It’s been nearly 30 years since Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris. Yet revelations from the days that followed are still making headlines globally, thanks to a book (Swan Song,released Sept. 22) written by her brother, Earl Spencer.
Last week, an excerpt from the book prompted the British royal family to break its “never complain, never explain” mantra and issue a statement challenging Spencer’s assertion that King Charles III “sounded giddily elated” on a phone call shortly after Diana’s death on Aug. 31, 1997. During a second call, Spencer alleges that Charles said, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
Spencer responded to the palace statement on Sunday as part of a BBC video interview, filmed at Althorp, the Spencer family’s estate in Northamptonshire, England, where Diana is buried on an island in the middle of a lake.
So, why, almost three decades after Diana’s death, is her brother sharing new revelations now?
Next year’s 30th anniversary is certainly one factor — but not the only one.
In a press release issued last month by Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher, Spencer was quoted as saying he’d been “inundated yet again with requests for interviews” about Diana, adding, “This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories, once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time.”
He continued, “The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral.”
Diana’s official funeral ceremony took place at Westminster Abbey in London on Sept. 6, 1997. In his eulogy, Spencer insisted that Diana’s memory would never be “extinguished,” which he said on Sunday was intentionally worded following Charles’s alleged insistence that Diana would be forgotten after her death. And this book appears to be reinforcing that promise to keep her memory alive.
In his BBC interview, Spencer presented himself as both a historian and Diana’s brother. He said that he considered himself an “eyewitness to history” and described sharing what happened as his “duty” in the “final season” of his life. “Both of my parents died in their 60s and I’m in my 60s,” he said. “I’m aware of mortality, and I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true.”
Spencer became emotional as he said he misses Diana “every day” and that sibling loss is something “you never get over.”
Those explanations — the approaching anniversary, his desire to correct the record and his own awareness of mortality — answer the question of timing. But the book also reflects Spencer’s long history with the institution his sister married into.
The rupture described by Spencer occurred during the second of two phone calls with Charles in the week of Diana’s death — the only calls Spencer said they ever had. Spencer said he objected to William and Harry being expected to walk behind their mother’s coffin at her funeral, believing that Diana would not have wanted her sons to be subjected to such scrutiny while grieving.
Spencer said Charles argued that he had walked behind the coffin of his mentor and great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, but Spencer replied that Charles was an adult at the time and that Mountbatten wasn’t his mother. That’s when Charles “went ballistic,” and made the comment about Diana being forgotten
Spencer told the BBC his account of the phone calls with Charles “will not be a surprise” to William and Harry.
At Diana’s funeral, Spencer delivered a eulogy widely interpreted as a criticism of the British monarchy. In it, he said he would do all he could to ensure William and Harry were not “simply immersed by duty and tradition” and “recognize the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible,” while respecting and encouraging them in their royal role.
Despite his run-ins with the royals, Spencer told the BBC that he isn’t anti-monarchy. In fact, he confirmed that he still supports the institution but wants it to be more modern.
Spencer has also strongly rejected the suggestion that he had included salacious material simply to sell books.
