charles, 61, joked. “Which I think is code for, ‘Could you take her home?’” (Lady Sarah has been married to Neil McCorquodale since 1980.)
Further details about the injury have not been revealed, but People reports via, someone close to Lady Sarah that she is “on the mend” after the injury.
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Charles’ parents, John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd, welcomed Lady Sarah in March 1955, Lady Jane Fellowes in February 1957, Diana in July 1961 and Charles in May 1964.
Charles further spoke about his sister Lady Sarah on the podcast, noting that she was the sibling that was “always in trouble,” sharing some stories from their youth.
“She’s quite punchy. I remember she was having a disagreement with my father, and it was very difficult to think of a suitable protest, so she just rode her horse into the hall and sat on it in there,” Charles said. “It was a very brilliant gesture, because what are you going to do with that?”
He added, “I think she was kicked out at school. She was drinking and smoking and all that sort of thing, but really fun.”
Lady Sarah famously dated King Charles III before he was married to Princess Diana as well.
“My eldest sister Sarah had been with him as a girlfriend a little bit before 1977. I was only very young then and then,” Charles Spencer recalled. “Diana did call me around to her flat before the engagement was announced.”
Diana and the now-king announced their engagement in February 1981. They were married in July of that year.
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“She just looked so happy,” Charles Spencer said of Diana’s relationship, explaining that he only remembers “bits” of her wedding day. He recalled wondering if things would “all go back to normal” after the wedding.
“Nobody knew what she was going to become,” Charles Spencer added. “I just thought, ‘Well, they got married. That’s nice.’”
Diana and Charles’ marriage met tons of scrutiny in the public eye, especially after his affair with the now-Queen Camilla was revealed. The former couple finalized their divorce in 1992. Diana died in August 1997 at age 36 after a car accident in Paris.
Charles Spencer recalled eulogizing his sister at her funeral.
“[I] got off the plane in Heathrow [Airport], called my mother, I said, ‘I can’t think who’s going to give the eulogy. And I’ve got an awful feeling it’s going to have to be me,’” he recalled. “And she said, ‘Well, it is going to be you. Your sisters and I have decided it.’”
Initially he wrote a “very traditional eulogy” about Diana — but decided to change things up. “Well, this is ridiculous, that’s not who she was,” he said.
