Charles Spencer Reveals Childhood Trauma in Heartbreaking Account of His Boarding School Experience (Exclusive)

In his new memoir, A very private schoolCharles Spencer shares the harrowing story of his brutal boarding school experience as a boy.

The historian and younger brother of Princess Diana recalls his childhood at Maidwell Hall, an elite English boarding school, offering a candid first-hand exploration of the culture of cruelty rooted within its walls. Through his memoirs – to be published on March 12 – 9th Earl Spencer delves into the lasting impact of his experiences, including cases of abuse.

In PEOPLE’s exclusive excerpt below, Spencer, 59, vividly recalls the abandonment he felt when he was sent away to school at age 8 and reflects on the lasting effects of the trauma on his life and relationships.

Charles’ magical childhood was shaken by the abandonment of his mother, Frances Shand Kydd, who left her husband for another man and went to live in Australia for six months.

When my mother’s older sister, Mary, pointed out that such a long absence would make it difficult for her to fight for custody, my mother replied, “But when you think about it, what does it matter? All four of my children will be in boarding school in five years—when Charles leaves. And then I’ll have equal time with each of them, on holidays anyway.” It’s a calculus that makes sense when your brain is drunk with love and your standard of parental involvement is based on the traditionally distanced model of the British upper classes.

Charles Spencer aged 2, with his mother outside their family home, Park House.

©Earl Spencer

At the age of 8, Charles was left at Maidwell Hall by his father John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer.

I felt exhausted and sick. I knew that, as unimaginable as that possibility seemed, my father was on the verge of leaving me. My sister Diana countered her despair the first day she arrived at boarding school with a heroic challenge: “If you loved me, you wouldn’t leave me here.” But she was a 10-year-old girl and I was an eight-year-old boy, and I lacked the words or maturity to express the shocked sense of betrayal that gnawed at me inside.

Charles Spencer with his sister Diana (seated) and nanny Mary Clarke as he left for Maidwell Hall in 1972.

©Earl Spencer

Charles quickly realized that some students would suffer daily beatings – sometimes with a cane on their bare buttocks – by Principal Porch, whom the students nicknamed “Jack”.

Shortly after I arrived at Maidwell, I learned that the school never had a day without casualties. After tea, at ten to six, it would be the turn of at least half a dozen of us boys to disappear into the dimly lit corridor that led from the side of the school kitchen to the private wing, where the Porches had their own set of rooms. . . When it was finally your time, you were brought in by the vice principal. As you entered the gloomy study, your eyes adjusted to see Jack sitting there, devoid of compassion, willing to endure physical pain, the quiet flame in his eyes betraying his inner contentment. . . The headmaster witnessed those beatings at night, standing in the shadows behind the headmaster, whose task was to write on the school list who was beaten, for what, on what day and how many times.

Charles Spencer in his Maidwell “Sunday best” suit in 1972.

©Earl Spencer

During one of his night patrols, the Headmaster caught Charles and his colleagues in their dormitory talking after “lights out”.

The doorknob on the bedroom door slowly turned. Terror. It was Jack. We lay still, hoping to pass as sleeping innocents. Jack turned on the light. “Who spoke?” he asked, his voice choked with excitement as he sat down on the nearest bed. Four hands went up, including mine. He invited us towards him while putting a slipper in his right hand. One by one, they rolled us over onto his knee and swung us in the rear before pushing us off. He had beaten me with his slipper a few times before, during his post-tea rituals, but that was through my pants. The pajama bottoms offered no protection, and the pain was shocking in its intensity.

Charles Spencer helping to remove the hurdle fences after Maidwell Sports Day in 1975.

©Earl Spencer

At the age of 11, Charles was groomed and sexually abused by a 19 or 20-year-old assistant headmistress at the school.

She sat on the side of my bed. She was smiling, kind and chatty. It was exciting to have such an easy exchange with a staff member. She talked about things that were important to me. In the harsh, male environment of this traditional boarding school for boys, where I missed my mother terribly, this calculated use of female warmth could not but enter, seduce and ensnare me. . . [She] she seemed to have an unofficial hierarchy among her prey: we learned, from our secret conversations, that she chose one of us each term to share her bed and use it for intercourse. . . She added me to the second line of her victims: those whom she touched intimately. . . The effect of what she did to me was profound and immediate, awakening in me basic desires that had no place in someone so young.

During what he describes as “one of the lowest points” of his life in his early 40s, Charles attended an intensive therapy program aimed at processing childhood trauma.

My second marriage followed the failure of my first, leaving two more of my offspring as children of divorce. Feeling defeated, I decided to tackle what attracted me to partners who weren’t right for me, and I wasn’t right for them, so that the pattern could be broken. I sought professional help, assuming there was something fixable wrong with me.

Charles Spencer with his sisters (from left) Diana and Sarah, their nanny Sally Percival and his sister Jane at the Park House estate in 1969.

©Earl Spencer

Writing this book helped him come to terms with his past.

Watching the wreckage of my first and second marriages, I learned early on in therapy that being sent to boarding school at the age of eight meant I had almost no understanding of intimacy. It is an almost inevitable consequence of the trauma of which longing for home was the most obvious symptom. Equally, I became very reactive, so any slights or threats of abandonment sent me into fight-or-flight survival mode. I’m sure some things died for me between my eighth and thirteenth birthdays, while I was in Jack’s care. Innocence, trust, joy – all were trampled and discarded in that antiquated, snobbish, wicked little world that English high society built, validated and then handed over to the care of people who could be very dangerous indeed.

From A very private school Charles Spencer. Copyright © 2024 Charles Spencer. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

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Source: HIS Education