Earl Spencer has said his allegations about King Charles’s reaction to Princess Diana’s death will not come as a surprise to Princes William and Harry, suggesting he has previously discussed the reported exchange with them.
In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, the earl declined to give details of his conversations with his nephews but said: “I don’t like to talk about what I’ve been speaking about to William and Harry, but this will not be a surprise to them.”
The claim is contained in his forthcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which describes an alleged confrontation with Charles in the days after Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Earl Spencer alleges that Charles told him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough”, during an argument over whether William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, should walk behind their mother’s coffin at her funeral.
He said the dispute began after he raised concerns about the boys taking part in the procession. According to his account, Charles referred to having walked behind Lord Mountbatten’s coffin, to which Earl Spencer replied that Charles had been 30 and that Mountbatten had not been his mother.
Earl Spencer said Charles then criticised his family’s sense of duty before making the reported remark about Diana. He claimed he was so shocked that, after a silence, he said, “I cannot believe you just said that”, and ended the call.
Earl Spencer says eulogy rebutted Charles’s alleged words
The earl said the argument was reflected in the eulogy he delivered at Diana’s funeral, particularly in his emphasis on her sense of duty and the words: “Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman I’m so proud to be able to call my sister: the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds
