The Royal brothers, Prince William and Prince Harry mourn the loss of their great-aunt Lady Anne Wake-Walker, the sister of their late maternal grandfather John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer.
Princess Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer, announced the family death on Twitter, with a photo of a
flag at half-mast at his home and ancestral seat, Althorp House.
Earl Spencer explained: “The Spencer flag at half-mast at @AlthorpHouse today, marking the death of my father’s older sister (& only sibling) Anne, aged 99 1/2. An officer in the WRENS in World War 2, she was the mother of 3 sons and 2 daughters. Lady Anne Wake-Walker (née Spencer), 1920-2020.”
Taking to Instagram he also shared a precious family photograph that showed Anne and her younger brother John – Princess Diana’s father – playing in the garden at Althorp House as children. “Aunt Anne and my father, playing at @althorphouse in 1925,” the Earl wrote. “A wonderful lady, she was an officer in the WRENS in the Second World War, and was a much loved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother – as well as sister and aunt, of course. Aunt Anne died last night, aged 99 1/2. “The end of an era” is the phrase I’ve heard repeatedly today. Indeed it is.”
The late Lady Anne was married to Christopher Baldwin Hughes Wake-Walker, a lieutenant in the royal navy. The couple said “I do” at Westminster Abbey in February 1944. They had five children together: Elizabeth Duckworth-Chad, David, Richard and Michael Spencer and Diana Macfarlane, who shared the same name as her cousin, Princess Diana.
