diff --git a/spacy/displacy/render.py b/spacy/displacy/render.py
index 500e49989..86b933eef 100644
--- a/spacy/displacy/render.py
+++ b/spacy/displacy/render.py
@@ -50,8 +50,9 @@ class DependencyRenderer(object):
         rendered = []
         for i, p in enumerate(parsed):
             if i == 0:
-                self.direction = p["settings"].get("direction", DEFAULT_DIR)
-                self.lang = p["settings"].get("lang", DEFAULT_LANG)
+                settings = p.get("settings", {})
+                self.direction = settings.get("direction", DEFAULT_DIR)
+                self.lang = settings.get("lang", DEFAULT_LANG)
             render_id = "{}-{}".format(id_prefix, i)
             svg = self.render_svg(render_id, p["words"], p["arcs"])
             rendered.append(svg)
@@ -254,9 +255,10 @@ class EntityRenderer(object):
         rendered = []
         for i, p in enumerate(parsed):
             if i == 0:
-                self.direction = p["settings"].get("direction", DEFAULT_DIR)
-                self.lang = p["settings"].get("lang", DEFAULT_LANG)
-            rendered.append(self.render_ents(p["text"], p["ents"], p["title"]))
+                settings = p.get("settings", {})
+                self.direction = settings.get("direction", DEFAULT_DIR)
+                self.lang = settings.get("lang", DEFAULT_LANG)
+            rendered.append(self.render_ents(p["text"], p["ents"], p.get("title")))
         if page:
             docs = "".join([TPL_FIGURE.format(content=doc) for doc in rendered])
             markup = TPL_PAGE.format(content=docs, lang=self.lang, dir=self.direction)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3531.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3531.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7b9d0bd2a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3531.py
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+# coding: utf8
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
+
+from spacy import displacy
+
+
+def test_issue3531():
+    """Test that displaCy renderer doesn't require "settings" key."""
+    example_dep = {
+        "words": [
+            {"text": "But", "tag": "CCONJ"},
+            {"text": "Google", "tag": "PROPN"},
+            {"text": "is", "tag": "VERB"},
+            {"text": "starting", "tag": "VERB"},
+            {"text": "from", "tag": "ADP"},
+            {"text": "behind.", "tag": "ADV"},
+        ],
+        "arcs": [
+            {"start": 0, "end": 3, "label": "cc", "dir": "left"},
+            {"start": 1, "end": 3, "label": "nsubj", "dir": "left"},
+            {"start": 2, "end": 3, "label": "aux", "dir": "left"},
+            {"start": 3, "end": 4, "label": "prep", "dir": "right"},
+            {"start": 4, "end": 5, "label": "pcomp", "dir": "right"},
+        ],
+    }
+    example_ent = {
+        "text": "But Google is starting from behind.",
+        "ents": [{"start": 4, "end": 10, "label": "ORG"}],
+    }
+    dep_html = displacy.render(example_dep, style="dep", manual=True)
+    assert dep_html
+    ent_html = displacy.render(example_ent, style="ent", manual=True)
+    assert ent_html