Something powerful and elemental runs through Charles Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister.
It is not simply the depth of his grief for Princess Diana, from whom he was estranged when she died. Rather, it is the enduring intensity of his hostility towards King Charles — a resentment that has burned for more than three decades.
In extracts published by the Daily Mail, Spencer’s anger is unmistakable. His account presents the then-Prince Charles as someone who may have viewed the death of his former wife with disturbing detachment, even as the world mourned.
The implication is that Charles was almost relieved that Diana, aged 36 and the much-loved mother of his two young sons, had died in a car crash in Paris.
“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 writes.
He also recalls that, unlike others who called to offer their condolences in the hours and days after Diana’s death, Charles sounded “giddily elated — like a lottery winner”. It is a devastating allegation, but one presented without independent evidence or any wider historical support.
Spencer further says the prince sounded “strangely matter-of-fact, given the enormity of the disaster”.
How, though, could Charles have sounded both jubilant and emotionally detached at the same time?
Earl Spencer recalls that, unlike others who telephoned to offer condolences in the hours and days after Diana’s death, Charles sounded “giddily elated — like a lottery winner”.
In Earl Spencer’s telling, his own grief was overwhelming, while his former brother-in-law appeared to regard Diana’s death with the cold indifference of someone watching an insect disappear beneath a windscreen.
That is the mood Charles Spencer attributes to the future king at a moment of immense public tragedy and private loss for them both: a brief expression of regret, followed by emotional distance.
Spencer also claims that Charles told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough!” The line is presented almost like something from a Bond film, delivered by a villain stroking a cat. But did Charles really say it? It does not sound typical of King Charles, and the words could carry several meanings — or even have been misheard.
Could Charles instead have said, “They’ll forget her soon enough” — referring to the public frenzy surrounding Diana’s death?
It is also possible that Spencer’s intense emotional state affected how he understood a conversation from one of the royal residences as his own life was falling apart.
The Palace addressed the allegation by saying: “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.” It was, in effect, another reminder that memories can differ dramatically.
Some may believe the King should have ignored Spencer’s claims. Yet there is a strong argument that he had to respond. The allegation is so serious, and the potential damage so great, that leaving it unanswered could have allowed it to stand unchallenged.
MORE STORY: Tulsa Man Sentenced To Death – Trial Update Of Ondriel Smith – NewsFinale
Through these incendiary passages, Charles Spencer appears intent on inflicting maximum harm: portraying a 77-year-old King, who is not in the best of health, as a cold-hearted and weak adulterer unmoved by the tragic death of his former wife.
The judgment is severe, not least because it leaves little room for human frailty. Even at the most painful moments of life, people do not always respond in ways that reflect their deepest feelings or present them at their best.
Earl Spencer and Prince Charles at the official opening of a fountain built in memory of Diana in London’s Hyde Park in 2004.
In the end, the dispute comes down to a question that feels almost medieval: whose account do you believe? Spencer’s or Windsor’s? The King’s or the earl’s? The grieving husband’s or the aggrieved brother’s? As for me, I know which man I find more convincing — and it is not Earl Spencer.
Is this a choice Prince Harry must also make? One wonders how he can remain on close terms with his fuming uncle while his father is being so viciously traduced and the monarchy attacked. It seems impossible that he can remain neutral, a gingery Switzerland of calm in this bloody war of attrition.
In later chapters, for example, the earl also recounts his version of the row regarding Prince William and Prince Harry walking behind Diana’s coffin at her funeral procession. Are we back here again? I am afraid so.
This is an issue Harry has bemoaned, too, as further evidence of the moral futility and chronic failings of monarchy.
Look. No doubt it was an ordeal; two young boys in their smart suits and neat hair, trying not to cry in front of the whole world. It still breaks my heart just to think about it.
Yet there is a price to pay for the trappings and advantages of being a member of the Royal Family – and here it was, being marched out in funeral lockstep across a city and a nation in mourning.
Perhaps, with hindsight, they could all look at it another way: that walking behind the coffin was a privilege, it was an honour, it was what was expected of them as heirs to a throne that stretches back more than 1,000 years.
She was their mother, this was their destiny – and in the end, what did it have to do with Charles Spencer? He was an uncle, a man whose views were welcomed – but surely those views could only be secondary to the wishes of the boys’ father?
From that day onwards, all four of these men had to learn how to live without a mother, without a sister and without a first wife.
Some of them, of course, have done so better than others. Spencer and Harry have much in common, for both of them are caught in the amber of three decades of hurt and resentment, unable to move on. Compare this to Prince William, whose burden grows heavier by the day but who never complains. And then there is Charles Spencer, a historian who wants to rewrite history.
Back in 1997, Earl Spencer welcomed his sister’s body back to Althorp in a way he did not welcome her presence in life. When she asked if she could live in the Garden House on the estate in 1992, he said no. Now, she lies in her island grave at Althorp but she does not rest in peace. Her brother has seen to that.
Read more: