Buckingham Palace has long followed a strict policy of saying nothing about books published about the Royal Family.
That was the approach it took with Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare.
When I co-wrote Inspector Ken Wharfe’s 2002 memoir, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, about his years protecting the princess, the Palace responded with silence.
When Andrew Morton’s celebrated bestseller Diana: Her True Story appeared, the Palace said only that Diana had not co-operated with the book. In reality, of course, she had.
But when Earl Spencer’s memoir, Swan Song, came under discussion, a Palace spokesman repeated that long-standing principle before breaking it anyway.
‘His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and color memory.’
Surely someone, perhaps the King’s senior aide Sir Clive Alderton, approved those words before they were released.
The King should have returned the statement with a thick black line through it.
Spencer claims that in one of the phone calls after Diana died, Charles sounded ‘giddily elated’.
Spencer and Charles clashed over whether William and Harry should walk behind their mother’s coffin.
It was a textbook non-denial denial—too calculated by half. The wording feels like an attack on Earl Spencer, effectively branding him a liar without using the word. Worse still, it suggests that something was indeed said. A dignified silence from the Crown would have carried far more weight.
Would the late Queen have said a single word in response? My grandmother, a shrewd East End woman born during the final years of Queen Victoria’s reign, had a fitting expression: ‘Least said, soonest mended.’
The King is the head of state. Justice in Britain is administered in his name. He should have remained above the dispute, as his position demands, instead of allowing himself to be pulled into a public exchange of accusations.
The dispute centers on the telephone calls made after Diana’s death. Spencer says that during one call, shortly after the news broke, Charles sounded ‘giddily elated, like a lottery winner.’ Give me a break. That is utter twisted nonsense.
The brothers-in-law also disagreed over whether William and Harry should walk behind their mother’s coffin. Spencer says he told Charles that Diana would not have wanted it, then remained silent during what he describes as a rant. According to the earl, it ended with Charles saying: ‘Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.’
Spencer had no intention of taking orders from the Windsors. He believed they had treated his sister badly and were now allowing the royal household—the very courtiers she had despised—to dictate the terms of her farewell. He then ended the call with the future King.
The earl has now accused Charles of ‘gaslighting.’ The resulting headlines focused almost entirely on the royal feud, while the major AI conference the King had convened at Dumfries House in Scotland last Thursday—held on the same day Our News Outlet published its exclusive account of Spencer’s claims—was largely overshadowed.
This is not the first time the Royal Family has had to deal with Earl Spencer. I was inside Westminster Abbey for Diana, Princess of Wales’s ceremonial funeral, seated in the press section rather than among the congregation. From there, I had a clear view of the royal family, the pulpit and the coffin.
Beside me sat the formidable Ann Leslie of Our News Outlet, later known as Dame Ann, who died in 2023 at the age of 82. She produced a small portable television and inserted an earpiece so she could follow the procession. A horrified verger hurried over to reprimand her, insisting that she could not possibly do so.
‘I’m not a mourner,’ Ann replied. ‘I am a working journalist reporting on the whole funeral.’ From her seat, she could see very little of the ceremony. The earpiece remained in place, while the television disappeared into her bag after she merely pretended to switch it off.
Inside Westminster Abbey during the ceremonial funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Then Spencer. His eulogy was emotional, powerful. Savage. Spencer has every right to pen his book. He is an historian and a good writer. It is fresh, and he says it sets out his reasons why he spoke as he did that day. Had he waited until the King was dead, he would have been accused of dancing on his grave.
Back then, the royals and the press had to take it on the chin. My eyes were locked on the Prince of Wales, and sorrow was written across his face. None of them answered, which did them credit. Twenty-nine years on, the King should have done the same.
That week had become a tug of war. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Director of Communications and Strategy, Alastair Campbell, were pushing their own agenda as crowds massed in London amid fears it could turn ugly. The Queen dug her heels in before giving way to Blair.
Charles was stuck in the middle, thinking first of his boys, when Spencer tried to tear up what had already been agreed. Of course, tempers flared. Frustrated? Yes, almost certainly. Elated like a lottery winner? I simply don’t buy it. That phrase says more about Spencer’s bitterness than about Charles.
Without the quarrel before it, or any sense of how it was spoken, if it was spoken at all, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’ tells us very little. If the earl has left his half of the conversation out of the book, that is disingenuous at the very least.
I have observed Charles for more than three decades. He is a compassionate man. I saw nothing that week to suggest his mind was on marrying Camilla. He has a temper, which tiredness sharpens, as the pens showed us all. Twice, in four days in September 2022, a pen got the better of the new King.
First came the pen holder he waved away at his Accession Council, then the leaking pen at Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland, prompting Charles to exclaim, ‘I can’t bear this bloody thing.’ Both moments were caught on camera, and the internet turned them into memes before the Queen was even buried.
Those who know the King well say he never bears a grudge and always apologizes soon afterwards.
But he does not do death well.
Those present recall that when Camilla’s father, Bruce Shand, died in 2006, she was distraught. Charles assured her he understood, because he had been upset over his grandmother. Camilla was stunned. It was her father, she said, not her grandmother and Charles still had both his parents. There was no cruelty in it. He can be lost in his own world.
Spencer’s eulogy was emotional, powerful, savage.
When Camilla’s father, Bruce Shand, died in 2006, she was distraught. Charles assured her he understood, because he had been upset over his grandmother. Camilla was stunned.
I will give Spencer this much. If Charles really did say Diana would soon be forgotten, it would go a long way to explain the eulogy, and his vow that her blood family would not let her sons’ souls be ‘simply immersed by duty and tradition.’
The walk behind the coffin cost those boys dearly. Harry says he carries it still. Each new allegation wears the monarchy down a little further – all the more when the palace answers back.
Nobody else was on that line. Having re-watched Spencer’s BBC interview, I find his account, as told, impossible to believe. Whatever passed between them in anger, contempt for the mother of his sons is not in Charles.
If Spencer wants to be taken at his word, he should tell us what he said first, leading up to that cruel payoff line, that led him to hang up on the future King.
As for Diana, she will outlast every book written about her, mine included. I do not think she will ever be forgotten. I really don’t. However many authors write about her, she will always have the last word.
Robert Jobson is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Windsor Legacy, published by Pegasus (USA) and Blink (UK).
