Buckingham Palace is denying claims made by Princess Diana‘s brother that King Charles III said she would soon be forgotten after her death.
In a new book, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer and the late Princess Diana’s younger brother, recounts the days after she was killed in a 1997 Paris car crash with her boyfriend, Dodi Al-Fayed, at age 36.
The couple’s chauffeur was speeding away from chasing paparazzi on motorbikes when the fatal incident occurred.
Spencer alleges that he and the then-Prince Charles, Diana’s estranged husband, disagreed over palace plans for Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk behind their mother’s coffin during her funeral procession.
Spencer claims he told the now-king that Diana would not have wanted her young sons to endure such an ordeal. He says Charles told him: “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough,” and accuses him of having “contempt” for the mother of his two children.
The Daily Mail is releasing excerpts from Spencer’s new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, ahead of its publication next week.
Buckingham Palace responded late Wednesday to his claims with a strongly worded statement, an unusual move from the institution, which generally does not respond to matters of this nature.
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“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 recognize, even many years after such a loss,” the statement said, according to the Associated Press.
Tensions between Buckingham Palace, Diana and her aristocratic relatives after her death have been widely discussed and were dramatized in the film The Queen and the latter seasons of the Netflix series The Crown.
A wave of mass grief for the Princess of Wales after her death forced the Royal Family to acknowledge the power of her common touch, a quality that strayed from its tight-lipped stoicism and was often deemed distasteful by senior members.
Queen Elizabeth II famously bowed her head when Diana’s coffin passed her outside Buckingham Palace, breaking centuries of strict protocol dictating that the sovereign never bow to anyone. Her gesture marked the only time a reigning monarch is known to have done so.
Prince Charles was 32 when he married the then 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, in 1981.
They separated 11 years later, in 1992, and divorced in 1996.
Charles Spencer has a history of clashing with royals over the treatment of his sister, who became posthumously known as “The People’s Princess,” after then-prime minister Tony Blair coined the moniker in a speech the day she died.
In a eulogy at Diana’s funeral, Spencer promised that her “blood family” would carry on her “imaginative and loving” legacy in raising her two sons.
Before the book’s release, Spencer said: “The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective … I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.”
— With files from Reuters and The Associated Press
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