Charles Spencer’s memoir Swan Song hasn’t even been released yet and it’s already been causing chaos.
The younger brother of the late Princess Diana has penned his most personal work yet but the road to its release has been rocky to say the least.
Days before its release, four copies of the book were reportedly pinched from a lorry in the Netherlands when the driver stopped overnight to sleep.
But after the Earl of Spencer claimed that the then-Prince Charles told him in the days after Diana’s 1997 death, “rest assured, we’ll forget about her soon enough,” Buckingham Palace hit back.
“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 judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss,” the statement spilled.
Taking to Instagram, the 62-year-old labelled Swan Song “the most personal of the ten books I’ve written over the past three decades” and a “simple tribute to an extraordinary sister”.
“A month ago I read Swan Song out, over three days, for a recording so that it could be available on audiobook. When I finished the recording, I thought: ‘That is exactly what I wanted and needed to say – and she would, I reckon, have approved of every word.'”
But our royal insider tells New Idea that the palace is bracing itself ahead of the memoir’s release as the late Princess of Wales’ brother has no plans to back down.
“Charles knows he’s going to ruffle a few feathers with this book – he already has with just a few pages of serialisation – but he is standing by his claim that his sister would approve of every word. Doing so gives the book a veneer of authenticity – and a layer of protection – while subtly daring the Royals to sue him over it. They won’t be taking on just him, but also the powerful legacy of his sister too,” our source spills.
“No one’s shocked that copies were stolen from a delivery truck in the Netherlands but it’s certainly triggered the conspiracy theorists. Now people can’t decide if it was a very successful publicity stunt for the book or if the Palace decided they needed four advance copies and sent someone to get it.
“A thief who cracks a trailer doesn’t always know what’s inside so selecting just those four is why it’s raised so many eyebrows. The King has faced down more than one tell-all biopic before, but it’s fair to say this one does have the potential to cause him problems.”
“Already he’s struggling with his popularity as King, but a book quoting him as saying ‘we’ll all forget about Diana’ couldn’t come at a worse time. Regardless it’s unlikely he’s commissioned one of his goons to retrieve a copy from a random rest-stop in the Netherlands where cargo theft is very common.
“Charles can’t stop what’s coming a week before it’s on every bookstand in the world but he knows it’s not going to be pretty. He and the Earl have had very little to say to each other since THAT funeral speech, but the King is starting to regret not patching things up with the Earl.”
But even more royal family fallouts could follow on from this bombshell release, especially now Prince Harry and Meghan are back in the UK and getting closer to the Spencer side of Harry’s family.
“The Royals have already shunned the Sussexes and the Earl has never been forgiven for his speech at Diana’s funeral, but the two teaming up would come at a price neither are willing to pay at the moment,” a source tells New Idea.
“Charles would be excommunicated from his extremely powerful ‘mutual friend of the King’s’ circle that include William, while Harry would ruin any chances of a full reconciliation with his dad – even more so with Charles’ book coming out. If there’s anything bad in there about the Royals, Harry and Meghan taking the Spencer side will distance them even further – probably irreparably – from the Royals.”
So what’s actually being alleged in the book?
In love with his valet
An excerpt detailed a conversation between the Earl and his late sister over lunch at San Lorenzo in London.
Using their nicknames for each other, Duch and Carlos, Charles wrote, “She looked down at the table and said, ‘Carlos, I’m going to get divorced.’ “
“I was silent for a moment. I had known things were bad, but not this bad. ‘Well, Duch,’ I carefully replied, ‘you of course have my full support… I know you’ll have thought this through. But my main worry is the public. I fear they won’t forgive you. They’ve bought into a fairytale, and I reckon they may well — wrongly — blame you for destroying their fantasy.’ ”
“She looked up at me, nodded, and said quietly: ‘But, Carlos, my husband is in love with his valet.’ I gulped. ‘Well, I guess, in that case, you really don’t have a choice,’ “ he continued.
Though Diana did not name the staffer, according to Charles, he added, “It was not important: the end of her marriage, and of her dreams, was.”
Beachy Head
A sad excerpt revealed that Diana had multiple trips to a chalk headland in East Sussex
“It is a sad fact that, in her later years, Diana drove herself more than once to Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in England, while contemplating ending it all,” Earl Spencer wrote.
“Her love for her sons stopped her from going further.”
“Giddily elated”
After Diana died in a car crash in Paris, Charles recalled how “the phone rang constantly” but his former brother-in-law’s reaction differed to others.
“Unlike my other callers, who were stunned, barely able to articulate their condolences and offers of help, he sounded giddily elated — like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time,” Diana’s brother penned.
“He let me know he had informed William and Harry of their mother’s death, first thing that morning, in their bedrooms at Balmoral. It all sounded strangely matter-of-fact, given the enormity of the disaster.”
“We’ll forget her soon enough”
In excerpts of his book published by the Daily Mail, Earl Spencer alleged that he spoke with the King over the phone and insisted that Diana would not have wanted the young princes to walk in the funeral procession.
The Earl recalled how the then-Prince of Wales “went ballistic” and “ranted for a while.”
“And then he stopped and I thought, oh now, now he’s gonna pull himself together and say something more appropriate. And then, he said, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’.
“After a stunned silence, I said, I cannot believe you just said that. And I hung up on him.”
The funeral procession
Charles also recounts in the memoir how the late Prince Philip allegedly overruled his eldest son regarding where they would all stand in the funeral procession.
“Prince Charles tried to take charge, having seemingly thought hard about the formation that the five of us chief mourners would adopt behind Diana,” Charles Spencer wrote.
“When he said, ‘Now, I will walk in the centre, with William on my right and Harry on my left,’ Prince Philip overruled him, in an even voice that closed down any possible dissent.
“‘No, that isn’t how we will do it,’ he said. Then, nodding towards me, he continued: ‘Charles is representing his sister and their family, so he will walk in the middle, with William and Harry either side of him, and you and I will be on the outside flanks.’ Prince Charles looked pained but capitulated to his father’s authority without a word.”
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