{"id":619129,"date":"2026-09-17T17:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T17:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/619129\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T17:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T17:40:10","slug":"charless-rebuttal-of-earl-spencers-claim-about-diana-offers-rare-glimpse-into-palace-thinking-monarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/619129\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles\u2019s rebuttal of Earl Spencer\u2019s claim about Diana offers rare glimpse into palace thinking | Monarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

As denials go, King Charles\u2019s response to Earl Spencer\u2019s allegations<\/a> that Charles said after Diana\u2019s death, \u201cWe\u2019ll forget her soon enough\u201d, was a masterclass in the diplomatic royal rebuke.<\/p>\n

Rarely has Buckingham Palace responded to claims in countless books on royalty. But it was straight out of the block on this one.<\/p>\n

Little over an hour after the Daily Mail, which is serialising Spencer\u2019s memoir Swan Song about his sister, the late Diana, Princess of Wales<\/a>, had published its first extract online, a statement was issued.<\/p>\n

Charles, the headline claimed, had told Spencer days after Diana\u2019s death and during a heated row over funeral arrangements: \u201cRest assured, we\u2019ll forget her soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The king\u2019s swift countering, that \u201cthe 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, will enter the canon of carefully constructed regal pushbacks.<\/p>\n

Charles\u2019s swift rebuke suggests the palace acknowledged the damage Spencer\u2019s claim could do and needed to set the record straight. Photograph: Toby Melville\/Reuters<\/p>\n

As rebukes go, it is up there with the late Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s \u201csome recollections may vary\u201d<\/a> in response to a torrent of allegations from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their Oprah Winfrey interview.<\/p>\n

Senior courtiers are often drawn from the diplomatic service and thus highly-skilled in couching the passive-aggressive denial. Deploying delicate language to devastating effect is a stock in trade at the Foreign Office.<\/p>\n

But it is a weapon to be used sparingly. The royal mantra is, usually, \u201cnever complain, never explain\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Charles\u2019s former communications secretary Julian Payne said: \u201cThis is a much more personal situation, given its author, and therefore has a greater ability to do harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is why the palace \u201cfelt the need to set the record straight and deny these remarks have been made\u201d, Payne told the BBC\u2019s Today programme. Given the amount of things the palace don\u2019t comment on, \u201cyou can imagine the strength of feeling\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

Payne remains close to the king and was due to be sitting alongside him at Thursday\u2019s AI summit just hours later, so the fact he felt able to speak so freely suggests his robust defence of Charles came with official sanction.<\/p>\n

What is said behind palace doors usually remains private. The language may be less sensitive. But a carefully chosen phrase in public pulls back the privacy screen.<\/p>\n

When Diana, in her highly controversial Panorama interview, said \u201cthere were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded\u201d, she reaped public revenge on her then husband and Camilla.<\/p>\n

In return, Diana found herself on the sharp end of Elizabeth\u2019s ire weeks later. After Diana failed to respond to the queen\u2019s request that the couple divorce, a palace spokesperson issued a statement: \u201cAfter considering the present situation, the queen wrote to both the prince and princess earlier this week and gave them her view, supported by the Duke of Edinburgh, that an early divorce is desirable.\u201d The matter was now, officially, out of Diana\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

Harry and Meghan during their interview with Oprah in 2021, which led to the late queen\u2019s \u2018recollections may vary\u2019 statement. Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n

White fury was behind the Duke and Duchess of Sussex\u2019s statement in February 2021: \u201cWe can all live a life of service. Service is universal.\u201d It was read as a succinct and direct challenge to the late queen\u2019s insistence they could not keep their public service roles after stepping down as working royals.<\/p>\n

Meghan was less direct in a 2019 interview with ITV\u2019s Tom Bradby in which he asked her if she was OK juggling life as a royal with a newborn, Prince Archie. \u201cThank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I\u2019m OK,\u201d she replied. Was it directed at the palace and the institution? A huge number of the claims the Sussexes later made, in TV interviews and in Harry\u2019s memoir Spare, were that the duchess had been unsupported throughout her time as a working royal.<\/p>\n

One royal famously deficient in the art of the diplomatic royal rebuke, however, was the late Duke of Edinburgh. Philip was renowned for his gaffes. When a BBC journalist politely asked the queen at a banquet at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace if she was enjoying her stay in Paris in 2006, Philip dispensed with tact to snap: \u201cDamn fool question!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As denials go, King Charles\u2019s response to Earl Spencer\u2019s allegations that Charles said after Diana\u2019s death, \u201cWe\u2019ll forget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-619129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}