Earl Spencer has accused Buckingham Palace officials of “gaslighting” him after they suggested that grief may have affected his memory of a conversation with King Charles about Princess Diana.
Spencer has stood by his claim that Charles, then the Prince of Wales, told him the public would “forget” Diana after her death in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Speaking in his first live television interview about his new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Spencer said he was not attempting to attack the King but to explain the thinking behind the eulogy he delivered at Diana’s funeral.
His account centres on a telephone conversation about plans for Diana’s sons, Princes William and Harry, to walk behind her coffin. Spencer writes that he objected to the proposal, but that Charles insisted it would proceed.
In the book, Spencer claims Charles told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” He says the remark shaped the eulogy, in which he declared that Diana would never be forgotten.
Buckingham Palace issued a statement disputing the implication that Spencer’s recollection should be accepted without question. “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,” it said.
Spencer said the statement sought to undermine his account without directly denying the words he attributed to Charles.
“If you look at the words, it’s classic gaslighting,” he told ITV’s Lorraine. “So what they do is, ‘Oh, maybe his mind’s not right to remember these things because of the distance of time and grief’.”
“No one said that the King didn’t say that because he did,” he added.
Earl Spencer defends Diana funeral account
Spencer said the passages included in his book were relevant to the circumstances surrounding his eulogy, rather than an attempt to produce a “hit piece” on Charles.
“I wasn’t setting out to do a hit piece on the King at all,” he said. “The bits that have been included in the book are totally in context.”
He said the closing words of his eulogy, that Diana would never be extinguished from people’s minds, were a direct response to the remark he says Charles made.
Extracts from the book have prompted criticism from commentators, with some questioning Spencer’s memory and suggesting the work had been written for financial gain.
The controversy has also been fuelled by an error concerning broadcaster Piers Morgan. Spencer described Morgan as an editor of the Daily Mirror at a time when he was not.
Spencer acknowledged the mistake and said it would be corrected in a second edition. Morgan has said he intends to sue, arguing that the book accuses him of “the most egregious invasion of royal privacy in history”, and has called on publisher Penguin Random House to stop selling it.
