Buckingham Palace has issued a rare public response to a new memoir by Charles Spencer, the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, in which he claims the then Prince Charles told him shortly after Diana's death in 1997 that she would be forgotten soon. The statement, released after excerpts of the book circulated, does not directly deny the account but suggests that grief can distort recollection.
The book, titled «Swan Song: Diana, My Sister», describes a tense telephone conversation between Spencer and Charles in the days following Diana's death. According to Spencer, the dispute centered on the decision that Diana's sons, William and Harry, then 15 and 12, should walk behind their mother's coffin during the funeral procession. Spencer says he opposed the arrangement, arguing that Diana would not have wanted her children to endure such a public ordeal. In his account, Charles ended the call by saying, «We will forget her very soon.»
Buckingham Palace responded with a statement that, while not addressing the specifics of the conversation, pointed to the effects of bereavement. «While, as a principle, we do not comment on books, His Majesty is aware that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and tint memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss,» the statement said. The intervention is unusual because the British royal household typically maintains a policy of not publicly responding to books about the royal family.
The dispute has revived tensions between the Spencer family and the royal household that first became visible at Diana's funeral, when Charles Spencer delivered a eulogy widely interpreted as a critique of the monarchy. His new memoir revisits that period and offers his own account of the private conversations that followed the death of his sister, one of the most scrutinized events in modern British history.
Buckingham Palace's decision to comment at all signals the sensitivity of the claims. By framing its response around the unreliability of grief-stricken memory, the palace indirectly questions Spencer's version without engaging in a direct factual dispute. The statement leaves open the possibility that both men recall the same conversation differently, a common occurrence in the aftermath of sudden loss.
The book has already sparked a war of words in the British press, with supporters of the monarchy and of Spencer trading interpretations of the exchange. For readers interested in the intersection of memory, mourning and public life, the episode raises broader questions about how private grief becomes public property and how historical accounts are shaped by the passage of time.
Spencer's memoir is not the first to revisit the days after Diana's death, but it is among the most personal. As her brother, he was both a participant in and a critic of the arrangements that followed. His account adds another layer to a story that continues to fascinate the public, nearly three decades after the events it describes.