Charles Spencer’s memoir, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” isn’t out yet, but the excerpts already have. In it, the 62-year-old earl claims that on the morning Diana died, August 31, 1997, then-Prince Charles sounded, in what Spencer describes as “giddily elated, like a lottery winner,” and that some inside Buckingham Palace were “relieved, indeed pleased.” In a later call, Spencer says, the two fought over whether William, then 15, and Harry, then 12, should walk in her funeral procession, and Charles hissed, “Rest assured… we’ll forget her soon enough.”
HELLO!’s royal editor Emily Nash, speaking on the outlet’s Right Royal Podcast, said William is “maybe in the most difficult situation.”
“Whatever his feelings behind the scenes, he has to keep the show on the road,” Nash said. “This is his future and his family’s future. And if you’re lobbing a grenade at the institution… Really? Because it’s not just the King who’s being accused of things here, it’s the whole palace machinery.”
Nash noted William “is sick of people capitalising on his mother’s memory to make money” after the Panorama scandal, which makes his uncle’s book especially fraught.
Harry, she added, is caught too. He stayed with Spencer in the UK back in July and has tied himself closely to Diana’s legacy, but he’s also trying to reconcile with his father. “He can’t very well support what his uncle is saying.”
Buckingham Palace broke from its usual silence to respond. “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,” the statement read.
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