Charles Spencer and his wife Karen have discovered many touching family artifacts at the Spencer family estate over the last few months, including a picture of Charles' grandmother which bears a stunning resemblance to his late sister, Princess Diana.
On Wednesday, he revealed another special memento from his family past – and it's so moving.
The Earl, 59, shared a short video to Instagram documenting the special find and its loving inscription, which you can see below…
Alongside the clip, the dad-of-seven wrote a caption that read: "My 'going away' present, from my father to me, the day I was sent off to boarding school, when I was aged 8.
"I unexpectedly rediscovered this Prayer Book in the attics at @althorphouse within an hour of completing the final edit of the manuscript of my upcoming memoir, A Very Private School – wanting a complete change of pace after writing a particularly emotionally demanding book, I decided to go to the top of the house to help move books out of a room that was marked down for redecoration.
© Paul Archuleta/WireImage"I'd in fact quoted what my father wrote here, inside the Prayer Book, in my upcoming memoir - and now, suddenly, I was holding the gift that I'd not seen for decades (I assumed it was long thrown away) in my hands.
"The coincidence of finding the Prayer Book at that particular moment, on that final day of writing, made me start so much that the @althorphouse curator asked me if I was OK."
© David GoddardAs the video showed, a young Charles had sweetly attempted to imitate his father's handwriting, although he admitted he now regrets that decision, continuing: "One of the many childhood regrets I have is trying to copy my father's handwriting, here…
"A shame to have unthinkingly defiled such a heartfelt message from a father dealing with sending his son to live with strangers, 100 miles from home."
© GettyCharles' fans rushed to share their love for the post, with one calling it "both heart-warming and heart-breaking" and another commenting: "Poignantly sad that you were trying to imitate your father's handwriting."
The author's upcoming book will mark a change in direction from his typical historical non-fiction, being a memoir about his time at boarding school between the ages of eight and 13.
© GettyIt also talks more generally about the life-changing impact of sending young children away to be educated at such a young age.
After recording the audio version earlier this year, Charles shared an image of himself behind a microphone, which he captioned, in part: "It's an uncompromising book - the saddest parts come not from me (I'm just the way in to the tale), but from my contemporaries, who've suffered in silence for 50 years.
"Last week one of my friends there told me that my writing this book had prompted him to tell his wife of 38 years, for the very first time, what he went through as a boy. They cried together, for an hour."
© GettyKaren shared her support for her husband's emotional endeavour on social media, as she posted: "I can't even begin to express how proud I am of him for writing this book. It was hard even watching him write it…"
