Princess Adeline of Wales

Chapter Eighty-Four: Visiting Diana

16th of February 2014 - St Mary's Church, Althorp Estate

"I thought she was buried on the Spencer estate?" Simon said pulling up outside the small church that Adeline directed him to, it was not far from the Spencer estate but certainly not where he'd been expecting to go that morning. 

The two of them had come early in the morning in hopes of not attracting too much attraction to themselves by others that would paying their own respects to Diana and avoiding the crowds around the quiet village that came this way to visit the Spencer family estate. 

"That is what the public were told yes," Adeline confirmed softly staring at the small parish church in which her mother had been secretly laid to rest nearly eighteen years ago in the middle of the night. 

It was a tightly kept secret that no one discussed, it had been her mother's great desire to be buried beside her father and they had wanted to respect her wishes as best as they could. 

"It was decided that to allow my mother to rest in peace that the public would be directed to her memorial at the family estate, she had long since stated that she wanted to be buried with her father," Adeline explained to him.

They linked arms as they made their way towards the church that was set in the estate; a place where all Spencer's had been buried at one time or another. 

There were 19 generations of the Spencer family had been laid to rest in the chapel, many that Adeline doubted she could even name and she knew that her mother was resting peacefully here. 

"The oval is unsuitable for a coffin to be buried in especially a lead-lined one, but it's perfect to keep the public from discovering the truth," Adeline admitted, she did feel bad that they didn't know the truth but it was in everyone's best interest that they didn't. 

The church would have been overrun by visitors, unable to keep up with the people that came to pay their respects to the People's Princess. 

The island on which the 'tomb' was set in the middle of a lake and quite marshy, which meant that eventually the water table would have reached her body and the coffin would sink. 

There were also break ins that the family had suffered from people attempting to reach the body of her mother and possibly steal it from her 'grave'. 

It made Adeline feel sick that people tried that, it was all the more reason that they would keep this a secret from those who would wish to do horrible things like this.

"The church was closed for the interment and then the gates were put up around the chapel so no one would ever know," Adeline continued, the two of them entered the church and Adeline gestured towards the gated area of the chapel by the altar. 

There had been a few slip ups here and there about the burial but for the most part they had kept it quiet, the church carried on as normal except for a few royal families looking into the Spencer family history. 

George Washington's great, great, great grandfather was also buried near the Spencer vault, his grave by the pews if Adeline recalled correctly as she slowly made her way over to the vault. 

The area in which the Spencer family were lay to rest was gated off from the rest of the church and had been since September 1997, with cameras watching over the area and signs telling people that there were alarms about. 

Coming to the gate, Adeline produced the key that she had been given before unlocking the gate; stepping inside it was easy to spot the newer looking flooring near where her mother was buried. 

There beneath the window lay a white grave marker that looked newer than the rest of the floor that surrounded it despite being laid seventeen years ago; it stood out even to those who didn't know who was buried here.