Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has made a series of explosive claims about King Charles and journalist Richard Kay opened up on his interaction with Diana’s brother before her funeral
Charles Spencer has detailed King Charles’s alleged “elation” following Diana, Princess of Wales’s death in his explosive memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister. The Earl alleges that the then-Prince of Wales declared “we’ll forget her soon enough” during a tense exchange about whether Princes William and Harry ought to participate in Diana’s funeral cortège.
In retaliation, Buckingham Palace has released a firmly-worded response stating the King was “mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss”.
However, journalist Richard Kay, who maintained a close friendship with the late princess for many years, has voiced backing for the earl’s assertions. Penning his thoughts in the Mail on Sunday, he reveals they conversed on multiple occasions throughout “that frightful week” spanning Diana’s death and her funeral, touching upon various matters including her romance with Dodi Fayed.
Richard maintains that Diana and Dodi were deeply committed to each other, and could very well have wed, had they not both died in that devastating collision in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris.
Yet the circumstances surrounding Diana’s former husband proved complex, the earl revealed. He informed Richard that there had been an enormous outpouring of compassion from across the globe, and everyone he had encountered had been sympathetic and considerate – save for one notable exception: Charles, then the Prince of Wales.
The earl allegedly informed Richard that he and Charles had engaged in a “furious row” concerning Prince William and Prince Harry. Richard recounted that while Earl Spencer had been hesitant to elaborate on his discussion with the then-Prince of Wales, he “cuttingly” observed that his former brother-in-law had been “utterly pathetic.”
Richard writes: “Spencer told me about the letters that had come by the sackload from all over the world. Then, pointedly and without further explanation, he said everyone he had been dealing with over the funeral, courtiers, officials, Downing Street had been helpful, with one exception.
“Who, I asked?’ Prince Charles came the reply. He said they’d had a ‘furious row’. It was ‘about the boys’ but was reluctant to go further. Cuttingly he added: ‘He has been utterly pathetic.'”
The Prince’s determination to march behind his former wife’s coffin appeared “weird” to Earl Spencer, and, the earl continued, had left both palace officials and police feeling “alarmed.”
The earl observes that since that occasion, Charles has never paid his respects at his ex-wife’s island burial site at Althorp, the Spencer ancestral estate in Northamptonshire.
He portrays Charles, who was then still Prince of Wales, as being “petulant and peevish, unused to being questioned or thwarted,” while attempting to shape his former wife’s funeral arrangements.
Earl Spencer has stated that, considering his parents both passed away relatively young, he believes now is the moment to share his perspective before it becomes too late. In his book, the earl recounted: “Unlike my other callers, who were stunned, barely able to articulate their condolences and offers of help, [Prince Charles] sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time.
“He let me know he had informed William and Harry of their mother’s death, first thing that morning, in their bedrooms at Balmoral. It all sounded strangely matter-of-fact, given the enormity of the disaster.”
He went on to say that while most individuals who knew the princess viewed her death as a catastrophe, Charles appeared only to recognise an opening: “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.”
Richard himself penned: “[Earl] Spencer’s scathing character assessment instantly transported me back to those troubled days when Diana’s unhappiness in her marriage, and the haunting presence of Camilla Parker Bowles, led her to tearfully call me at all hours of the day and night.
“She relayed her bitterness at what she once described as her ‘inhuman’ treatment from what she always scornfully called ‘my husband’s family’.”