Harry and Meghan Honored Princess Diana in the Sweetest Way in Their Baby Announcement

Updated on 5/9/2019 at 10:19 AM

Getty | Antony Jones

Only a year after the birth of Prince Louis of Cambridge, there's a brand-new royal baby! Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born on May 6, the first child of Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex. As with other royal births, a notice was placed outside the palace formally announcing the birth and that other members of the royal family had been notified. In the announcement, though, there are a few less recognizable names listed among the royal family members.

The announcement read, in part, "The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Lady Jane Fellowes, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, and Earl Spencer have been informed and are delighted with the news." We know who the royals are, and Spencer is Diana's family name, but who are Lady Fellowes and Lady Sarah? They're actually Diana's sisters and the great-aunts of the new baby! Read on for more info about the two women.

Princess Diana had two older sisters: Lady Sarah Spencer and Lady Jane Spencer. Born in 1955, Sarah (actually named Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia) is the oldest of four children born to John Spencer, eighth Earl Spencer. Jane, born two years later, also goes by a middle name — her full name is Cynthia Jane.

Lady Sarah actually dated Prince Charles before Diana did; it's because of this relationship that Charles and Diana met in the first place. The pair dated in the late 1970s before splitting up after Lady Sarah talked about the relationship to the press.

Lady Jane married Robert Fellowes in 1978, and when he became Baron Fellowes in 1999, she became Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes. They have two daughters, Laura and Eleanor, and a son, Alexander; Laura is Princess Charlotte's godmother.

In 1980, Lady Sarah married Neil Edmund McCorquodale. Since McCorquodale does not have a title of his own, she took his last name but retained her own honorific of "Lady." They have three children: two daughters, Emily and Celia, and a son, George. Celia wore the famous Spencer tiara on her wedding day in 2018, a month after her cousin Prince Harry's wedding.

The sisters have remained close to their nephews, Princes William and Harry, over the years. They've attended the royal weddings, and, at Prince Harry's 2018 wedding to Meghan Markle, Lady Fellowes even delivered one of the readings.