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Row over new Diana book: Did Charles say ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’ after her death?
Buckingham Palace has issued a rare response to Diana’s brother Earl Spencer’s forthcoming memoir, which claims that then-Prince Charles said the princess would be ‘forgotten’ soon after her death. The Palace has questioned how grief may affect memory and judgement decades after the events
Nearly three decades after Princess Diana’s death, an old dispute over her funeral has erupted again, and this time through a memoir by her younger brother, Earl Spencer.
In an extract from his forthcoming book Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Spencer claims that then-Prince Charles told him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough” in the days following Diana’s death.
The alleged remark came during an argument over whether Princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12 respectively, should walk behind their mother’s coffin during her funeral procession in September 1997.
Buckingham Palace has now issued a rare response to the allegation, saying the King is conscious that grief can affect the way painful events are remembered.
What does Earl Spencer claim?
According to extracts of the memoir serialised by the Daily Mail, Spencer was told by a senior Palace aide that William and Harry would take part in the funeral procession.
Spencer says he objected, arguing that Diana would not have wanted her two young sons to endure such a public ordeal. In the book, he recalls telling the aide, “That’s not going to happen.”
He then received a phone call from Charles, according to Spencer’s account. The two reportedly disagreed over the decision. Spencer says Charles pointed to his own experience of walking in the funeral procession of his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, as part of the reason he believed his sons should take part.
Spencer claims the conversation became increasingly heated. He writes that Charles subjected him to what he described as a “stream of anger” before making the alleged comment about Diana being forgotten.
Spencer's account describes Charles as being angry about the enormous public reaction to Diana’s death. He says the then-Prince of Wales “unleashed” what Spencer interpreted as “his pent-up contempt for Diana”.
He then quotes Charles as saying, “Rest assured,” he hissed, “we’ll forget her soon enough!”
Spencer says he was stunned by the remark and responded, “I can’t believe you just said that,” before ending the call.
Why has Buckingham Palace responded?
The Palace normally does not comment on books containing claims about members of the Royal Family. This time, however, it issued a statement directly addressing the issue.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson told the Independent, “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.”
Sky News described the intervention as an unusually strong response, noting that the Palace had previously declined to respond to other books, including Prince Harry’s memoir Spare.
Why was the funeral procession so controversial?
Diana died in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, aged 36. Her death prompted an enormous public outpouring of grief in Britain and around the world.
At her funeral, William and Harry walked behind their mother’s coffin alongside their father, then-Prince Charles, their grandfather Prince Philip and Earl Spencer.
The decision has remained a subject of discussion, particularly because William was 15 and Harry was only 12.
Harry has spoken about the experience years later. According to BBC, he said in 2017 that he did not have an opinion at the time on whether the decision was right or wrong, but that, looking back, he was glad to have been part of the day.
More recently, in an interview for royal biographer Angela Levin’s book Harry: Conversations with the Prince, Harry said, “I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.”
He added, “No child should lose their mother at such a young age and then have his grief observed by thousands of people.”
William also spoke about the aftermath of Diana’s death in the 2017 BBC documentary Diana, 7 Days, saying he felt “completely numb, disorientated, dizzy”.
What is Earl Spencer’s book about?
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is due to be published in the UK on September 22 by Penguin Michael Joseph.
Spencer has said the book is intended to tell Diana’s story from his perspective, nearly 30 years after her death. He has also said he was prompted to write it after receiving numerous requests for interviews ahead of the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death next year.
The memoir is expected to cover Diana’s life, her marriage to Charles and the events surrounding her death and funeral.
In material released ahead of publication, Spencer said. “The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective.” He also said he wanted to speak about her “in an openly positive way”.
The book’s release has already attracted attention after the BBC reported that four copies of the Dutch-language edition were stolen from a truck in the Netherlands while being transported from the printer to the publisher’s warehouse.
The allegations revive one of the most emotionally charged periods in the recent history of the British monarchy.
Diana’s death exposed tensions between the Royal Family and a grieving public, with criticism directed at the institution’s response to her death. Her brother’s eulogy at Westminster Abbey also became one of the defining moments of the funeral.
Now, with Spencer’s memoir approaching publication, the focus has shifted from Diana’s public legacy to private conversations that allegedly took place in the days immediately after her death.