LONDON — King Charles III is facing more criticism from Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, with Buckingham Palace bracing for days of revelations from his tell-all memoir. The latest advance excerpt from the book accuses the then-Prince Charles of sounding “giddily elated” and “like a lottery winner,” immediately after Diana’s death in a Paris car crash in 1997, one year after the royal couple finalized their divorce. Spencer, an earl whose aristocratic family has generational ties with Britain’s royal family, writes that he was at his home in South Africa with his children when he learned “in the middle of the night” from his sister Jane that Diana had been in a car crash.
He later learned, “after escalating dread,” that she had died. Prince Charles caught me as I crossed the landing upstairs,” he wrote. It can be hard to feel too much sympathy for an ex-spouse, or those who care for them profoundly, after bitter divorce,” he added.
Spencer also detailed feeling shut out by royal protocol during Diana’s funeral arrangements, alleging that royal officials turned down a request to play music loved by Diana — Mozart’s Requiem — during her funeral. Her family, despite her divorce, were simply expected to fall into line with any royal decisions,” he added. In the first wave of revelations from the book earlier this week, Spencer alleged that Charles had told him that Diana would soon be forgotten in the days after her death.
Buckingham Palace released an unusually forceful statement denying Spencer’s claims and suggesting that grief for his older sister may have impacted his memory. A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace declined to further comment Friday, telling NBC News “we do not comment on books as a policy,” and referring to Wednesday’s statement. Spencer’s book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” is due to be released publicly on Tuesday.
Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper is publishing excerpts in advance, while an interview with Spencer is due to air on CBS on Sunday. Thursday’s tranche of new excerpts continued to provide difficult reading for the palace, reflecting on the breakdown of Diana and Charles’ marriage. Spencer writes that his sister “told me that things became very difficult indeed in the marriage early on, and I am sure that both spouses despaired of the other at times.” “I am not hypocritical enough to judge or criticise anyone else’s marital record.
I am merely recording how my sister felt and am not assessing whether she was right or not,” he added. Spencer also writes about Diana’s struggle with an eating disorder, which she spoke about during her lifetime, as well as her wider mental state, criticizing her transfer from a long-serving family doctor to a royal physician. Her love for her sons stopped her from going further,” he writes.
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