King Charles has hit back at an explosive claim that he said people would forget his first wife, Diana, “soon enough” after her death in a high-speed car crash in 1997.
Buckingham Palace took the rare step of rebutting the new claim after Princess Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, revealed his account of private conversations in a new book about his sister.
The claim centres on the earl’s strong belief that the Princess of Wales would not have wanted her two sons, Princes William and Harry, to walk behind her coffin in her funeral procession.
Earl Spencer asserts in his new book that he received a phone call from the king, then the Prince of Wales, to confirm the plan for the young men, then aged 15 and 12, to be part of the procession.
Diana’s brother says he complained about the plan, but Charles insisted it would go ahead.
“He 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 earl writes in the new book.
“‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’.”
Earl Spencer joined Charles and Prince Philip in the funeral procession at a time of national mourning for Diana, and he delivered the eulogy for his sister in Westminster Cathedral in September 1997.
Extracts from his new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, appeared in The Daily Mirror amid widespread expectations he could be heavily critical of Charles and the royal family.
Earl Spencer delivered a eulogy at his Diana’s funeral in Westminster Abbey that was later named one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century. He has described the new book as a continuation of that eulogy.
Prior to the book’s release, he said: “The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective … I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.”
Earl Spencer’s new claim appears likely to heighten the rifts within the family when Prince Harry has a strained relationship with his father after his memoir, Spare, which also touched on the decision over the funeral.
“It seemed a lot to ask of two young boys,” Harry wrote. “Several adults were aghast. Mummy’s brother, Uncle Charles [Earl Spencer], raised hell. ‘You can’t make these boys walk behind their mother’s coffin! It’s barbaric’.”
While Earl Spencer’s concerns have been long known, his claim that Charles said Diana would be forgotten “soon enough” has made headlines in Britain.
The attention prompted Buckingham Palace to counter the claim without going into the details of the contested phone conversation from almost three decades ago.
“While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful 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,” the palace said in a statement.
Princess Diana was killed in a crash in Paris at the age of 36 when paparazzi photographers were chasing the car she was in with her partner at the time, Dodi Fayed.
An inquest into her death ruled that it was caused by the gross negligence of the driver, Henri Paul, who was drunk, and the pursuit by the paparazzi.
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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