King issues extraordinary statement after Diana’s brother claims he said she’d be forgotten ‘soon enough’

King Charles has taken the extraordinary step of issuing a public statement after the brother of Diana, the late Princess of Wales, claimed he said “we’ll forget her soon enough” days after the royal’s death.

The allegation was made in Earl Spencer’s new book on his sister, Swan Song, to be released next week.

An extract from the upcoming memoir was published in the Daily Mail on Wednesday, prompting the response from Buckingham Palace.

In the extract, Earl Spencer said the then-Prince of Wales subjected him to a “stream of anger” after he insisted Diana would not have wanted her sons Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk behind her coffin during the funeral procession.

In response, Buckingham Palace said: “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.”

In Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the earl said he was told by a palace aide that the late princess’ sons would walk behind her coffin.

Read more

Security concerns force Archie, Lilibet to change schools after two days

Earl Spencer objected to the move and claimed he received a phone call from Charles soon after.

Earl Spencer wrote in the book: “He [Charles] 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’.”

Earl Spencer previously said he would “tell the truth” about his sister while correcting the “untruths that have become accepted” since her death.

Swan Song: Diana My Sister will be published on Tuesday in the UK, ahead of the 30th anniversary of the royal’s death in Paris, next year.

The princess died in August 1997 in a car crash in Paris alongside her partner, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur Henri Paul.

The book will mark the first time that Earl Spencer has spoken at length about his sister, according to its publisher, Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House UK.

The book is expected to cover the princess’ childhood, her unhappy marriage to the then-Prince of Wales, and the aftermath of her death in Paris.

It is also expected to provide an account of how the royal family dealt with the extraordinary outpouring of public grief and anger following Diana’s death.

In Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, published in 2023, he claimed there was a heated debate about whether he and Prince William should walk behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession.

Harry said Earl Spencer “flew into a rage” saying: “You cannot force these children to walk behind their mother’s coffin. It’s a barbarity!”

In a statement announcing the book last month, Earl Spencer said he had been “inundated yet again” with requests for interviews about Diana as the 30th anniversary of her death approaches in 2027.

“This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories, once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time,” Earl Spencer, 62, said.

“The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral,” he said, referring to the eulogy he delivered in Westminster Abbey in 1997.

“As with my eulogy, I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.”

Earl Spencer used his eulogy to deliver a passionate, and emotional speech, in which he criticised the media, calling his sister the “most hunted person of the modern age”.

He also pledged to protect Prince William and Prince Harry and prevent them suffering a similar fate. 

“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,” he said at the time.

In July, Prince Harry took his two children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, and wife Meghan, to visit Diana’s burial site on his uncle’s family estate, Althorp, in Northamptonshire.

Earl Spencer, who is Diana’s younger brother, said he hoped the book would reach a new generation of readers who were born after the princess’ time.

“I hope this book will be of interest to the many who still cherish the memory of Diana when she was alive, and I would be delighted if those too young to remember her in her heyday feel − after reading this − that they ‘get’ who she really was,” he said.

“A one-off dynamic character, full of love, charisma and self-doubt, who gave life a hell of a go, and left the world a better place, despite exiting the stage while still so young.”

Earlier on Wednesday, four copies of the book were stolen from a truck in the Netherlands.

The Dutch language editions were taken while the driver was sleeping in an overnight rest area, en route from the Dutch publisher’s printers to their warehouse.

The truck had recently left a printing plant in central Europe on Monday.