{"id":627572,"date":"2026-09-17T14:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627572\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:52:11","slug":"spencer-memoir-claims-king-charles-said-diana-would-be-forgotten-soon-enough-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627572\/","title":{"rendered":"Spencer memoir claims king Charles said Diana would be forgotten \u2018soon enough\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s king Charles<\/a> told Charles Spencer days after the death of his sister Diana<\/a>, princess of Wales, that \u201crest assured, we\u2019ll forget her soon enough\u201d, it is alleged in a memoir to be published this month.<\/p>\n

Spencer\u2019s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, contains the claim that the comments were made by the now king during a heated argument over funeral arrangements.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail, which is serialising the book, said Spencer insisted that Diana would not have wanted her sons, William, then 15, and Harry, then 12, to walk in their mother\u2019s funeral procession.<\/p>\n

Spencer writes that the comments \u201cunleashed\u201d by Charles almost 30 years ago reflected \u201chis pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death\u201d the Daily Mail reported.<\/p>\n

In his book, Spencer writes that when one of queen Elizabeth\u2019s most senior aides told him in the days before the funeral that William and Harry would take part in the procession, he responded: \u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d the paper said.<\/p>\n

But minutes later he received a phone call from Charles, who insisted it should. It was during the ensuing argument between the two men that Charles allegedly made the comment, with Spencer reportedly writing: \u201c\u2018Rest assured,\u2019 he hissed, \u2018we\u2019ll forget her soon enough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer wrote that he was stunned by the alleged remark and took a few seconds to reply, writing: \u201c\u2018I can\u2019t believe you just said that,\u2019 I said flatly, before hanging up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swan Song is due to be published worldwide next Tuesday \u2013 in the UK and Ireland by Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House.<\/p>\n

Four copies of the Dutch language edition were reportedly taken from a truck while it was en route from the Dutch publisher\u2019s printers to their warehouse in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Diana, who died aged 36 after a car crash in Paris in 1997, would have turned 65 on July 1st this year.<\/p>\n

Spencer said that he had been inundated with interview requests in advance of the 30th anniversary of her death next year, and wanted to write down his own thoughts and memories rather than \u201chaving the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother\u2019s perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral,\u201d he added, referring to the eulogy he gave in Westminster Abbey.<\/p>\n

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: \u201cWhile 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.\u201d \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s king Charles told Charles Spencer days after the death of his sister Diana, princess of Wales, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,7428,7651],"class_list":["post-627572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-king-charles","tag-princess-diana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}