Is the King gaslighting Diana's brother?

Jon Sopel (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Emily Maitlis (0:05)

Why would you suddenly produce a book about your dead sister? The Queen used that brilliant phrase, recollections may vary, as a way of saying, I don't think so.

Jon Sopel (0:14)

We have seen that the King has got a temper.

Emily Maitlis (0:16)

And what Charles here is doing is trying masterfully to shut down that whole episode.

Jon Sopel (0:22)

Is it conceivable that the Prince of Wales, the King as he is now, said those comments, rest assured, will forget her soon enough?

Emily Maitlis (0:29)

I was talking to a good friend of the King's who said he's very upset. That tension, from what I'm hearing, is still present.

Lewis Goodall (0:40)

It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this. A girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.

She would want us today to pledge ourselves protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate. And I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you are steering these two exceptional young men, so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.

Emily Maitlis (1:34)

That was Princess Diana's brother, Earl Spencer. His eulogy at her funeral on the 6th of September 1997 changed the entire tenor of that moment and set up a historical rift between those two families.

Jon Sopel (1:55)

Now, 29 years on, that rift has grown ever wider with Earl Spencer producing a memoir in which he claims that the King said, rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough. Why are these two families still fighting over the legacy of a woman who died nearly 30 years ago? Welcome to The News Agents.

It's Jon.

Emily Maitlis (2:31)

It's Maitlis.

Jon Sopel (2:32)

And we learnt yesterday that the male was going to serialise a memoir from Earl Spencer, Charles Spencer, who we heard there in that clip giving the eulogy in Westminster Cathedral after Diana died. And an explosive claim that apparently the king, then the Prince of Wales, said, rest assured, we'll forget about Diana soon enough. And that wasn't the end of it. The palace fired back almost immediately saying, maybe grief had clouded the reasoning of Earl Spencer, and he wasn't remembering things properly. This was a conversation, allegedly, that took place between Charles Spencer and Charles Windsor. And only those two people on the call knew what was said. But why now?

Why is Earl Spencer bringing this out at this particular time, when the king is on the throne, and by all accounts, in very poor health?

Emily Maitlis (3:41)

It was really interesting, that statement. And I think we should sort of dig into it a little bit further, because in essence, he was said to be mindful, a very Charles sort of use of words. Earl Spencer's grief for his sister could cloud reason, affect judgment, and color memory. On the surface of it, it sounds almost affectionate. It sounds like you're worrying about somebody who is in the depths of their grief. What he's really doing, I think, is updating that statement that the Queen herself made after Meghan and Harry came out with their accusations of racism, the royal family. And the Queen used that very brilliant phrase, recollections may vary. And recollections may vary has sort of, I think it's now entered common parlance, hasn't it? As a way of saying, oh, you know, I don't think so, she doesn't have a clue or not quite. And what Charles here is doing is trying, I think masterfully, to shut down that whole episode and shut down the phone call. And also remind us that if this man is still in profound fraternal grief 30 years on, what is this book about? You know, where does the book come into it?

Why would you suddenly produce a book about your dead sister and have it serialized in the mail? And I think contained in that phrase by the king were all these sort of offshoots of the bigger question.

But it does take us to the heart of something that I guess our younger listeners won't know about, certainly won't remember from the time, which was the funeral itself. And the controversy around the weeks preceding it, after Diana's death, the role that the queen and the Duke of Edinburgh played, and whether they were present enough, whether they were part of the public sort of vision of Diana's death enough, whether they were trying to protect Diana's children enough. And this whole question that we remember really well, which was the boys made to walk behind part of the funeral procession, carried their mother's coffin. And apparently that question was right at the heart of what Earl Spencer was talking about, and the phone call where he was telling Charles that should never have been allowed. It's something I think Prince Harry has also reflected on, like how was a nine-year-old kid put in a position of having to be stared at by the entire world, billions of eyeballs around the world, whilst he was essentially part of his mother's funeral procession.