King Charles is furious, and for once the palace is not pretending otherwise. Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, has branded the monarch a “bellowing buffoon” and accused him of vowing that Diana would be forgotten “soon enough” in the days after her death, in a memoir that has triggered a rare public rebuttal from Buckingham Palace and, according to a Daily Mail report on Friday, left the King seething with “anger and disappointment.” The book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, publishes Tuesday.
The most explosive claim surfaced in the Mail’s first extract on Wednesday night. Spencer, 62, alleges that when he argued Diana would not have wanted Prince William and Prince Harry, then 15 and 12, to walk behind her coffin, the then-Prince of Wales unleashed a “stream of anger” down the phone. “‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough,'” Spencer writes. Thursday’s extracts went further, claiming Charles sounded “like a lottery winner” on the morning Diana died and that some inside the palace were “relieved” by her death. Recalling his family’s generations of royal service, Spencer describes his grandmothers as “stalwart servants and companions to this bellowing buffoon’s grandmother.”
Buckingham Palace, which as a rule never comments on books, broke that rule within 90 minutes. “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,” a spokesperson said. The Associated Press reported the statement as a denial of the “soon enough” claim.
On Friday, the Mail’s Rebecca English reported that it is “difficult to convey the true sense of anger and disappointment” inside the King’s circle, with supporters describing the book as “an act of revenge served so cold it comes with a layer of permafrost” and “a hatchet-job of such deliberate spite.”
Did Prince Harry Know? Conflicting Reports Put the Sussexes’ Althorp Stay Under Scrutiny
Did Prince Harry Know? Conflicting Reports Put the Sussexes’ Althorp Stay Under Scrutiny
The question consuming royal circles is whether Harry saw it coming. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who left Montecito, California, for Britain last month, stayed at Althorp as Spencer’s guests in July, and The Sun and The Telegraph reported this week that Harry was “aware” of the book, possibly having discussed it with his uncle during that visit. Hello! reported Friday the opposite: that neither William nor Harry was told of the contents because security around the manuscript was so tight.
Harry himself dodged a question about the book at an event, offering only a wry remark about his “eventful” first fortnight back in Britain. Royal commentator Kristin Contino told Marie Claire the King is “absolutely incandescent,” while The Royalist argued public opinion is already turning against Spencer for “selling the secrets of his sister’s death.”
On X, that verdict had plenty of company. “Trying to sell his book,” one user wrote flatly, while another said, “It’s been 29 years and this is another bid to profit off of Diana’s death.” Others doubted the story itself: “I don’t believe that. Sounds uncharacteristic of a clearly emotional man, whose children just lost their mother. At the very least, he loved his boys.” Spencer had his defenders too. “Why don’t they sue for defamation if it isn’t true?” one asked, and another urged him on: “Hope he takes them down, must surely be sitting on a ton of private papers re Diana.” And one reader spoke for the undecided: “Can everyone wait till we get the book? Spoiling for us.”
On Tuesday, the Windsor-Spencer cold war goes into print, and the palace has already fired first.
