My husband Earl Spencer kept a long-term mistress and dumped me by text: Estranged wife’s astonishing court claims about end of her marriage – and the explosive email she sent to his archaeologist girlfriend

Princess Diana’s brother had a ‘long-term mistress’ before dumping his ‘helpless and confused’ wife by text message, court papers claim.

Earl Spencer then ‘completely’ refused to give any explanation to Countess Karen Spencer which she found ‘both cruel and inexplicable’.

She accuses her husband of having had an affair since 2022 “and more likely since 2021” with Dr Cat Jarman, an archaeologist who is looking for a Roman villa in his ancestral home in Althorp, where he grew up with Diana.

High Court papers reveal an email the ‘shocked and devastated’ Countess Spencer wrote to her husband’s friend: ‘First of all, as a woman, I have to tell you that I am so disappointed in you. It is so incredibly immoral to turn the lives of all children upside down in this way.”

She signed her post in May this year with the words: ‘Good luck Cat, you’re in for an amazing ride. I think having to care for him full-time will be much more difficult than the occasional five-day escape to Norfolk and a night or two here and there in London.”

The allegations are part of Countess Spencer’s defense in an explosive High Court privacy case brought against her by Dr Jarman.

The 42-year-old girlfriend of the 60-year-old count’s archaeologist is suing his estranged wife, 52, accusing her of revealing private details about her life.

Earl Spencer said tonight that his estranged wife’s claims were an ‘absurd attempt to blacken my name’, while Dr Jarman said she was ‘shocked and utterly appalled’ and accused the Countess of a ‘horrendous and defamatory attack’ to have committed on her.

‘I can understand that she finds it difficult because he has moved on before she has, but the story that Charles, or I, did something wrong here is simply not true.

‘I do have sympathy for her. I understand what she has lost because it is more than her marriage and her home. But this still doesn’t justify what she did.”

But in her defense, Countess Spencer says her revelations were “completely justified and legitimate” given the way she was treated.

The Canadian-born social entrepreneur became Spencer’s third wife in 2011 and they have an 11-year-old daughter, Lady Charlotte Diana.

On March 19 of this year, she was told by the count that ‘their marriage was over after almost thirteen years.

He did this by text message,” her defense papers say, adding: “After giving up her life in the United States to live in the middle of rural Northamptonshire and devote herself to running the Althorp Estate affairs, and besides, as a child the news was horrible for Lady Spencer.’

When Countess Spencer compared notes with Dr. Jarman, Tom Jarman, “discovered that their affair had been going on since November/December 2022, when they were together in Norfolk (although more likely since 2021),” the defense states.

During the excavation, the archaeologist and her team stayed on the Althorp estate and ate in the house.

In her email to Dr Jarman, the Countess wrote: ‘I’m not sure what Charles has shared with you about this, but I don’t want to host you in Althorp while I still live here. That’s a boundary I want to maintain. It is not fair to me, our daughter, nor to all the staff, who are already distraught by the news of our separation, while we have to serve Charles’s long-term mistress. It’s just too much to ask.’

The Count – who has been married three times and has had a well-documented colorful love life – and the Countess announced their separation in June, and he publicly confirmed his relationship with Dr Jarman in October.

In his girlfriend’s legal claim against his wife – they remain married pending a divorce – she claims she was shocked when the countess revealed her private information to him.

In her Mail interview, Dr Jarman said: ‘I have worked very hard to keep my MS hidden, which should be my privilege. So only a handful of people know – and Charles wasn’t one of them.

‘I had only been seeing him romantically for two or three months and still hadn’t told him. It’s hard, isn’t it, to know when to reveal something like that.

“Some people do that from the beginning, but I chose not to do that. And I emphasize that it was my choice. Your medical history is the most personal.”

She claims that Spencer’s wife “found out through someone close to me” and “during a conversation about whether I had had an affair with her husband – which I can categorically say no, that we were actually just friends were. and colleagues until after the marriage ended – Karen discovered I have MS.

“It was also confirmed to her that this was not something that was common knowledge. And yet she then went to Charles and said, ‘You know she has MS, right?’.’

The legal proceedings are at an early stage and have not yet come to court.

Countess Spencer is fighting the case and her defense papers state: ‘For the avoidance of doubt, Lady Spencer is perfectly entitled to and will continue to explain (where relevant or necessary) that [Dr Jarman] and her husband was having an affair and that was why he wanted a divorce, and he gave no explanation for why he did so in such a callous and inexplicable way after thirteen years of marriage.’

Countess Spencer has repeatedly refused to comment on the breakdown of her marriage and the subsequent legal action against her.

Friends say she plans to fight the case in court, through publicly available documents and evidence.

Last night Dr. Jarman said: “I am shocked and utterly appalled that my legitimate attempt to stop the unlawful spread of my status as a person with Multiple Sclerosis – a protected disability – has been hijacked in such a horribly untruthful manner.

“It appears that Karen Spencer is not so much mounting a legal defense against my legitimate action, but rather has stooped to launch a heinous and defamatory attack on Charles and me.

“Meanwhile, the stress of this issue, which Karen Spencer could have resolved in a matter of minutes many months ago, is having even more serious consequences on my health. Stress is a known cause of MS.

“My full response to this outrage will be with the courts as soon as possible, and at the same time we are urgently pursuing all available legal remedies, including those relating to breaches of legally binding oaths.”

Earl Spencer added: “The idea that I would end my marriage by text message is an absurd attempt to blacken my name. Karen ended the marriage in early March, after endless threats over the years.

‘She asked me to confirm the end of the marriage in a text message dated March 18 and my response that day was a simple acceptance of her decision. I still have those texts, and will share them in court once I clear my name.”