The 11 biggest claims from Earl Spencer’s book on his sister Diana as it goes on sale

As Earl Spencer’s controversial book about his sister Diana, the late Princess of Wales, is published around the world, the Duchess of Sussex is raising eyebrows for a bizarrely timed product launch.

Meghan’s lifestyle brand As ever has re-released a bookmark made from Italian leather, which previously sold for around $20, embossed with the phrase “fell asleep here”.

In an email to subscribers sent on the day Earl Spencer’s book was officially released, the duchess described the bookmark as a “keepsake ... for moments when you have to take a pause from your favourite book”.

The Duchess of Sussex is not mentioned in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, despite Earl Spencer speaking about her and Prince Harry in interviews promoting his book.

Neither Prince Harry nor Prince William have commented on their uncle’s memoir publicly, despite both being asked about it by journalists at separate engagements this week.

Reprints of the book are now expected after Earl Spencer was forced to apologise to Piers Morgan over inaccurate claims inside.

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Since extracts were first published last week, the book has been shrouded in controversy and saw Buckingham Palace take the extraordinary move of issuing a statement criticising its author.

“Fraternal grief”, the palace said, could “cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory ... many years after such a loss”.

Here are some of Swan Song’s biggest allegations.

Queen offered to ‘restore Diana’s title’

When Diana and then-Prince Charles divorced in 1996, the Princess of Wales lost the title of Her Royal Highness. Spencer described the removal as “petty and vindictive”, leaving Diana “dreadfully hurt”. It was part of “the package of humiliation handed to her at her divorce”, he said.

But on the day of her funeral − August 6, 1997 − Queen Elizabeth II offered to restore the title. On the way to Diana’s private burial at Althorp House, Robert Fellowes, Elizabeth II’s private secretary, told the earl of the queen’s “well-meaning” offer to restore the princess’ HRH title. But the earl felt it was a “consolation prize”, telling Fellowes: “What’s the point, Robert? Now? I mean − Diana’s dead”.

Royals had taken ‘delight’ in Diana’s demotion

Earl Spencer claims Princess Margaret refused to bow to Diana’s coffin when it passed by her inside Westminster Abbey, after never forgiving the “unforgivable act of treachery” of the late princess choosing to do the Panorama interview with the BBC in 1995.

When he walked into the Abbey on the day of the funeral, the earl described how some members of the royal family had supported his sister while “others had taken delight in the demotion that had followed her divorce”.

Princess Michael of Kent, he wrote, had “accosted” Diana soon after she lost her HRH title. The earl alleged Princess Michael had said “with feigned kindness”, “Don’t worry, Diana − you only need to curtsy to me when we are in public !”

Diana considered the princess her “nightmare neighbour” as they both lived inside Kensington Palace.

Royals pushed Spencers aside during funeral planning

In the days after Diana’s death in Paris, Spencer claims his family were excluded from planning her funeral and were “simply expected to fall into line with any royal decisions” headed by the palace and Prince Charles’ office.

“Diana remained theirs, in Buckingham Palace’s eyes, even in death,” he wrote.

Diana’s wish to have Mozart’s Requiem played during the ceremony was denied, he said, having been told “no part of a requiem can be played at a Church of England funeral”.

The earl later found out no such rule existed, describing it as “the first of several untruths that the authorities would push my way at that time”.

Charles “went nuts” over procession plans

Earl Spencer writes that he and Prince Charles clashed over plans for Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession.

When he had received word from a palace aide that William and Harry would take part in the procession behind Diana’s coffin, the earl replied, “That’s not going to happen”.

Soon after, he received a call from Charles, who said he had walked in the funeral procession of Lord Mountbatten, his great-uncle. The earl said Charles “went nuts” when he pointed out the prince was 30 at the time of Mountbatten’s funeral in 1979.

“Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting,” the earl wrote.

Earl Spencer said he was later told palace officials wanted William and Harry to walk in the procession, fearing the public might shout abuse at Prince Charles. The presence of Diana’s sons, he wrote, “would surely guarantee against insults flying”.

‘We’ll forget her soon enough’

During that heated phone call with Prince Charles, Earl Spencer claims the future king “hissed” at him after briefly pausing.

He wrote: “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!’”

Charles ‘giddily elated’ by Diana’s death

Another of the harsher depictions of Prince Charles in the days after Diana’s death was the claim he “sounded giddily elated” when speaking of her passing.

“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,” the earl wrote.

He claimed Charles’ reaction to the news “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”.

Royals showed ‘lack of obvious care’ for Harry

William and Harry walking behind their mother’s coffin remains one of the most enduring images from her funeral.

Writing of the procession, the earl said of his youngest nephew: “I could not get over how tiny, and slight, and bereft, Harry looked. Too small to be doing this.”

“Although doubtless suffering equally terribly, [William] looked more self-possessed,” he added.

Following the funeral, the family travelled via train to Althorp for Diana’s burial.

The earl wrote: “My chief memory of that train journey is of being concerned at the lack of obvious care for Harry, as he decompressed from the ghastliness of the morning.

“He needed Diana’s hugs, of course, and they would forever be denied him. But instead of calm and nurture, he was allowed to spin out of control.

“I have often looked back, reckoning that a more caring hand at such points as this would have helped him enormously in the future. Instead, he seemed so very alone in his despair and torment.”

Charles ‘in love with his valet’

Another claim from the earl is that Diana once told him she was going to get a divorce and that “my husband is in love with his [male] valet”.

However, the earl himself admitted that such a claim by his late sister seemed “improbable”.

Diana, who called her brother “Carlos” − he called her “Dutch” − had met the earl for lunch when she made the comment.

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“But, Carlos, my husband is in love with his valet,” she is alleged to have said.

The earl added: “She did not name the member of staff, and I never asked her who it was, or why she would believe such an improbable thing. It was not important: the end of her marriage, and of her dreams, was.”

Charles told Diana he did not love her before wedding

The day of the royal wedding on July 29, 1980, the earl found his sister “sitting quietly in front of a mirror” in her wedding dress.

He later discovered the reason for her sombre mood was Charles had told his bride the night before that he didn’t really love her, but he was happy for the wedding to go ahead.

Charles had entered the marriage “with his heart elsewhere” while Diana always wanted to “marry for love”, the earl claimed.

Diana pushed stepmother down the stairs

The earl alleges Diana once pushed their stepmother, Raine Spencer − who the princess famously nicknamed ‘Acid Raine’ − down the stairs following a heated argument after the royal wedding.

He wrote: “Raine fortunately landed flush on her buttocks, rather than on bone, and got up, leaving the saloon without a backwards glance”.

Diana had lost her temper when Raine told her: “I have always felt so very sorry for the Prince of Wales, marrying someone quite as stupid as you.”

Diana wanted her sons ‘to become the best versions of themselves’

The earl describes his sister as a loving and devoted mother to her boys, William and Harry.

He wrote: “William and Harry’s future had not been a worry when Diana was alive because her positive, modern, maternal touch was always so obvious.

“I have never, in my life, come across a better mother. She wanted them to become the best versions of themselves, despite all the royal trappings, and in the face of the sycophancy their position so often prompted in others.”

But he admitted to having fears for them once she had passed.

“However out of touch many in the royal family seemed, there had always been the reassurance for the public that their mother was going to give William and Harry values, insight and the emotional security that British princes had previously been denied,” he said.

“But now what would happen to them? They were still young enough to be easily influenced, and perhaps even to forget their mother’s guidance and example.

“Would they, at such a formative stage, be dragged back into the archaic ways of the monarchy, just as they seemed set on the enlightened path picked out by their mother?”