Earl Spencer’s Claims About King Charles After Princess Diana’s Death Challenged by Former Royal Aides

Earl Spencer’s account of King Charles’s reaction to Princess Diana’s death has been sharply challenged by former royal aides who worked closely with the Royal Family during and after the events of 1997.

In his forthcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Diana’s younger brother describes two phone conversations he says he had with the then-Prince of Wales following her death. Spencer claims Charles sounded “giddily elated, like a lottery winner” in one call and later told him, “we’ll forget her soon enough,” during an argument over Diana’s funeral.

Those recollections have prompted an unusually direct response from Buckingham Palace, while former members of Charles’s staff have publicly disputed Spencer’s portrayal.

Earl Spencer’s account of Charles after Diana’s death

Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, aged 36. Her divorce from Charles had been finalised the previous year.

At the time, her sons Prince William and Prince Harry were 15 and 12 respectively.

In Swan Song, Spencer revisits the days surrounding Diana’s death and describes a series of conversations with Charles. According to his account, one of the calls took place shortly after news of the crash had been confirmed.

Spencer writes that most people who contacted him were struggling to express their condolences, but that Charles sounded markedly different.

He describes the then-Prince of Wales as sounding “giddily elated, like a lottery winner”, and says the tone of the conversation struck him as strangely matter-of-fact given the scale of the tragedy.

Spencer also claims that Charles told him he had informed William and Harry of their mother’s death at Balmoral.

The funeral dispute that Spencer says ended with a shocking remark

Another conversation described in the memoir centred on Diana’s funeral procession.

Spencer strongly objected to William and Harry walking behind their mother’s coffin, believing Diana would not have wanted her young sons to endure such an intensely public experience.

According to Spencer, the disagreement led to an angry exchange with Charles.

He says Charles told him that he understood Spencer did not think William and Harry should walk behind the coffin. Spencer replied that Diana would not have wanted it.

Charles then reportedly referred to his own experience of walking behind Lord Mountbatten’s coffin. Spencer responded that Charles had been 30 at the time and that Mountbatten had not been his mother.

Spencer says the conversation then became increasingly heated before Charles allegedly told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”

The remark is among the most serious allegations in the memoir and has become a central point of the dispute surrounding Spencer’s recollections.

Former royal aide Julian Payne challenges the account

Julian Payne, who served as Charles’s communications secretary when he was Prince of Wales, has questioned whether Charles would have spoken in the manner described by Spencer.

Payne worked closely with Charles around the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death in 2017, when the Royal Family faced renewed public attention surrounding Diana’s life, death and legacy.

Speaking about Spencer’s account, Payne said the language attributed to Charles was not familiar to him.

He also recalled that Charles had been particularly clear that Diana’s memory should be treated with respect.

According to Payne, there was an instruction that Charles should not respond with criticism or pushback even when public narratives about him were highly negative. The intention, he said, was to ensure that Diana’s memory was not undermined.

Payne described Charles as “absolutely emphatic” about respecting his former wife’s memory.

His recollection presents a markedly different picture from the one contained in Spencer’s memoir.

Dickie Arbiter rejects the claim that Charles was “giddily elated”

Dickie Arbiter, who served as Queen Elizabeth II’s press secretary at the time of Diana’s death and funeral, has also rejected Spencer’s description of Charles’s reaction.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Arbiter dismissed the suggestion that Charles was “giddily elated”, calling the account “hogwash”.

Arbiter said Charles was “devastated” by Diana’s death and argued that the behaviour described by Spencer was inconsistent with the man he knew.

His comments provide another account from someone working inside the Royal Household during the period described in Spencer’s memoir.

Royal commentator Jennie Bond has also questioned Spencer’s version of events. Appearing on BBC Breakfast, she described the account as “extraordinary” and “vindictive”, while acknowledging that memories of a conversation can differ and that there may be more than one perspective on what happened.

Buckingham Palace responds to Spencer’s allegations

The controversy prompted a rare response from Buckingham Palace.

The Palace generally does not comment on books about members of the Royal Family. This time, however, it issued a statement addressing the broader question of Spencer’s recollection.

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.”

Rather than offering a point-by-point rebuttal, the statement raised the possibility that the trauma surrounding Diana’s death could have affected memories of conversations held at the time.

Spencer has rejected that suggestion and continued to stand by his account.

He has said that he is telling the truth about what he remembers and has stressed the significance of the conversations to him.

William and Harry’s role in Diana’s funeral

The disagreement over Diana’s funeral procession remains another major part of Spencer’s account.

Spencer has argued that William and Harry should not have been required to walk behind their mother’s coffin during the September 6, 1997 funeral.

Harry has previously spoken about the experience himself.

In a 2017 BBC interview, he said that walking behind Diana’s coffin at the age of 12 was something no child “should be asked to do”. At the same time, Harry said he did not necessarily believe the decision was right or wrong and acknowledged that he was ultimately glad to have taken part in the funeral.

Harry has also spoken about the role Charles played immediately after Diana’s death, including the difficulty of a parent having to tell two children that their mother had died.

He said his father was there for both him and William during that period.

That recollection adds another layer to the competing accounts now surrounding Charles’s behaviour in the aftermath of Diana’s death.

A dispute over memories nearly three decades later

Spencer’s memoir has reopened one of the most painful chapters in the Royal Family’s history, nearly 29 years after Diana’s death.

His account is based on his own memories of private conversations and events surrounding his sister’s death. Buckingham Palace and former royal aides have challenged that portrayal, while Spencer continues to insist that his recollections are accurate.

The disagreement is particularly striking because it involves people who experienced the same traumatic period from very different positions: Spencer as Diana’s brother, royal staff as witnesses to Charles’s public and private response, and William and Harry as the children at the centre of the funeral decisions.

With Swan Song: Diana, My Sister published on September 22, 2026, Spencer’s version of events is now being examined alongside the recollections of those who worked closely with Charles at the time.