Charles Spencer children
Charles Spencer children — the 9th Earl Spencer’s family is one of the most watched in Britain’s aristocracy, and with good reason. Seven children from three marriages, spanning 1990 to the 2010s: a supermodel, society twins, the heir to a 13,000-acre estate, and the youngest, a girl named for the most famous Spencer of them all. As the Earl begins married life with his fourth wife, Cat Jarman, here is the complete guide to the next generation of Spencers — who they are, who their mothers are, and who inherits Althorp.
With Victoria Aitken (married 1989, divorced 1997)
The Earl’s first marriage produced four children, the core of the family’s public image. Lady Kitty Spencer (b. 1990), the eldest, is the model and Bulgari/Dolce & Gabbana spokesmodel who married billionaire Michael Lewis in July 2021 and welcomed daughter Athena in April 2023. The twins Lady Eliza Spencer and Lady Amelia Spencer have built their own public profiles in fashion and society — Amelia’s wedding made headlines in its own right — and both are fixtures of the London social scene. And then there is Louis Spencer, Viscount Althorp: the only son of the first marriage, the heir apparent to the earldom, and the future of the estate itself. More on him below.
With Caroline Freud (married 2001, divorced 2007)
The second marriage brought two more children: Edmund Spencer and Lady Lara Spencer. Both have kept markedly lower public profiles than their elder half-siblings — a reminder that not every aristocratic child chooses the spotlight, and that the family’s fame is unevenly distributed by temperament as much as by birth order.
With Karen Spencer (married 2011, divorced 2025)
The third marriage produced one child: Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer, whose middle name honours the great-aunt she never met — Diana, Princess of Wales, the Earl’s elder sister, buried on the island in Althorp’s Oval Lake. The naming was widely noted at the time as a gesture of family continuity: the most famous Spencer name, carried into the next generation.
Who inherits Althorp? Louis, Viscount Althorp
The question every reader asks, answered plainly: the heir is Louis Spencer, Viscount Althorp, the Earl’s younger son from his first marriage. Under the system of male primogeniture that still governs most hereditary peerages, the viscountcy — the courtesy title of the heir — and eventually the earldom and the estate pass to him, not to his elder sisters. It is the same arithmetic that has carried Althorp through the Spencer family since 1508, and it is why Louis, though less photographed than Kitty, is arguably the most important of the seven.
The oddity is worth sitting with: the most famous Spencer child is a daughter who cannot inherit, while the heir keeps a lower profile. That tension — between fame and succession, between the public face and the legal reality — runs through the whole family story.
The public faces: Kitty, Eliza and Amelia
If Louis is the future of the estate, the daughters are the present of the brand. Kitty’s decade-long fashion career set the template; Eliza and Amelia have followed with modelling work and a strong social-media-era society presence. Together the three elder daughters give the Spencers something few aristocratic families manage: genuine cultural visibility beyond the peerage pages. Their cousinship to Princes William and Harry — they are Diana’s nieces — guarantees the press interest, but the careers are their own.
What happens next for the seven
The family map is still being redrawn. A new stepmother in Cat Jarman, the new Countess Spencer; a former stepmother in Karen, Countess Spencer, settled permanently in the same county; seven children ranging from their mid-thirties to their early teens; and a grandfather’s generation — Athena, Kitty’s daughter — already arriving. The next decade’s questions are succession-shaped: how Louis prepares for Althorp, how the daughters’ public roles evolve, and how the youngest, Charlotte Diana, grows up in the long shadow of her namesake. Whatever else changes, the estate endures — and so, it seems, does the world’s fascination with the family that holds it.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer — seven children: with Victoria Aitken (m. 1989, div. 1997) — Lady Kitty Spencer (b. 1990), twins Lady Eliza and Lady Amelia Spencer, Louis Spencer, Viscount Althorp (heir); with Caroline Freud (m. 2001, div. 2007) — Edmund Spencer, Lady Lara Spencer; with Karen Spencer (m. 2011, div. 2025) — Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer
- Wikipedia: Lady Kitty Spencer — married Michael Lewis July 24, 2021; daughter Athena b. April 2023
Family details are as documented in Wikipedia’s cited biographies. Private details of the younger children are limited to what has been publicly reported; Signal Post News does not publish private information about minors beyond the public record.