Princess Diana’s Stepmother Raine Spencer Remembered at Private Funeral

Raine Spencer, the stepmother of the late Princess Diana, was laid to rest in a quiet funeral on November 3, PEOPLE has confirmed.

Countess Spencer, who died last month following a short illness, was buried at a cemetery just outside London on, a spokesman for her son, Earl of Dartmouth, tells PEOPLE.

It was in keeping with her stated wishes to be buried there. The simple ceremony was attended by her immediate family. She was survived by four children and nine grandchildren. No members of the Spencer family attended the ceremony.

Countess Spencer was married to Diana’s father, Earl Spencer, from 1976 until his death in 1992, becoming stepmother to the future princess when she was 15.

Raine was the only child of Alexander McCorquodale, the heir to a printing fortune as well as an officer in the British Army, and Dame Barbara Cartland, the late romantic novelist.

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Diana and her brother Charles, the current earl, had a strained relationship with Raine, dubbing her “Acid Raine.” Butthe princess’s antipathy to her waned.

“They spoke every morning and lunched together once a week or once a fortnight,” Majesty magazine’s editor-in-chief, Ingrid Seward, told PEOPLE. “They were very, very close and Diana used to lean on Raine’s shoulder and tell her all her problems, of which there were many. So their relationship completely turned around. It was quite a dramatic turnaround.”

There will be a memorial service later this month.