Earl Spencer has been accused of “picking at the scars of the past” in his tell-all memoir about Princess Diana, while friends of King Charles have claimed he “can’t bear” the popularity of the King and Queen Camilla.
Buckingham Palace was reportedly left reeling after the Mail exclusively published a series of startling extracts from the earl’s highly anticipated book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, last week.
The most striking allegation is that then-Prince Charles told Diana’s grieving brother just days after her death in 1997: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
The claim prompted an unprecedented response from the Palace. A spokesperson questioned the accuracy of Earl Spencer’s account, saying that grief between siblings can “cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory”.
Friends of the cancer-stricken 77-year-old monarch have now criticised what they called the earl’s “unkind claims”, describing him as “one man picking at the scars of the past”.
King Charles was hosting an artificial intelligence summit in Scotland as fresh criticisms from his former brother-in-law continued to emerge.
Although the King was said to be “saddened” that “sorrows of old” were being revisited, sources indicated that his main focus remained “the future of mankind”.
A friend of the King also dismissed Earl Spencer’s stated reason for writing the memoir: “to tell the truth about Diana”.
Earl Spencer is pictured being interviewed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg at his Althorp estate
King Charles III and Queen Camilla attend The Braemar Gathering on September 5, 2026 in Braemar, Scotland
A series of jaw-dropping extracts from Earl Spencer’s memoir about his late sister Diana is due to be published on Tuesday and is expected to rise up the bestsellers lists
“That’s like an arsonist trying to sell you a fire hose, and about as convincing as all those others close to Diana who have cashed in on her confidences over the years,” the friend told The Sunday Times.
“Why couldn’t they all have just let her rest in peace? That would have been the decent thing to do.”
Earl Spencer’s memoir is expected to surge up the bestseller list when it is released on Tuesday. However, the 62-year-old told The Mail on Sunday that money was not his motivation and said his late sister would be “cheering from the rafters”.
People close to the Palace appear to believe his decision to publish was influenced by his alleged dislike of Charles and Camilla’s popularity.
One aide told The Sunday Times that the earl had brought out “the crested carving knives” because he “can’t bear” the affection shown to the King and Queen by the British public and people around the world.
“If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s more that, contrary to some public expectations and perhaps a few private hopes, the King and Queen have proved rather adept and popular in their new roles,” the aide said.
Earl Spencer’s explosive claim that then-Prince Charles told him, days after Diana’s death in 1997, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough” led to an unusually direct response from Buckingham Palace.
According to the memoir, the alleged remark came during a fierce argument between the Prince of Wales and the earl over whether Princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, should walk behind their mother’s coffin during her funeral procession.
In a statement issued last week, a Palace spokesperson challenged the reliability of Earl Spencer’s account, saying that grief between siblings can “cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory”.
Now, in his first newspaper comments since the war of words erupted, Earl Spencer has hit back, describing the Palace’s statement as gaslighting, a form of psychological abuse where the victim is manipulated into questioning what they know to be true.
He also said the Palace’s statement was a ‘poor imitation’ of Queen Elizabeth’s famous ‘recollections may vary’ retort to Harry and Meghan after their interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
‘It is not every day you wake up to find you’ve been gaslit by the King,’ he said.
‘It was astonishingly provocative and below the belt because it was essentially trying to say I’d lied without the King being able to deny what I’d said.
‘I also thought it was a rather poor imitation of the “recollections may vary” quote, which was a much more elegant way of putting things, but in these circumstances entirely out of place.’
The earl claims Charles told him days after Diana’s death: ‘Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.’ The alleged comment was made during a row over whether William and Harry should walk in their mother’s funeral procession
Earl Spencer and Charles are pictured during the official opening of a fountain built in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, in London’s Hyde Park in 2004
The then Prince Charles and Princess Diana are pictured visiting Venice during their trip to Italy on May 4 1985
In an interview with the BBC to be broadcast tonight, Earl Spencer said he told close friends and family ‘straight away’ about the Prince of Wales’s alleged outburst ‘because it was so monstrous’.
Writing in today’s MoS, the Mail’s Richard Kay – one of Diana’s most trusted confidants – recalls Earl Spencer telling him, in the week before the Princess’s funeral, that there had been a ‘furious row’ and that Prince Charles had been ‘utterly pathetic’.
Earl Spencer last night said: ‘I am a historian – I appreciate that a lot of the public don’t know that – and my primary responsibility as a historian is to tell the truth.
‘My motivation in this book has been to tell the truth about Diana and all she had to put up with in her public life through the eyes of the brother who grew up with her.
‘Along the way I’ve been able to deal with various myths that have grown up which needed to be dealt with once and for all.
‘I’m in my sixties, neither of my parents made it to 70 and I wanted to do this while I could.’
Some royal commentators have claimed the earl is ‘cashing in’ on his late sister’s memory.
Charles Spencer, however, strenuously denied that his motivations in publishing the book are financial.
‘Money has never even been the remotest consideration in my choosing to write my tribute to Diana,’ he said.
‘Diana always had an expression which is don’t judge others by yourselves – and I think this applies to anyone who accuses me of something so ridiculous.’
Former Tory MP Rory Stewart, who tutored Prince Harry and Prince William, told the BBC that he ‘simply cannot believe’ that the King said what Spencer claims.
‘It’s just not his character, it’s not his personality. Never ever have I heard him say anything like that,’ he said.
In a statement released last Wednesday, the Palace said: ‘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.’
The Palace has declined to comment on further claims in the memoir.
