Sir Robert Fellowes, who was private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II during some of the most difficult years of her reign, has died.
Sir Robert, who was 82, was also brother in law to Diana, Princess of Wales and an uncle of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex.
He died on July 29th 2024 and his death was announced on July 31st.
Sir Robert Fellowes’ time as private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II covered the last decade of the 20th century, the most turbulent of her historic reign.
[getty src=”459302228″ width=”413″ height=”594″ tld=”com”]He was appointed in 1990 and within months was dealing with the increasingly acrimonious fall out from the disintegrating marriage of his sister-in-law, Diana, to Charles, then Prince of Wales. He was at the side of Queen Elizabeth during 1992, her ”annus horribilis” which saw her eldest son separate from his wife and which ended with the huge fire at Windsor Castle.
In the nine years he held the post of private secretary to the Monarch, Sir Robert dealt with three royal marriage breakdowns – that of Charles and Diana as well the split between Andrew and Sarah, Duke and Duchess of York and the final divorce between Princess Anne and her first husband, Mark Phillips.
[getty src=”526891779″ width=”594″ height=”393″ tld=”com”]He was also among those advising Queen Elizabeth when she agreed to pay income tax.
However, the hardest time for him, professionally and personally, came in 1997 when Diana, Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in Paris. Sir Robert would end up helping to write the personal address Queen Elizabeth II gave to the nation in the days after Diana’s death when public anger towards the Monarchy reached a crescendo.
He would later say that he was ”deeply fond” of Diana who he described as a ”very good person”.
Sir Robert’s relationship with the Royal Family began in his earliest days. He was born on the Sandringham estate on December 11th 1941 and one of his first visitors was Elizabeth II, then a princess and heir to the throne. She would later joke that he was the only one of her private secretaries she had held in her arms.
Robert Fellowes, son of Major Sir William Fellowes and his wife Jane Ferguson, joined the Scots Guards, his father’s old regiment, after Eton. In 1963, after leaving the military, he went into banking. He left in 1977 to become an Assistant Private Secretary in the Royal Household and became Deputy Private Secretary in 1986 before his elevation to Private Secretary in 1990. He left in 1999 and became a life peer, Baron Fellowes of Shotesham.
In 1978, he married Lady Jane Spencer at Westminster Abbey with her younger sister, Lady Diana, among the bridesmaids. Robert and Jane had three children – Laura, Alexander and Eleanor.
As his death was announced, on July 31st 2024, Earl Spencer described his brother in law as exceptional and added he was a ”total gentleman, in all the best meanings of that word, he was a man of humour, wisdom and utter integrity.”
Robert Fellowes, born December 11th 1941, died July 29th 2024.
