Princess Diana's brother insists his King Charles claims 'won't surprise' William and Harry
Princess Diana's brother insists his King Charles claims 'won't surprise' William and Harry
The late Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has insisted his explosive claims about King Charles’ reaction to his sister’s death will ‘not be a surprise’ to her sons Prince William and Prince Harry.
In comments that can only escalate tensions with the Palace, and the King personally, the earl explained how he had told the brothers about Charles’ alleged comments during a heated argument about her funeral, reports the Daily Mail.
LADbible understands neither Prince William nor Prince Harry were aware of the contents of Earl Spencer’s soon to be published book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister.
Earl Spencer's BBC double-down
In what is widely seen as an incendiary interview on Sunday with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, the earl 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.”
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The most provocative excerpt so far concerns the claim that just a few days after Diana’s death in a car crash in 1997, Charles was alleged to have said, “Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough.”
In a very rare move for an institution that prides itself on not providing a commentary on public events, Buckingham Palace issued a statement directly addressing Earl Spencer’s claims.
Charles' response mirrors his mother's
In an echo of the late Queen Elizabeth’s famous ‘recollections may vary’ line, the Palace described how fraternal grief can ‘cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory'.
Diana’s brother alleges he was in what became a heated row with Charles when he reported feeling uncomfortable with the brothers, then aged 15 and 12, walking behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession.
Earl Spencer claimed the eulogy he delivered on the day of his sister’s funeral directly referenced his current claims against the King.
He included the message, “'Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman I'm so proud to be able to call my sister: the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.”
During the BBC interview, he pointed to this and said, “You can see evidence of that conversation in the final eulogy.
“I really stress Diana's sense of duty - duty comes across very clearly in the eulogy, and then it culminates in something which I think really underlines the truth of my assertion here.
He pointed to the final part of his eulogy: “it is that her fantastic qualities ‘will never be extinguished from our minds.’
“It was a direct rebuttal of ‘we'll forget her soon enough.’”
Spencer unflinching in his book
He was asked directly whether remarks he made that he could release further information of an ‘unflattering’ nature that were not in his book.
He replied, “I have a duty as an eyewitness to history. 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.”
In an except from his book about phone conversations he had held with Charles immediately after Diana’s death, he wrote, “I felt there was a sort of giddy tone.
“I'd had a lot of calls that day from people who cared, who were stunned... and I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana's death that really jarred with me.”
A royal war of words
He then claimed he received a second call from Charles, where he addressed the issue of the two brothers walking behind Diana’s coffin.
Earl Spencer described the conversation: “He said ‘I gather you don't think William and Harry should walk behind Diana's coffin" and I said "of course not, sir, she wouldn't want it’.
“Then he said, ‘I walked behind Lord Mountbatten's coffin’, and I said ‘yes, but you were 30, and he wasn't your mother’.
Earl Spencer described how Charles “went ballistic 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.
“Then he stopped, and I thought, oh, now, now he's going to pull himself together and say something more appropriate, and then he said, ‘We'll forget her soon enough’.”
Earl Spencer also said Diana would have wanted the brothers, who have been estranged for years, to eventually reconcile – and this is what he wishes also.
He said Diana’s death was 'very, very preventable' and through his weight behind Harry’s insistence he should be granted VIP protection while he remains living in the UK.
Topics: Royal Family, Prince William, Prince Harry, UK News
Michael D. Carroll