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Charles Spencer is standing by his claims about King Charles III in his new memoir, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” which tells the story of the People’s Princess through the 9th Earl Spencer’s eyes. The book has garnered plenty of controversy ever since Spencer revealed what he described as Charles’ callous reaction to Diana’s death during a heated argument. But now, he’s found an unlikely ally in royal expert Richard Eden, who strongly criticized Buckingham Palace’s response. “I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said,” Spencer stressed in an interview with the BBC ahead of the book’s September 22 release. “I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life,” he pointed out. “[A]nd those are precisely the words that he said. And I promise that to you now.”
In “Swan Song,” Spencer detailed a disagreement over Princess Diana’s funeral procession, which apparently led to Charles becoming incensed and shouting the words, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough!” After the palace issued a statement denying the earl’s version of events, Eden offered his expert opinion, describing it as a “misguided mistake.” As the royal commentator explained on the Daily Mail’s “Palace Confidential” show, “I think it was a terribly misguided thing to do — to respond so quickly in this way.”
Eden continued, “Throughout her 70-year reign, the queen took that view of ‘never complain, never explain.’ […] I’m angry […] because the king never said anything when [Prince] Harry’s book came out. […] [But] as soon as a book comes out that criticizes him for something he said 30 years ago, he rushes to put out a statement the week before the book comes out.” As he asserted succinctly, “I think it’s a terrible mistake.”
Earl Spencer denied wanting to profit from Diana’s legacy
In another excerpt from “Swan Song,” Charles Spencer described how King Charles III reacted when he first learned of Princess Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in 1997. While everyone else who called was stunned, the earl couldn’t help but notice that Charles “sounded giddily elated,” almost as though he had just won the lottery. “Looking back now, I suspect the prince’s first reaction must have been to think more of how this event might free him to marry the woman he loved, rather than appreciating the loss of one he did not,” Spencer argued, referring to his now-wife Queen Camilla. Later, the earl acknowledged to the BBC that while he cannot be 100 percent certain what was going through Charles’ mind at the time, “I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana’s death that really jarred with me.”
Elsewhere in the book, Spencer also recalled another argument with Charles, this time over whether his nephews, Prince William and Prince Harry, should walk behind their mother’s coffin during Diana’s funeral. “It was a suggestion that struck me as utterly barbaric, and quite out of the question,” Spencer recounted. But the future king reportedly raged in response, “‘That’s the problem with your family. They’ve got no bloody sense of duty!” Despite speculation that he’s trying to profit from his late sister’s story, Spencer clarified that his reason for writing “Swan Song” was simply to honor and celebrate her life and memory. “I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true,” he noted. “This is not a threat, it’s a fact,” teasing he still has a lot more to say about Charles that didn’t make it into the book.
