Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess Diana, has said in an extract from his upcoming memoir that King Charles told him, after Diana’s death, that the public would "forget her soon enough." The claim, published by the Daily Mail, also alleges that the former Prince of Wales subjected Spencer to a “stream of anger” when the Earl objected to Princes William and Harry walking beside Diana’s coffin at the funeral.
A Palace spokesperson said the Royal Family would not comment on books “as a matter of principle” but noted that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”
Spencer’s book, titled Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, is due to be published next week and is expected to be highly critical of the Royal Family. The first public excerpt details a phone call from Charles in which the Earl claims the king “unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent‑up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death.”
The book arrives amid a renewed focus on the 1997 car crash that killed Diana and the perceived lack of empathy shown by the royals at the time. Prince Harry has previously said that walking behind his mother’s coffin at age 12 was something no child should be asked to do, though he later expressed gratitude for being part of the day.
Earlier this week, four copies of the Dutch‑language edition of the memoir were reportedly stolen from a truck en route from the Dutch publisher’s printers to its warehouse.
Observers will watch how the Royal Family manages the fallout from the memoir’s revelations and whether the Palace will take further action regarding the alleged statements by King Charles.
