King Charles III's spokesperson took a swipe at a new book by Princess Diana's brother a week after there were tensions with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over their status as non-working royals. Charles Spencer’s memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, contains a series of allegations centered on the days following Diana's death in August 1997. The most striking claim concerns a heated telephone argument between Spencer and the king, who was at the time still a prince, over arrangements for Diana’s funeral.
Spencer wrote that he objected to Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, being made to walk behind their mother’s coffin in the funeral procession around a week after her death, prompting an argument. According to the book, serialized in the Daily Mail, King Charles told Spencer: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” To . 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 are still dealing with the fallout from Harry and Meghan's return to the U.K. The passages so far published by the Mail were just initial snippets while the serialization was expected to begin with a bigger extract from the book on Thursday afternoon, U.K. time. In the material so far released, Spencer said one of Queen Elizabeth II's top aides told him that William and Harry would take part in the procession and he had objected.
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. "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!'" 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 that a person might draft in anger only to later realize they should not send. One potential issue for Buckingham Palace regarding the reception their own statement received is that it 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, another 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.
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