When Buckingham Palace issues a statement on a controversial royal memoir, the choice of words is never accidental. The royal household pushed back against explosive claims made by Earl Charles Spencer in his upcoming book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, deploying a calculated psychological critique regarding grief and memory. According to GB News, the Palace statement directly addressed an alleged remark by King Charles made just days after the 1997 death of Princess Diana.
The Contested Phone Call and the Funeral Dispute
The core of the dispute centers on a fierce argument over the funeral arrangements for Princess Diana following her fatal car crash in Paris. Earl Spencer writes in his memoir that he opposed plans for Princes William and Harry—then aged 15 and 12—to walk behind their mother’s coffin during the public procession through London. When informed by a senior aide of the late Queen that the young princes would participate, the Earl reportedly told them, “That’s not going to happen.”
Within minutes, the then-Prince of Wales telephoned to press the case, citing his own experience walking in Lord Mountbatten’s funeral procession 18 years earlier. According to the book’s serialisation in The Mail, King Charles reacted with intense anger when Earl Spencer countered that the then-Prince of Wales had been 30 years old at the time of that 1979 ceremony, a vast difference from the ages of his grieving sons.
Earl Spencer writes that the then-Prince of Wales continued his stream of anger before delivering a chilling line. “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,” the Earl writes. “‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough!'” The Earl claims he replied flatly, “I can’t believe you just said that,” before hanging up.
Buckingham Palace Hits Back With a Warning on Grief
Buckingham Palace broke its standard protocol of ignoring books to issue a sharp rebuttal. A Palace spokesperson told GB News: “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.”
This calculated response bypasses a direct denial of the exact wording while attributing the recollection to the distorting psychological impact of profound trauma. The confrontation threatens to reopen deep historic divisions from the turbulent breakdown of the marriage between Charles and Diana, an era heavily documented by historians tracking the British Royal Family archives and public records.
The memoir itself, titled Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, is scheduled for worldwide release on September 22 by Penguin Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Alongside the funeral row, the book contains numerous allegations regarding the marriage and the chaotic aftermath of the 1997 tragedy that drew a global television audience estimated at 2.5 billion viewers for the procession through central London.
Security Breaches and the Lead-Up to Publication
As publishers prepare for the global launch, the book has already courted extraordinary drama outside of its contents. Dutch police recently launched an investigation into what publishing sources described as the “extremely suspicious” theft of four copies of the memoir from a lorry carrying thousands of wrapped copies.
With publication day fast approaching, the clash between the King and his former brother-in-law ensures that the royal spotlight will remain firmly fixed on the events of late 1997. As public interest surges once more around the enduring legacy of the People’s Princess, the debate over how that period is remembered highlights just how raw those historical wounds remain inside and outside Palace walls.
