Arabic version: إيرل سبنسر يزعم أن تشارلز تحدث عن وفاة ديانا

According to BBC News, Earl Spencer has claimed in an extract from his forthcoming memoir that King Charles said Diana, Princess of Wales, would be forgotten “soon enough” in the days after her death. Buckingham Palace has strongly pushed back against the allegation.

Spencer, Diana’s brother, writes that he objected after being told by a senior Palace aide that Princes William and Harry would walk alongside their mother’s coffin in her funeral procession. He says he believed Diana would not have wanted her sons, then aged 15 and 12, to do so.

In the extract, published by the Daily Mail, Spencer says the then-Prince of Wales called him and expressed anger. He writes that Charles said: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” BBC News said it had not seen the memoir in full.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the Palace does not comment on books as a matter of principle, adding that the King 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.”

Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is due to be published next week and is expected to be highly critical of the Royal Family. Diana died in a car crash in 1997. Prince Harry has previously said that walking behind her coffin at the age of 12 was something no child “should be asked to do”, while saying in 2017 that he was glad to have been part of the day when looking back on it.