The English aristocratic Spencer family has resided at their ancestral home at Althorp, Northamptonshire, since the early 16th century. The Estate now covers in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Norfolk. From pre-Tudor times the Spencers had been farmers, coming to prominence in Warwickshire in the 15th century when John Spencer became feoffee of Wormleighton in 1469, and a tenant at Althorp in 1486. His nephew, another John, used the gains from trade in livestock and commodities to buy both properties. He was knighted in 1504 and died in 1522. John's descendants expanded the family holdings through business dealings and marriage into the peerage. The family is related through marriage to the Churchills of Blenheim Palace, a line that included the Dukes of Marlborough and Winston Churchill. From the Althorp line came the Earls of Sunderland, the later Dukes of Marlborough, and the Earls Spencer. The family captured international attention when Lady Diana Frances Spencer married Prince Charles on 29 July 1981, and her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997.