Earl Spencer doubles down on claim King said ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’ in row over following Diana's coffin at funeral
Earl Spencer has insisted he is “telling the truth” over the explosive allegation the King said “we’ll forget her soon enough” following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Earl Spencer has insisted he is “telling the truth” over explosive allegations he has made about King Charles following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
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Charles Spencer has made a series of damning claims about the King in a new memoir chronicling his sister Diana
These include the claim King Charles reacted "like a lottery winner," when his ex-wife died in 1997 and that, "we’ll forget her soon enough".
He also claimed Queen Elizabeth was considering restoring Diana's Her Royal Highness title, which she had lost after her 1996.
The bombshell allegations prompted an “unprecedented” response from Buckingham Palace who said “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”.
In an extract of an interview released on Friday night, Earl Spencer questioned whether the official response showed if the King was furious or embarrassed by the claim.
Speaking about an alleged row over Diana’s funeral arrangements involving her sons, the earl said: “(The King) went ballistic, would be the right term, and started really going for my family as a whole, about their sense of duty, not being adequate enough, and ranted for a while, I have no idea how long, but it was a significant period, and I just listened.
“And then he stopped, and I thought, ‘Oh now he’s going to pull himself together and say something more appropriate’.
“And then he said, ‘We’ll forget her soon enough’.”
Diana’s brother later explained: “I really was so stunned, and I just, after a stunned silence, I said, ‘I cannot believe you just said that’, and I hung up on him.”
Charles is said to have made the comments about his ex-wife in a row with the earl over whether the then Prince William and Prince Harry should follow Diana’s funeral cortege.
Read more: Spencer may have had 'relatively low' newspaper deal for Diana book serialisation
Read more: Queen 'offered to restore Diana's HRH' title after princess's death, Earl Spencer's memoir claims
The earl says in his book – Swan Song: Diana, My Sister – he insisted to the then Prince of Wales that his sister would not have wanted her boys to make the difficult public walk behind her coffin, it is claimed.
The memoir is being serialised in the Daily Mail which says the book has been written to correct “untruths” told about his older sister, who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997.
During the telephone conversation, Charles told the earl he had walked in the funeral procession of his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, it is claimed.
But the King “went nuts” when the earl pointed out that Charles had been 30 at the time of Lord Mountbatten’s funeral in 1979, it is alleged.
In response to the claims made in the memoir a Buckingham Palace spokesman said on Wednesday: “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.”
Asked about Buckingham Palace’s response to his claims, Earl Spencer told the BBC: “Is he (the King) furious, or is he embarrassed? Because I can tell you, here and now, those are exactly the words he said.
“I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life.
“I was hyper-alert to what he was saying, and those are precisely the words he said, and I promise that to you now, genuinely, that is what he said.”
Asked whether he has “evidence” of the King’s comments, the earl said: “I told friends and family straight away, close friends and family, about what had been said, because it was so monstrous.”
He added: “I’m telling the truth.”
Penguin has not said how much of an advance was paid to Earl Spencer for his tenth book, which is expected to become a best-seller, with copies having even been stolen from a lorry in the Netherlands.
The Mail published initial hints on Thursday before a much longer extract, which was put behind a paywall.
The newspaper has also not said how much was paid for the serialisation, but royal writer Alexander Larman has said that this deal is unlikely to have been lucrative for Earl Spencer.