LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace has forcefully denied a claim by the brother of the late Princess Diana that King Charles III said she his ex-wife would soon be forgotten after her death.
In a new book, Charles Spencer recounts the traumatic days after Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36. He alleges that he argued with his sister’s former husband over palace plans for Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk behind her coffin during the funeral procession.
Spencer says he told the then-Prince Charles that Diana would not have wanted her boys to undergo the ordeal. He claims the prince told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” Spencer also accuses Charles of having “contempt” for his ex-wife and of sounding “elated” after her death.
The Daily Mail tabloid newspaper is publishing extracts from Spencer’s book, titled “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” which is due to be published next week.
Buckingham Palace responded late Wednesday with an extremely strong statement by the measured standards of the royal household.
“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 color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss,” it said.
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, described the wording of the statement as “very strong.”
“I can’t think of another occasion … in the recent history of royal communications which has been as stark as this one,” she said. “It’s obviously been said with a great deal of feeling.”
Tensions between the palace and the Spencer family following her death have been much discussed and were dramatized in the film “The Queen” and the TV series “The Crown.”
Many felt the palace was slow to acknowledge the global outpouring of grief over her death, which forced the royals to recognize that Diana’s common touch had allowed her to connect with people in ways that eluded the rest of the royal family. The more emotionally literate approach of Prince William and Prince Harry — and, in recent years, the king — is a legacy of that time.
Prince Charles, then 32, married 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer in a lavish ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1981. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.
Charles Spencer — the 9th Earl Spencer — has long clashed with the royals over their treatment of his sister.
In a searing eulogy at his older sister’s funeral, Spencer vowed that her “blood family” would carry on her “imaginative and loving” legacy in raising her two sons. The speech was widely considered a swipe at the royal family.
“I feel that the Spencers and the royals are just never going to become friends again, as they were centuries ago,” said Seward. “They were very close, but I don’t think they’re going to become friends again in any hurry.”
George Gross, a royal historian at King’s College London, questioned why Spencer has chosen to “rehash” a painful period of family history in public.
“We’re dealing with somebody’s death,” he said. “It is very sad at the root of it, and I have to ask some questions as to why a brother at this point is going over all of that again in a book. I think the public know the answer to that.”
Associated Press journalist Mustakim Hasnath contributed to this story.