Queen Elizabeth allegedly offered to restore Diana’s HRH title after her death, according to her brother, Earl Spencer, who said he rejected the gesture as a “consolation prize”.
Spencer claims the late Queen contacted him through her Private Secretary, Robert Fellowes, as he travelled by royal train to Althorp in Northamptonshire ahead of Diana’s burial at the family estate in 1997.
The Her Royal Highness style had been removed from Diana after her divorce from Charles, then the Prince of Wales, was finalised in August 1996.
In his book Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Spencer writes that Diana was “dreadfully hurt” by what he described as a “petty and vindictive” decision. He said the Queen’s offer was well-meaning, but felt it was too late to have any real significance.
“That’s very kind of the Queen, of course. But what’s the point, Robert? Now?” Spencer recalls saying. “I mean, Diana’s dead.”
Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997, aged 36. She was given a lavish funeral in London before being buried privately at Althorp.
The latest claims from Earl Spencer come after King Charles responded to another passage from the book, which suggested he had said Diana would be forgotten “soon enough” during a telephone call in the days after her death.
In a rare statement, a spokesperson for the King said: “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 judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”
Queen Elizabeth died in 2022.
