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By Jack Royston
Chief Royal Correspondent
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Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, said King Charles III "sounded giddily elated–like a lottery winner" after she died in a car crash, according to his new book.
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, contains a series of allegations centered on the days following Diana's death in August 1997, including that the king, when he was still a prince, said: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
"Looking back now," Spencer wrote, "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."
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Buckingham Palace issued a strongly worded rebuttal, questioning Spencer's reason, judgment and memory. The book is being serialized in the Daily Mail and will be published on September 22.
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Buckingham Palace's Response to Book Claims
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson told Newsweek: "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 comes a week after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took aim at the palace over a letter sent on behalf of the king clarifying that they were "private citizens."
The royal family is famous for its "never complain, never explain" public relations strategy, making the spokesperson's intervention both highly unusual and somewhat risky.
Spencer has not yet responded, but if he does interviews to publicize the book, he is likely to be asked about the statement and may wish to respond, particularly to the references to "reason" and "judgment." Meanwhile, the new controversy comes as the palace is still dealing with the fallout from Harry and Meghan's return to the United Kingdom.
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What Did Earl Spencer's Book on Diana Claim?
Spencer said he was in Cape Town, South Africa, when the car crash happened.
"The phone rang constantly. Prince Charles caught me as I crossed the landing upstairs," he wrote.
"Unlike my other callers, who were stunned, barely able to articulate their condolences and offers of help, he sounded giddily elated–like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time."
Charles told Spencer he had informed Prince William and Prince Harry, who were on the royal family's summer break at Balmoral, in Scotland.
"It all sounded strangely matter-of-fact, given the enormity of the disaster," Spencer wrote. "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. It can be hard to feel too much sympathy for an ex-spouse, or those who care for them profoundly, after bitter divorce."
It was around a week before Diana's funeral, and Spencer wrote that he objected to William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, being made to walk behind their mother’s coffin in the funeral procession, prompting an argument.
According to the book, one of Queen Elizabeth II's top aides told him William and Harry would take part in the procession. He wrote that he received a call from Charles, who argued with him about it, citing his own role in the funeral of Lord Louis Mountbatten, his great-uncle, known as "Dickie."
Spencer pointed out that Charles had been an adult then, aged 30 in 1979, and wrote: "Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped.
"I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death. 'Rest assured,' he hissed, 'we'll forget her soon enough!'"
Reaction to the King's Statement
Royal commentators reacted with surprise to the statement, while many argued that the king would only have departed from palace policy to issue the strongly worded retort if he was angered by the book.
Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, told BBC Newsnight that the king was "clearly absolutely incandescent."
"There are times when silence is the right answer," Hunt said. "He's boosted the sale of this book. There are times when you don't dignify."
He added that "the content of it [the statement] is royal gaslighting," comparing the phrasing to an emotional email someone might draft in anger, only to later realize they shouldn't send it.
One potential issue for Buckingham Palace is that its own statement appears to mirror Spencer's characterization of the king.
Just as Spencer said Charles was furious and lost control in 1997, Hunt suggests that the king is "incandescent" now and lost control, departing from palace policy to issue a statement he will regret.
Jenny Bond, a former BBC royal correspondent, told Times Radio: "It is incredibly sad and it is, it seems to me, pure war now. We lived through the war of the Waleses—I did—back in the '90s between Charles and Diana.
"Now we have another war between Diana's brother and the king and I do not know what purpose it serves. It can only go to hurt I think William and Harry who love their father and probably undoubtedly love their uncle as well. To see the family torn apart by this serves no purpose."
Prince Harry and Meghan's Tensions With the Palace
Spencer's book comes around a week after a dispute between the palace and Harry and Meghan over a letter sent by the head of the Royal Household, Lord Chamberlain, on Charles' behalf that sought to clarify Harry and Meghan's status after their move to Britain.
The guidance, issued to government and military officials, stated that the couple had stepped away from official duties in 2020 and that there was "no change to the current status of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex."
It added: "The charitable work of the Duke and Duchess is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity. In short, their position is akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests."
While Buckingham Palace framed the intervention as an administrative clarification, it quickly became a source of tension. Newsweek was told the couple believed they had been given insufficient notice before the guidance was distributed to the media and official stakeholders.
Their office asked Buckingham Palace to clarify the wording of the letter, but by the time they reached Prince Harry, who had been in a meeting, the letter had already been sent out.
The Sun reported that the Sussex camp was particularly unhappy with the description of the couple as "private citizens" and wanted it changed to "public figures" instead.
Tensions flared again when Uganda unexpectedly pulled out of the Invictus Games. Newsweek was told at the time that some in the Sussex camp blamed the saga on Charles' letter.
Uganda eventually rejoined after a call from King Charles' most senior aide, Sir Clive Alderton, who clarified that the king would be happy to see the East African country participate.
The Wider Impact on the Monarchy
Spencer's book and wider reporting on Harry and Meghan's return to Britain in August, including the dispute over the letter, have dominated royal reporting for two weeks, crowding out other aspects of the royal family's work.
That has threatened to include an AI summit Charles is holding in Scotland on Thursday with representatives of leading technology companies including Nvidia, Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic.
"The development of AI—its substance and its pace—are both intriguing and deeply concerning in equal measure," Charles is expected to say.
"Those in our world who value our humanity and its vital moral component are anxiously seeking your reassurance that we will not lose control of our destiny."
Spencer's book was, however, still leading news shows in Britain on Thursday morning despite promotion of the AI summit.
Who Is Charles Spencer?
Earl Spencer is the younger brother of Princess Diana and the maternal uncle of William and Harry, and has lived in the Spencer family's ancestral home, Althorp House in Northamptonshire, since his father's death in 1992.
Spencer has spent much of his public life pursuing a career as a journalist, broadcaster and historian. He worked as a television reporter and presenter for NBC News from 1986 to 1995.
He later became a bestselling author, writing a series of books on British history, including works about King Charles I and the Spencer family. Spencer is perhaps best known internationally for the funeral oration he delivered after Diana's death in 1997.
In recent years, he released a book titled A Very Private School, about his childhood, including allegations of abuse at his former boarding school, Maidwell Hall.
Earl Spencer's Eulogy for Diana
In a funeral oration watched by millions worldwide, Spencer paid tribute to his sister while also criticizing aspects of the media treatment she endured during her lifetime. Perhaps most famously, he included barbed criticisms of the royals, who were at the funeral, on September 6, 1997.
"Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty," Spencer said. "All over the world, she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality.
"Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic."
The mention of her title referred to Diana being stripped of her HRH [Her Royal Highness] by the palace after her divorce from Charles was finalized in 1996.
"It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana," he continued, "perhaps the greatest was this—a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.
"She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate, and I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.
"And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned."
The reference to Diana being hunted was received as a swipe at the media and the paparazzi photographers who were following her car at the point she died in a crash in Paris in 1997.
His reference to ensuring Harry and William were not "simply immersed by duty" was taken as a swipe at the palace and its institutional rules.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton, Dave Siminoff, Sam Wilson.
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