Saturday, September 19, 2026 - Earl Spencer has claimed that King Charles sounded “giddily elated – like a lottery winner” during a telephone conversation shortly after the death of Princess Diana. Diana’s brother makes the allegation in his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, excerpts of which have been published by the Daily Mail.
Spencer recalled speaking to the then Prince Charles in the
hours after Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, describing his former
brother-in-law’s manner as markedly different from that of other people who had
contacted him. “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,” Spencer wrote
He also claimed Charles sounded “strangely matter-of-fact,
given the enormity of the disaster” and discussed how he planned to tell his
sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, about their mother’s death “first thing
in the morning, in their bedrooms”. Spencer went on to offer his own
interpretation of Charles’s reaction, suggesting that the then prince may
initially have considered what Diana’s death meant for his relationship with
Camilla Parker Bowles.
“Looking back now, I suspect the prince’s first reaction
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. It can be
hard to feel too much sympathy for an ex-spouse, or those who care for them
profoundly, after bitter divorce,” he wrote.
The claim represents Spencer’s retrospective interpretation
of Charles’s state of mind and has not been independently established.
Buckingham Palace has responded to allegations contained in the memoir, saying
it does not generally comment on books but questioning the reliability of
recollections formed during intense grief.
“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,” a palace spokesperson said. Spencer’s memoir also
recounts a dispute over whether William and Harry should walk behind their
mother’s coffin during her funeral procession.
According to Spencer, a senior palace aide informed him of
plans for the princes to participate, prompting him to respond: “That’s not
going to happen.” He claimed Charles subsequently telephoned him and pointed
out that he himself had walked behind the coffin of his great-uncle Lord
Mountbatten following his assassination in 1979.
Spencer said he responded by noting that Charles had been 30
at the time, while William and Harry were children when their mother died.
According to the memoir, Charles then “went nuts” and questioned the Spencer
family’s “sense of duty”. “Prince Charles continued his stream of anger,
without me interrupting. Then he stopped,” Spencer 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!’”
Spencer said he ended the telephone call immediately after
the alleged remark. The memoir also quotes Spencer’s uncle as objecting to the
prospect of the young princes joining the funeral procession, saying: “They
can’t make these boys walk behind their mother’s coffin! It’s barbaric.”
William, who was 15, and Harry, who was 12, ultimately
walked behind Diana’s coffin during the funeral procession alongside Charles,
Earl Spencer and Prince Philip. Charles and Diana had separated in December
1992, and their divorce was finalised in August 1996, about a year before
Diana’s death.
Their marriage and its breakdown had been the subject of
intense public attention, including Diana’s 1995 interview with Martin Bashir
in which she famously said there were “three of us in this marriage”, referring
to Charles’s relationship with Camilla. Buckingham Palace has not provided a
point-by-point response to Spencer’s account of the alleged conversations.
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