Earl Spencer claims Charles said he was lucky after his father's 1992 funeral as bombshell memoir is released
In Swan Song, his memoir for his sister Princess Diana, Earl Spencer alleges that King Charles said he was lucky his father died when he was 27 and left him the family's 13,000-acre estate.
Earl Spencer has said the King told him that he was lucky to inherit his family's 13,000-acre estate in his 20s shortly after the death of his father in the latest damning allegations to come from his bombshell memoir.
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Swan Song, the memoir of his sister Princess Diana, has already made headlines across the world - but the book's release on Tuesday has seen more allegations surface against the Royal Family.
After clashing with the King over extracts of his memoir, the full release of Earl Spencer’s book now includes damaging allegations about the late Queen and other members of the royal family.
Earl Spencer described the King, then Prince Charles, telling him that he was “lucky” to be inheriting the sprawling Althorp estate in Northamptonshire while still in his twenties.
The earl's father, John Spencer, died in 1992 when his son was only 27.
Read More: Earl Spencer says ‘cancerous’ public treatment of Sussexes ‘echoes’ Diana
According to Spencer, shortly after John Spencer's funeral, Charles said: “You’re just so lucky — you know, inheriting when you’re so young … And, I mean, I’m 43 … and I employ 50 people … but my parents insist on treating me like — like a child!”
In Swan Song, Spencer wrote: “At this he stamped his foot in emphasis, I have to say, very much like a child; and a petulant one, at that.”
Upon the publication of the memoir, it has also emerged that the book makes allegations against several other royals – including the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Spencer writes that just before she was told the news of Diana’s death, she asked: “What is she up to now?”
Contained in the memoir is also a claim that the late Queen said Charles was “resentful”, adding: “He always resents things. He even resented it when I taught him the alphabet.”
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor also comes in for criticism in the book, as Spencer recounts the disgraced prince smirking in church at the mention of a "virgin's womb".
The latest revelations comes a day after the earl suggested that Harry and William were already aware of the bombshell allegations he made about the King's conduct in the days following their mother, Princess Diana's death in a car crash in Paris.
In an interview to promote Swan Song, a memoir of his late sister, Earl Spencer 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.
"I will tell you that these words will not be a surprise to them."
The interview followed a serialisation of the memoir which saw the earl claim that the King told him that Diana would be forgotten "soon enough" in the days following her death in 1997, aged 38.
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’.”
Charles is said to have made the comments about his ex-wife in a row with the earl over whether Prince William and Prince Harry should follow Diana’s funeral cortege.
William and Harry are said not to have been aware of the contents of Earl Spencer's forthcoming memoir about his sister, which includes the King's reported comments.
On his motivations for writing the book, the earl said it was his “duty… as an eyewitness to history”.
It comes after the earl accused the King of gaslighting him after Buckingham Palace pushed back against explosive claims that Charles said “we’ll forget her soon enough” after Diana, Princess of Wales, died.
He said: “I’m aware of mortality and I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true.
“This is not a threat, it’s a fact, I know lots of things about the King which I chose not to include in the book because they were not relevant.”
The earl accused the King of gaslighting him and called the palace’s response a “rather poor imitation of the ‘recollections may vary’ quote” – the late Queen’s response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s allegations in their Oprah Winfrey interview, The Mail on Sunday reports.
He said: “It is not every day you wake up to find you’ve been gaslit by the King.
“It was astonishingly provocative and below the belt because it was essentially trying to say I’d lied without the King being able to deny what I’d said.
“I also thought it was a rather poor imitation of the ‘recollections may vary’ quote, which was a much more elegant way of putting things, but in these circumstances entirely out of place.”
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.”
On what William and Harry might think of the comments being brought up, the earl added the words “will not be a surprise”.
In another extract from the interview, the earl said the relationship between the press and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “echoes” the way the media treated his sister.
The earl, who was in South Africa when his sister died, detailed he was initially told “it’s not too serious”, and after a number of calls, his sister Jane told him “I’m afraid she’s died”.
Meanwhile, the earl said he considers Swan Song: Diana, My Sister to be his final take on the situation.
He said: “I’m not here to bang on about Diana, this is my final word, celebration of her, and I will step off into the sunset now and not be available for comment.”
Asked if he supports this monarchy, the earl said “I do”.
Put to him that he has a funny way of showing it, he said: “Well, I’m not dealing with King Charles as monarch in this book.
“This is all 30-odd years ago, and what was said and done then.”
The earl became emotional as he said he misses his sister “every day”, adding: “That’s the thing with sibling loss, you never get over it.”